2005-08-01
Can't we All Just Get Along? Like at Community College?
I think I'm going back to college...
...
....
COMMUNITY COLLEGE!!
Whooooo hoooooo!
My cousin just quit her gig as a Corporate 'Ho in order to move to Houston and become a math teacher. With this information, the wheels in La Brain started to turn and I began to think to myself.
Huh.
Boredom + Clinical depression + Worried Mother is a formula to which I know the answer.
"Go back to school!"
I found a program, I need to get my financial aid ready to rock (hopefully there is a loan for a school fanatic like me) and then I am going to go community college on you' ass.
It's a two year night program, with classes that are also online and weekend gigs and I have to have 24 hours of my bachelors' degree to be able to teach actual subject matter.
Hold your breath because this is going to be good:
I'm going to be an (unemployed) Latin teacher.
Latin?
Yeah... I know.
Catholic school.
I think this is a great plan for me. I'll be 33 or 34 when it's done and ready to become Chicago Sarah or Oregon Sarah or maybe even Tennessee Sarah and from my point of view at the bottom of an emotional well, this is the best way to get myself anywhere.
I am so lucky that my family is staunchly behind every kind of education out there, you know?
They offered to help and I burst into tears. I'm kind of crying about it right now, actually.
I may not get the things that I need from them very often but dammit if once in awhile, I get something HUGE, you know?
So, I'm filling out the application for junior college and I am being asked all of these questions that I can't believe I know the answers to:
High School Address? 1200 West Washington.
College GPA? Negative 11
Is this Ariel Narrow? Yes. Yes it is and I like it. I also like online applications that only need to know where I went to high school and how long ago. I like puppies and Laguna Beach: The Real O.C. and the way the rain sounds as I fall asleep at night.
Community college is awesome.
The application pre-fills data for you because when you go to community college? There is no assumption that you are computer-savvy.
Love it!
Maybe that's the beauty of JC. No assumptions. At junior college, you just go and you step quietly through each page of each form and then through each assignment of each class and there's really not a whole lot of, "Hey, you didn't get that A because you didn't read my mind and make your paper give the illusion of spontaneous combustion, which I think would have REALLY put it up that A-quality range."
I had a weekend of tears, actually.
I love my little Rosie and I hate my landlord and he unfortunately is on the Against Rosie advisory board. He got one complaint from the guy who lives next door. The same guy who complained to me and a friend about the way we enter and exit our apartments, claiming that the door is too load. The same guy who chose to locate his bedroom in the front portion of his apartment, where it's easy to hear everything.
The same guy who thinks that 9:30 is way too early and is an infringement on his sleeping-in when he is awakened on a Saturday by my telephone conversation on the front porch.
Get some tolerance, dude.
I wrote a teary letter to him Saturday night, sort of a "How could you, I thought we were friends!" and pointed out that he is the only person who has an issue with volume and that I am tired of walking around him all the time. I also mentioned my grave disappointment with the fact that he completely disregarded my efforts to comply with his ass-shaped requests. See, every time he asks me to make some stupid (didn't say stupid - duh) compliance, I not only make an adjustment but I also check back with him to see how the adjustment is working out.
He called Joseph when he knows that jerk is mad at me for personal reasons and I almost hit the neighbor, I really did. I almost brought an assault charge to bear upon my growing criminal record.
The thing is, I thought we were friends. I thought that by addressing his concerns and that by following up with him, I was doing more than my due diligence.
Once again, I learned that people don't care about due diligence if they are feeling like their pathetic slice of the pie is somehow being compromised. Community, to most people, is an archaic theory and one that doesn't apply to them unless they are benefiting from the idea of community.
You know what?
I don't benefit all the time from community, I don't.
I have to whisper when I am outside before 10 am on a Saturday morning and I have to be careful with how I shut my door when I enter and exit and those things would be more than inconvenient if I would let a spoiled, centric way of being rule my compass.
Fortunately, I am a pre-historic hold-over from the days when it was nice to hear voices outside and where the sounds of people that I care about made me feel good - not invaded upon.
Nothing in life is 100% the way I want it to be. If it were, I would have a fun boyfriend who thinks I'm adorable, I would be able to plug things into sockets that are not loose, and I would come home to less dust and swelter as a result of Swampy.
Oh, and I wouldn't have to drive around so many damn cars in the driveway.
But you know what?
I don't get everything I ask for and further, I don't expect to get everything I ask for. I ask for everything I want but it's not the end of my world when I don't get it. Someone else may have needed something that prevented my request from being fulfilled and generally, I'm okay with that.
I wish everyone could look at their slice as being from a piece of actual pie. Actual slices of pie have uneven edges and some pieces are bigger than others. The edges of a piece of pie have touched the other pieces of pie - they may still be touching, as when you pull a slice of pie out of the pie-pan, often times, bits of one piece stick to the slice that you're trying to serve.
It should be all good and we should believe that it all comes out in the end and that the pie was divided as evenly as possible.
But this neighbor, he is part of a growing recognition that I have that not everybody understands the connection and responsibility that we all have to things that are bigger than ourselves.
And that made me sad all weekend.
arizonasarah at 9:09 a.m.