Did you ever see "Aliens"? Remember that scene where they were beating on the robot and it started spewing this milky stuff all over the place? I was on the bus this morning and this woman started spewing and it reminded me exactly of that. I felt bad for her, and felt even worse that I didn't have any napkins on me to give her.
There was this woman here today with Nolan Bushnell (sp? he's the guy that founded Atari) who is some big-wig in some educational system. She was telling this story about how when she first started teaching the kids used to have to sign out to go to the bathroom or into the playground or whatever. One day this girl comes up and says "I have to go to the bathroom in 15 minutes." and the teacher says "okay" while thinking that the girl has amazing bladder control.
Five minutes later, she gets a call from another teacher saying "I think we found part of our drug connection. I have a boy here with amazing bladder control: he has to go to the bathroom in 10 minutes." Coincidence? Nope. So the teachers wait until the time passes, and then after a few minutes they bust into the girls' room, expecting the girl to be buying cigarettes from the boy or something. (The stupid part is that the teacher was going to make the girl eat her cigarettes, "to teach her a lesson", but cigarettes are poisonous, which she didn't know.)
The teachers were both shocked to discover, however, that the children were on the floor going at it, rather than smoking. The male teacher grabbed the boy and pulled him off, at which point the boy said "Hey! I'm not finished yet!" and the teacher said "oh yes you are! More than you'll ever know!"
The sad part is that the girl's mother was a hooker, and when she was told, she said "she's stupid and will never learn anything. Why not let her get an early start on her career?"
I sometimes wonder how I'll go about educating my children. I don't think I'd like to send them to public school, although I didn't think public school was so bad for me.
I began working out today, for the first time in two years. I hurt everywhere, especially on the inside.
I'm still fighting for changes at work. Today I feel worn down about it, because it's so hard. Still, I keep trying; having always disappointed in the past, I struggle to improve and impress.
How painful this all is. How tempting to just run away.
I suspect that I will go to Hell for all of this.