Guess Who's Back

Well, it only took me about 5 years before I decided to give this blog a try again. So much has changed in the last 5 years, but so many sentiments remain the same. Since I tend to live by the philosophy that life's a show and we all play our parts, I am going to do the typical TV show thing and recap some of the highlights of my life for posterity's sake. Here I go:

Since 2011:

• I have come out to my parents as gay. (Big surprise there, but there is a lot more to be said on this matter since I still have some growing to do in this department when it comes to the rest of my family... unless they are reading this now in which case I guess that part is done now.) I don't go through too great of a length to hide things since I figure they know at this point.
• I have endured some crazy relationships that have really made me re-evaluate what I want out of a partner, and they have all taught me to be a stronger person. This has lead me to find one of the most fulfilling yet wonderfully challenging partners that I have ever dated, and I met him on one of the least expected places... Instagram.
• I have adopted my first dog and he is a three legged Pit Bull with a brain the size of fish tank pebble... but he is fairly well trained except that he has eaten literal chunks out the house and will probably cost me my deposit so....moving on.
• I have moved twice in the past 5 years. Once I left my old house, I moved in with a good friend and after three years of living there, I have moved back into another rental home of my own. I also should note that my boyfriend and his dog also live with me in this spacious rental home. (Sorry to say, but the rental home story isn't exactly sunshine and roses either. Nutshell: Subpar place with crappy landlords, plus one majorly expensive house issue that is finally resolved now. Let's just say that I now know the true meaning of "Don't let the bedbugs bite."
• I have gone from being a charter school special education case manager to a year of what could almost be labeled as hell on earth in a middle school as a special education co-teacher to a fairly stable position as an elementary special education teacher and recently department chairman. Oh, somewhere in the middle of all of this, I finished graduate school and earned my master's degree in special education. (The most recent position sounds wonderful on paper, but when you hear the story behind that you will know what I meant when I said that some of my old sentiments have remained the same.)
• I have re-evaluated my life here in Memphis at least twice and after almost packing up and moving once, I am finally at a point in which I know that I want to leave, so I am actively pursuing my goal of getting the hell out of this city and starting anew with my boyfriend.
• I have decided, after so many years of negative experiences surrounding my career as a special education teacher, that I am going to step out on faith and leave this career behind in order to pursue my happiness in an undetermined field. Barrack Obama and I have something in common in the sense that we are both finishing out our last year in our job. I just don't have a bucket load of money to fall back on like him.
• I have made the commitment to myself to actively pursue what will make me happy, and I have applied this to multiple aspects of my life. (I will most definitely explain this in depth very soon.)
• I have made some changes in myself in terms of my personal aesthetics. I have grown quite fond of tattoos and I have inked myself with several special interest symbols that all incorporate personal mantras and hidden meanings to me. (This will serve as a reminder to post about that in the near future as well.)

Since it is almost 11 pm as I write this, I am going to wrap this entry up for today because if I get into any of the aforementioned points from above, I will be here past midnight. The nature of my work these days coupled with my new found love and appreciation of sleeping (to escape the harsh reality that is my waking life and to dream of anything but going to work) has left me unable to stay conscious past midnight. Until next time.

What a day....

It has been a very long time since I have so much as thought about touching this blog, but here I am tonight doing just that and more. I had one of the most emotionally charged days that I have ever had in a work setting. I seriously felt as if I was in an episode of Boston Public or something because there was so much interpersonal drama between students and teachers, teachers and administration, and parents and students that I was almost waiting on credits to roll when I walked out the door today. It is funny how things work out because I planned this nice send off to my seniors in the form of free pizza for my students when all of a sudden, I caught one of my students having a meltdown because the owner of my school told him that he couldn't graduate. That immediately caught me off guard, and I went into counselor mode and tried to calm him by promising to get to the bottom of the situation and resolving the matter for him. I found out that this incident came about when he played a joke on his English teacher by telling her that he had a gift for her. This gift was a pole made of of a plastic bat attached to the end of a broken off golf club with a piece of a paper with a coat of arms fashioned in the shape of a cross with a hamburger in the center.

The teacher of course didn't know this because he didn't bring it with him, and so the class of students that were in the room escalated the situation even further by blurting out ominous comments like "Yeah, give it to her! She deserves it"! This didn't make the teacher feel like the gift was sunshine and rainbows because her students were already mad at her because she gave them a three page research paper that was due on their last day of school. This of course made the teacher very nervous about what the gift was, so she did the appropriate thing and reported the incident to the principal. This started the chain of events that lead to the Boston Public like drama because at that point the principle told the chancellor of our school and he decided to ban my student from participating in the graduation ceremony. This of course destroyed my student, and started my investigation of the incident. I know this student pretty well and although the gift was molded out of a plastic bat and a golf club handle, his intention was never to hit his teacher with it or even act as if he was going to do so. His main focus for making the pole was to attach the coat with the hamburger cross so that he could sing a song. After I explained this to the teacher, she immediately felt a sense of relief and she completely rejected the idea of my student being punished for the intended prank.

