(no subject)

Ok, right, things have happened.
I went to see my dad yesterday, and that was much fun. I still didn't have balls enough to tell him that Remy and I are getting married in the impending long-away future. I mean yeah, we've been together for nearly two years, but you know.. It's my dad. I still have this odd compulsion to be the perfect daughter, and not be a disappointment. Like, I don't know, if I'm not perfect enough he'll leave again. Like he did two decades ago. Not that this would happen, I know that, he's still my father, and he loves me, and he didn't leave because I wasn't good enough, he left because he and my mother just really did not get along. At all. Something about trying to stop fights between them when I was two should have twigged me to something. But no. Children are not rational creatures. Neither are adults, apparently, either. Somewhere, deep in the head of every well balanced adult, is a confused little child constantly being told it is wrong, that things are not actually as they percieve, that people really will not go away unless you're perfect. But I have issues. Really big abandonment ones. And it still bothers me to talk to my mother about it. I dont' talk to my father at all about it.

So there's the introspective bit.

I asked him bout my cousins. Apparently one of the ones a few years younger than me is in the Marines, enrolled to train as an officer who wanted to fly planes. I didn't know they had planes in the Marines, but whatever. I am often wrong on many things. Anyway, he's colour blind, and as a result cannot fly. SO they're training him in Bradley tanks now. And he will most likely be sent to Iraq soon. We had been so lucky up to now, we didn't have anyone in the family or immediate close friends in the armed forces. There were a few narrow misses, as my brother had been in the Army, but got thrown out for being insane. And Shane, who was in the Guard, but got out *just in time*. Like just before the WTC. After that, my brother tried to re-enlist in the Marines. They wouldn't take him though, for which I am still grateful. He wanted so badly to go and fight, do the right thing to defend the country from people who attack it, but now that the whole Iraq thing has come to its inevitable course, he's also pleased not to have been taken, as he knows it isn't where we should be right now.

But now Nate will be sent over. I odn't know when, I don't even really know if, but it seems to be pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point. And that's almost as bad. I mean, he's still blood. I remember the trouble he got into when we went to visit. Something about releasing the brake on his father's van and accidentally backing it into the garage door. I have a hard time picturing him as an adult, much less in battle. It fits somehow. His father was in one of the services, and sent to Vietnem. He came back, but he wasn't the same person and that's to be expected and I really have no idea where I'm goign with this anymore. Just mindless worrying, over something I can't stop. Problem is, I have seen the lineage of soldiery in this family. We are the sort that narrowly escapes hideouls death, but that luck will run out sooner or later.

I have also come to the conclusion that a family reunion is in order. At least for my father's side. Ever since people started growing up and moving out, we haven't seen each other. And that was a long time ago. And, well, communication is not exactly steady....

(no subject)

This is a big part of the reason I am pleased not to have gone into teaching. It's things that I suspected were wrong with the system, things that we had ranted about as highschoolers when it was all so much clearer in memory. How we were really only there to be indoctrinated into the stystem, not for education--hell, it couldn't have been education. I *read* the history ttext books for Christ's sake, and I could point out any number of flaws in it. Beginning with the fact that not everthing our fearless leaders ever did, and everything our contry ever did, was always good and altruistic. It really seemed from the inside that we were just being held there to teach us how to be good little drones. Heh. Turns out this is true. Go figure, someone would notice what was going on from the inside. It's not like there was any really good way to hide it.

So then I deceded that I would fight the system and go into teaching history. Because that was my biggest problem I had with the educational system was the history department. Ok, so I hated the maths and sciences as well, because had they been taught right I probably would have enjoyed them, and done quite well, judging by my abilities after getting out of school. And the fact that I find it quite interesting now. Anyway. Teaching history. Most likely out of outdated, terrible books, and unlike college I could not assign more relevant texts and ignore the state curriculum. Go figure, of course I of all people would consider history to be the most relevant subject--how else does one learn from one's ancestors' mistakes and successes, and how else to know how to overthrow the system the man has in place? So I decided to go for the only other way of teaching subversive history open to high school teachers--English. Make them read about it, in ways that make it live. All Quiet on the Western Front is one of my favourite WWI books. And it struck me deeply when I read it two years ago. Books like that can make history relevant, and make people notice that things happen, and very often not the way the history teachers will lead you to believe. Above all I wanted to try to teach them to think for themselves.

And that would be why I would have lost any sort of teaching cert in record time. So I dropped it. Well, that and the fact that I hate most high school students. I did then, I still do. So yes. Change in Major. I could have taught in a private school, they tend to go for that sort of thing, but that would also be defeating the purpose. They already can afford the best educations and the analytical thought that would include.

SO instead I have no idea how I'm going to try to shape the minds of the youth. Perhaps I'm simply giving up aside from my own children. I don't really know anymore. It almost makes me hope for the collapse of society, just so we can build it back up from the beginning....

I could set up an after school sort of thing, in which children are taught interesting things, like art and craft type things, or technological things. Remy and I could do this, we have discussed it together before. paints, clays, sewing, computer parts to assemble and whole computers to program. I knew a woman who taught inner city children fairy tales as allegories to real life, and how to apply them to their own lives. And they wrote their own as well. Literature as well. Maybe I could still do something. It all depends on time, I suppose.

(no subject)

In other news, I have new boots. My father gave me money for festive holidays, so I got new boots for the snow. Ok, so I also got them for looking good. And they do! Black leather, small heel, and sort of Victorian style. No pointed toe though! And the best was the price. $15. I love post-season sales. There was a lovely pair of black suede mules that I wanted more than anything being almost perfect 1790s era things with their little tiny french hel not even an inch high and pointed toes, and only seven dollars, but no. The largest size they had was too small. Of course. But I got very nice leather gloves with Thinsulate for $7, which also pleased me, as I won't have to freeze my hands when I go outside now. I can be warm! And look stylish! Now I have to find my hat. Or make a new one. Cloche-ish, I think.... Black wool, and very warm. I loves me the wools.