20 July 2009

20 July 2009

On this 40^th anniversary of the Apollo moon landings, I wonder why I am still alive?  I find myself still missing Christine a lot, probably more this year than any time in the past ½ decade or more than that even.  Her loss was so great to me, that I didn’t even last 2 years before I killed myself over being without her.  If I didn’t want to live 2 years without her, what makes anyone think I’ve wanted the past 15 years without her?

Although I have changed careers and become the teacher I was meant to be, that I was told to be, as long as almost 30 years ago, I find myself yearning to be with Christine again.  No longer  does my job provide me a reason for living; not after all the opportunities I have blown since losing Lauren in 2003.  Since she said goodbye, I blew the doctorate, left Gina and her awesome kids – (even Raymond, the only kid to actually call me “dad”).  Crying even now as I write this.  Then blew my job out west, the career I had always wanted and the opportunity to help shape a brand new teacher prep program.  Blew that.  Went back to part time teaching, looking for full time work.  Found an opportunity to earn a K-12 license while teaching in the classroom, at no cost to me.  Jumped at the chance.  Within a few months, blew that too.  Various reasons like not liking living in the remote bush, without the conveniences I need, such as a car, McDs, shopping, the mall, and people and clubs and the like.  And of course, my time there was not without problems.  My classroom management – discipline was sucked.  A huge part of that though was my own internal battle over my hatred of all things authoritarian.  I have fought authority my entire life, since I was young, believing firmly in free will, freedom to choose, and natural law – that as human beings we are free to do what we want and how we want to live, as long as no one is getting hurt.  So, to go from that entire life long history, to suddenly have to be disciplinarian, was foreign to me, even though I teach some of the elements of it in teacher prep classes.  What was worse was that internally, I understood the psychology of the high school students, many of whom in my research I conducted indicated they had low self esteem, vying for power, attention, a voice, and a chance to grow and develop their own unique identities, at the same time of seeing just how much they could get away with.  It did not help matters, that we had a new principal, whom I immediately allied myself with, and considered to be an excellent mentor, whom instituted new rules, and wanted them all enforced.  His goal was to make the classroom a place for learning, something previous heads had worked against.  While I supported this, and made every effort to conform, it alienated the students.  This I hated, because my entire career, I have viewed being a teacher role as “friend” among other roles.  Now, I had to become someone I was not, a dictator in essence in the classroom.  Even while laughing on the inside as to the antics the student were doing, I still had to reign in discipline and make the occasional sacrificial example of a student here and there.   I will say, that nearly ever y single day for me, was a laughing day, because of the individual personalities exhibited by my students.  Even those that hated me, I still laughed at inside, as they sought to undermine my rule of law in the classroom.  Still, I miss very much being out in Alaska.  The most beautiful of all the states I have ever been to.  And if I could make a difference with anyone, it would have been with those kids.  Those 8-12 graders of mine, really could have used someone that cared about them, and that was there for them, to improve their self esteem, build success, and let them know that not all us new teachers were assholes.  And yet, to maintain discipline, I became in essence, the very thing I hated most – authoritarian.  Still, I did try to help out, and laughed at every opportunity to do so.  What I began to notice towards the end though, was a radical shift in attitudes of certain students, many of whom were decent students, and have a lot of potential.  As students were sent to the principal, some on a repeat basis, some students thought it wasn’t fair how certain peers were being singled out, seemingly unfairly.  These good students, started skipping class, stopped taking notes, and wanted to transfer to other classes.  I understand exactly where they were coming from, and even wrote some papers on it for my Cultural Studies class at University of Alaska- Fairbanks – (4.0 baby!).

I did try to form some personal connections, showing some students I cared about them by taking on the role of a mentor of  sorts, or at least trying to.  There were some students I was willing to go out of my way to help, those that had a troubled past, or had some kind of addiction, or whatever, that had the abilities to go far, if they just cared and applied themselves.  So I tried real hard to be there to make that difference to them, to show them that as their teacher, I cared not just about their success as students, but what happened to them post high school.  I wanted to encourage those I thought could go far, to attend college, and make a difference.  I tried.  I feel so awful, that I was unable to complete my duties there and to make the very difference I had gone there for.

