the education rant.

i have beef.

not the moo-cow kind.

i have beef with society. and kinda with myself too. why do we view teachers and teaching with such disdane? okay, maybe not the best word. how about -- with such LACK of respect?

i even do it. even now, unintentionally, somehow, i still think.. "oh, you're a teacher." in the back of my mind, it seems like the easy way out. "anyone can teach"... but that's not entirely true. not everyone can teach; not everyone can deal with the in's-and-out's of elementary school children and their attention spans; not everyone can understand and sympathize with hormonal 8th graders; not everyone remembers the struggles of high school kiddos, stuck between childhood and adult-hood. it's not to say that i comprehend every aspect of it and can handle it perfectly -- but i am saying that teachers aren't low-level workers.

some are. some teach, and some suck at it. but others are wonderful, and they spend 12-hour days in the classroom with both unruly kids and honor students and curriculum planning and test grading and stupid staff members and crazy standards and poor funding. and rough families and tough backgrounds and homework assignments and nationwide testing.

i got a lot from my teachers. many shaped who i am, what i love, what i'm interested in, the questions i ask, the morals and ethics i hold. that's some serious influence, dudes. how many genius scientists and mega engineers and billionaire CEOs can say that they've had such a direct influence on the life of another?

not many.

and yet, even with that much power, we still -- intentionally? unintentionally? -- look down-ish at teachers. professors, not so much. but elementary, middle, and high school teachers -- a little more. why?

i teach now. not in the classroom, but i still teach. and i love it, and it's crazy and insane and rewarding and exhausting and frustrating and good and bad and everything in-between. but even as a current educator, i still vaguely view teaching with less respect than... say, an engineer or a scientist. and that's not right.

so weird.

oh july

okaaaaaay
yeah, it's mid-july already. i'm a blog-neglecter. boo on me.

the summer's flying, as time seems to behave nowadays. i'm working lots, which is good, and all my other time is spent... doing i-don't-know-what, but whatever-it-is keeps me occupied. at some point in june, i went sailing on the bay for a full saturday with friends and co-workers. which was totally awesome. and it really made me want to re-jump-start my living-on-a-sailboat search again. (today, there's something about hyphens.....) anyway, some weekend in july, i went down to arroyo seco and spent the day hiking gorges, splashing through and fording and swimming in rivers, and gaping at the rocks that i need to deep-water solo soon. oh, there was also the 4th of july, which oddly enough, was on a wednesday. kinda calm, pretty nice, some cute redwood city fireworks. and this past weekend, i went down to monterey for a day trip and tour around the aquarium. neato. i've been eating tomatoes and going to the farmer's market and playing around a glass lab and emailing old friends and biking and running a lot and taking some photos and finding new music and re-discovering old music (from the 90s, HA) and making good food at home.

so yeah, been busy. been thinking. at the first of this month, i'd hit my one-year anniversary in california. totally nutty, huh? it doesn't really feel that way; it feels more like a few months, but the months have gone full cycle, and my lease is ending very soon, so it makes logical sense. and i had to renew my vehicle registration. one whole year. soon, i'm not sure where i'll be living, and soon, i'm not sure what i'll be doing. i seem to have created an annual look-for-jobs pattern that reaches a certain intensity in the mid-summer months. i love my job right now.. i really do, even despite the insane-o young kids that i'm "loving" for this summer period. but in terms of future (whoa, thinking about the future?! gah, could be bad), i need to find something more challenging, with more chances of advancement and more money and whatnot. what that is... is completely unknown as of right now.

summer in northern california is kinda unbelievable. the climate is spoiling me to no end. hehe.