I explained this much to the principal of the school and she seemed inclined to agree with removing the punishment, but it wasn't up to her to decide. I had to run this by the chancellor first. Unfortunately the chancellor of the school had other ideas. When this was all explained to the chancellor he wouldn't budge on his decision to change the punishment. I actually spent the about 15 mins trying every type of appeal that I could to get him to see some sense of logic and reasoning, but he kept comparing the incident to crazy acts of violence such as shooting a gun past my head, murders, and beatings. I even tried a legal approach that was shot down immediate because he felt like he was Denny Crane or something and tried to lecture me on how he has never lost a lawsuit when what he didn't know is that I know that he has been sued multiple times and lost every one of them. At that point he just brushed me off as basically said that I would have to grovel before his board of trustees in order overturn his decision, but he made sure that he made that sound nearly hopeless by saying that the original statement by the teacher would be the main thing that they would hear about. This is despite the fact that the teacher herself recanted once she found out the true nature of the prank. The principal did nothing but agree with the chancellor like a good little puppet even though she was more inclined to agree with us moments before. The things people do to keep their job make me sick to my stomach sometimes. After this moment of defeat I had to go back and tell the student that I couldn't save him and this made me break down for a moment, so much so that I had to bypass the student and make a beeline to the bathroom where I did my best to stifle some gut-wrenching sobs before I clean my face and went outside to face him. To abbreviate the rest, I had to tell his parents who were both upset in different ways. The mother was brought to tears, and the dad wanted to beat the living crap out of the chancellor. The parent, student, teacher, and myself had to write an appeal and I now have to wait on the board's decision next Thursday for a resolution.

In addition to the drama of that situation, today was also the day in which all of the teachers received their evaluation results and essentially our rehire decision. The drama of this came not with me, but with my coworker and good friend. I had good results and was asked back but my friend received the opposite. I felt terrible about the situation and I couldn't believe that the principal would do that to him. He is a good teacher and a great person, and the only reason why he was not allowed to come back was because of personal reasons. It is well known that a principal has the power to keep you if they want you, but when they don't you are gone. This decision was completely personal and I am surprised that I didn't fall victim to this method of judgement. After suffering an emotional defeat and witnessing my friend basically become jobless, I am needless to say, feeling a bit blue. I have been trying to act normal, but as soon as I sit down long enough to be alone with my thoughts, I can't help but feel blue. This type of uncertainty definitely makes me want to possibly move on to greener pastures. I just don't know if I can do that because I would like to feel more secure by having my apprentice license before I leave where I am now.

Shinoske's Shuffle Part 1

If you only knew the struggles I have faced to get this podcast here. I really hope you enjoy this because I have lost sleep over this TWICE.

Shinoske's Shuffle Part 1

Possiblities

I hate to jump straight out of the blogging gate with something pseudo deep, but I gotta do what I gotta do. I was thinking a lot about what is possible for me to achieve in life. I have had a rough month and a half, and this really shook my world harder than the earthquakes in Japan. It affected me so much that it made me question the decisions that I have made over the past two years. There is nothing like financial instability and unemployment with bills and responsibilities to lock you inside a little cage inside of your head and make you reevaluate life as you know it. Even now as I am starting to settle on stable ground, I can't help but see my world differently.

I suppose I feel very much like the aftermath of an earthquake. The immediate danger is over, but I am still left to pick up the pieces of a destroyed outlook of what was and rebuild the outlook of the world around me into something that I am comfortable with. The issue now is, should I just rebuild using the plans that I had in place before or come up with a new design. My heart wants me to choose the latter, but my head can't grasp how this is possible. I put myself on a course, engaged auto-pilot, and blew out the control panel. I could attempt to take manual control of the helm, but my ship so entrenched in a minefield that any changes in direction at this point will lead to serious continual damage. Hence, I am stuck thinking about the possibilities of what could be while remaining on a path to a destination that I am not sure I want to go to anymore.

My old and dear friend came to visit me a couple of weeks ago, and she really made me reflect on what could be. It's not that she has the most perfect life, but I still commend her for forging her own path and making what she does have work. She is truly an inspiration to me because when she left the city of Memphis back in 2004, she set her eyes on a prize and did not look back. Everything wasn't sunshine and rainbows, but she worked through her struggles and she survived. She still hasn't reached her final destination, but I know she is happy with the journey that she is taking along the way. That journey is something that I desperately wish I could take. Sometimes I wonder how life would have turned out for me if I did the same thing as her. I wish I could have left Tennessee and set off to find my place in life. I may not have had money or the security that family provides, but I would have at least been free to find my path without the influence and suppression that this city imbued me.

From the outside looking in, people may think that I have everything together. I am working on a master's degree in education, I have a job (if a certain school district stops dragging their crippled feet), and a house. These things are nice, but sometimes I feel trapped by all of them. If I only didn't feel so compelled to have my life together as quickly as possible, I would never have chosen to embark on a master's, which means that I would never have stumbled into a field which lead me to my current job, which allows me to pay for a house. I don't say this to complain and say that my life sucks. I am very thankful for all of the things that I have because I know that a lot of people can't claim half of what I have. I just wish that I was 100% behind what I was working towards, and the unfortunate revelation is that I am not. So again, I am trapped inside myself wondering what if.

The worst part of it all is that I can't fathom what I could possibly do with my life other than what I am doing now. I don't know if going through the motions has gradually wiped my mind of what would ultimately make me happy, but I have enough clarity to know that what I am doing now isn't it. At the moment, I find it hard to be certain about anything. This includes my relationship with the people around me. I can't help but wonder who I could have forged relationships with if I made bolder moves earlier in life. I wonder who would still be my friend if they knew me as I know myself. I wonder about the people that I haven't met and may never get a chance to meet.

I really hope that alternate realities exist because I want to hold on to the hope that there is at least one version of me that is taking life by the reins and steering himself towards a destination that will really make him happy. I will just have to continue this on-rails game of life until I can: A) Figure out how to break free of this control scheme and B) Plot a course towards a new destination of my choosing. Until then, I just have to keep hope alive that this is at least possible.