Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Debilitated in DC

Alright...so the long lost white mother is actually posting. It is a miracle. Did someone die? No. Am I engaged? Yes. Okay, okay...no, not actually. Ah ha ha. Sorry I just couldn't help myself. Little did any of the other white mothers know, I have been religiously reading the blog. I finally fixed my account, so I could sign in again and post and here I am. Jenny's latest post was what forced me to blog. I am sick too. I wanted someone to sympathize with me...I hate being sick and teaching. Last week in the middle of class, I was hacking up a lung and watched as 20 eight year olds stared at me in disbelief at how disgusting I was. I completely lost my voice on Friday and Saturday, and I was forced to stay in bed the entire weekend and even Monday. I have been using my inhaler, but I must admit that humidity is horrible for asthmatics. Who knows if that's actually a word... This is the other thing. I am not reading any of my posts before I actually post them from now on. I don't have time, and I just don't care. That may sound bad, but I don't care if I have perfect grammar or not. I don't think it's that important in this type of context. Indifference is definitely something I have learned from Jeff and feel it's quite liberating. Why care what other people think? I don't know. I don't know why I ever have really. Jeff has always been misjudged by others, and I have witnessed it on several occasions. He does seem like a punk kid, and he is kinda crazy in a lot of respects. In high school, he was in the whole rock band sence in Modesto and definitely hung out with a more questionable crowd. However, he was a good kid whether most people realized it or not. Even last semester he dealt with people making snap judgements about his intelligence. His roommates found out he was on scholarship and couldn't believe it. They just thought he was some off-the-wall kid that claimed he couldn't read. Ha ha ha ha...which is really funny to see people's response when he makes that comment. The best response came from one of my roommates in DC. When Jeff flew out to visit, she began talking about a good book she'd read. She asked Jeff if he'd read any good books lately. He didn't even look up at her, and with a stoic face, he replied, "I wouldn't know. I don't read." Well, needless to say, my roommate didn't talk to him for the rest of the trip. Later she made a comment to one of my other roommates, "Could you ever like a guy that couldn't read?" I thought I was going to pee my pants when it came around full circle to me. She actually thought he couldn't read! The funny thing is he does read, (maybe not every single best seller) but he thinks that just because you are a "well read person" doesn't validate you as a worthwhile human being. His perspective is soo refreshing and soo liberating. No pressure. You just are who you are. No questions asked. He is hilarious, and I wish all the white mothers could meet him.
Well this post as gone in a totally different direction than I had orginally intended, so I am going to stop now. I guess that's what happens when you write in stream of consciousness...

I love you all, and I just wanted to say...I am sick too.

I'll have to give you the update on the whole urban scene because believe me I have a whole new perspective on it. Bascially, I was completely full of crap before and didn't know what the heck I was talking about. So yeah...I hope life is wondeful for you all! It sounds like it.

2 comments:

Joanna said...

Whitney! I have definitely missed you and am glad for your blogging. Who cares about correct grammar when blogging? Especially when it's just us reading it. I'm sorry you're feeling horrible. I'm at the tail-end of a pretty crappy cold and I hate it. Plus, I feel like a loser that I am an almost 26-year-old college graduate without a job. Sheesh. Oh well. Love you!

J-E said...

YEA!!! Everyone is alive and well. I've been wondering for so many weeks how teaching has been going. So...theory gets a little tweaked when you're actually in the classroom, huh? It has a tendency to make you even MORE bitter about legislation on education. I'm not saying we don't need standards--of course, we do. However, the perspective of teacher changes how you view the implementation of said standards and theories. Ok, this comment is getting WAY too long. PS - don't worry about grammar. I actually spelled stories "storys" the other day. I blame the amount of papers I correct with bad spelling.