While I was there to get my cert and gain some classroom experience in a real world setting so I can be a better teacher educator – my career choice since first becoming a teacher, I also was there to make a difference in their lives, to make them better people, to push them to academic success, and to encourage them to go to college and beyond.  What I did not expect, though I totally understand the context of it once it was blurted out, was a comment one student – a good student at one time, but whose grades plummeted after peer pressure and influences by the wrong crowd, led to an amazing awful exchange, I was unprepared for.

“Since when did this become a white school?”

That one comment one day, blew me away.  I stood at my desk, silent, a loss for words for a few moments when I heard it, then moved on without comment.  But on the inside, and when I got home, I cried, and still cry to this very day.  I did not travel 4000 miles, to live in the bush, without a phone, internet, a car, and pretty much everything else as a true suburbanite I lived for missing, to hear such bullshit.  As I wrote in my paper to UAF, I truly understand this backlash that occurred.  Most of the high school staff were newbies, and most were white folks, from the cities far away from Alaska (with a few prominent and excellent exceptions).  So here we were, outsiders totally, with a new principal, instituting brand new rules that the high schoolers had never had in their 4 years as students there.  It was their first time with rules like this.  I can understand the psychology absolutely the students thinking, and from their perspective, I totally see what was said as a relevant, legitimate complaint.  However, to play the racial card, was crap to me, and rather than find it empowering, I found it totally demoralizing.  With that one quote, I lost my reason for being there.  I felt like I wasn’t wanted there, and so I administered a post assess survey consisting of some 30-40 questions, about what student thought of me, whether they wanted changes, and gave them a voice that can be heard about their complaints.  While I expected to receive low scores, and a quick excuse to boogie on out of there, I was actually surprised that the majority of the students did not feel the way that one student felt.  Still, it was a unrecoverable event, one that has scarred me deeply I think about working in a situation where I am such an outsider.  I probably will not consider doing so again, for I don’t want to give anyone an excuse to play such a bullshit hand as she did in front of the other students.  Its unfortunate, now, for it limits me as to where I am looking for work, whom I want to work with, and so on.  All because of one bad apple, whom tot be honest, was just expressing dissatisifaction with all the changes that occurred, and the total domination by foreigners and outsiders into their school.  I do understand entirely.  But it does still make me cry to this day, and for that, I won’t put myself in such a situation again where such a potential issue will occur.  Bummer.

I miss those students.  I didn’t get to see them graduate, and have no ideas what their plans are now.  I know they probably think I’m just another loser asshole teacher from afar that came and went, but I really care and still do about them.  I went there to make a difference to be sure, but didn’t do what I had hoped.  All I ended up doing was probably reinforcing their preconceived stereotypes of the white man.

On a related note, I am fortunate enough to be back teaching as a part timer again.  But the pay is such shit, and the lack of benies, the lack of being paid on time, the lack of input on course development, and other professional duties has me demoralized.  My job the past decade has saved my life.  With the loss of Christine Collins so hard for me to bear, even today, only by making a difference at work, and doing my job well, has saved my life and keeps me going or gives me any reason for being.   But now that an entire decade has gone by, and still being a part timer once again, has me down.  No longer is there the job satisfaction I used to have.  Of course, I used to have 5+ classes per term, 2 or more of which were teacher prep classes.  Now, I’m down to 2 classes per term, maybe 3, and none have been teachers prep classes so far this year.  This fall, I might have one at SCC, but enrollment has been a historical issue of late there, since the department changed the requirements and decided to no longer promote and support the geography side of instruction.  So, from a professional standpoint, I have been a dismal failure, having quit and blown everything I’ve tried since December 2003.  I’m not making the difference I was supposed to, and not being the teacher educator I went deeply in debt to be (for which those assholes are garnishing my wages to pay off the student loans – even those assholes cost me my PhD when they yanked my loans from me in 2005 !!!!!), and I find it a struggle to maintain enthusiasm for life, outside of the classroom.  When I only have classes 1 day per week, the other 6 days of the week become a effort in wasting time, and futility of life.  To me, as of this moment, I really feel that 6 of 7 days of the week are a total waste of time.  I’m wasting my life away, without enough classes that I went to school for to specifically teach – those of pre-service teachers prep classes.  SO when this much life is wasting time, one questions the value of life itself.

At 44 now, with not having been allowed to marry and have kids with whom I wanted to in my 20s, and certainly before I turned 40, I find that my life was wasted.  As great as a dad as I am to my friends kids, and to others that I would have married their mom (Gina and Christine in particular), it sucks not to have my own kids.  Given my extreme intellect I should have passed on my genes and breed long ago.  The closest I came was with Christine.. for  months and years after she dumped me and said she no longer cared about me (still kills me to very day), I thought we had kids together.  Didn’t find out til ’95 that we did not.  But given that not a single woman since then that I truly wanted to marry and have kids with could or wanted to have kids with me, as shown my time since losing Christine to be a waste.  From a purely darwinistic approach to evolution and success of a member of a species, success is measured on how many off spring one individual has.  Well, I had none.  And that truly sucks, hurts like hell, and makes me not want to even be here anymore.  Life has come and gone for me.  I was given a second chance in 1996, when I woke up after you know what.  To have been given a second chance at being alive, was a gift from God.  But to have gone this entire time now, with not one woman as perfect as Christine was to me, has me frankly pissed off.  I have no problem comparing the women I have been with since Christine to her.  I knew her my entire 20s pretty much, and came to love her like no one else before or since.  And I’ve met thousands of women since then, and aside from one in 2004, not a single woman has had the same personality, the same chemistry we had together, and was a hot as she was.  This is not to say I wouldn’t have married any of them since her.  To the contrary, Gina and I discussed it in 2005 before I left OSU, and I did offer it to some of my long term girlfriends.  But all it has done, has proved to me over time, that no matter how hard I try with the women I’ve known since losing her, that not one – not a single one, is as good as her, or gave a shit about me like she did (out of those I considered as potential mates).

So, where do things stand now?  Well, I’m done frankly.  I feel the same now, if not worse than I did in ’96.  Without my PhD, my teacher ed career, my k-12 license and time in the classroom still, and most of all – above all else, not having the love of the women I wanted to marry and have kids with, breaks my heart every single day.  I struggle to care and give a shit about anything anymore.  I sleep in til 3 pm sometimes, because there is no reason to wake up.  Its not like my wife is next to me to make out with in the morning, or to caress at night.  No, life to me  has become a burden to me, a wasted existence.  Being part time only aggrevates the situation, and makes me feel worse about myself and this life.  To have gone from doctoral student, to full time teacher educator, to being full time k-12 science teacher, and now back to part time is awful enough for me to deal with.  And yet, to top it off, is the daily thoughts of how life would have been had I married years ago whom I wanted to, and had at least 2-3 kids with them… years ago, not now, not tomorrow, but before I turned 30.

I could have had it all.  Little did I know Christine wanted me in the 80s, when we were just friends.  Her future husband, one of my good friends, even offered her to me before they got married.  Yeah, could have been my wedding, not theirs.  Had I been a good undergrad student, I could have gone on to my MS degree and beyond by 1990 or sooner.  I could have been teaching all these years, and would be looking forward to retirement in a decade from now.  That timeline didn’t happen, for various reasons, mostly my own fault.  I blew it with Christine, and knowing that it was my fault she tossed me away, makes it hard to deal with even today.  I’d so give up this life, to have had a life with her as my wife, and mother of our kids.

So I close this muse with more tears as usual.  I’ve lost my way here on Earth.  No longer do I dream of the future, let alone what each new day brings.  For me, my American Dream has died, and is buried in the past.  Now, not even my part time teaching job is enough to sally forth.  I am not doing what I was meant to do here.  I didn’t get to marry and have kids with those I truly loved, I can’t complete the doctorate for financial reasons, and I’m not teaching the classes or the students I should be.  I’m not even supposed to be back in this state (Alaska is where my heart is!).  I’m supposed to have married and had kids, supposed to have my phd, supposed to be a teacher educator, and supposed to be teaching middle school.  Without these basic needs, my time here can be over for all I care.