Saturday, 11 July 2009

  • My Kids Love Me

    So I've been working as a junior counselor for the 10-11 year olds for the past week at the nearby community center with the summer camp I went to as a child.  We have lots of fun.  I've used more glitter, glue and markers in the past four days then I have in the past four years.  (I went to lunch one day and this guy sarcastically told me the glitter on my face was a nice touch.  I should wear a sign that says "I work with kids".)  I've also been the most active since forever.  Those kids just don't know how to stay still!

    My group is really awesome.  They're really creative, though their lack of correct grammar and spelling severely worries me.  These kids are too old to misspell the simple words that they are misspelling.  Thanks a lot chancellor Klein and a fucktard Bloomberg!  You're doing a swell job!  Just continue to drastically improve our children's learning.  Where would we be without you?    Aren't the children suppose to be our future?  How are they going to make our laws when they can't even spell "law"?

    But I digress (I love saying that.  I say it whenever I get the chance to).  I've only been working for four days,  but the kids have latched on to me.  It makes me feel so special.  They get all sad faced when my shift's over or when I head out to lunch.  Even though I tell them I'll see them in an hour/tomorrow they still act like I asked for a divorce.  Eh, maybe they won't look so sad as the time passes.

    Yeah, so that's what I've been up to.  What's new with you?

Wednesday, 01 July 2009

  • Things You Never Know

    Some four years ago when I was 16, I was strongly attracted to a 40-something year old widower that lived in Australia who had two boys, one who was a year older then me.

    Well, the attraction happened before I knew he was a 40-something year old single parent that lived halfway around the globe with two freakin' kids.  You see, the internet is not a safe place.  Even for a high schooler.  On the internet there are apparent evils -- the prince from some African country, the eerie email that asks for your social security number, or that footprint from that Xangan you've been trying to avoid.  But there are also unseen evils, the ones that hide behind an easily procured mask of pixels.  They tell you one thing, but oh boy does it mean something else.

    It's easy to leave out information within these series of tubes.  I mean, who really right off the bat tells you where they live, how old they are and whether or not they've been previously married?  Of course there's the A/S/L question, but if you never knew me I could tell you 32/M/England, and you'd never know the truth.  And these lies can go on for weeks, even months if you've been in my situation.  And they can hurt too.  There's nothing quite like finding out the dude you've been sending smilies to is actually a balding, white collar guy, who, at the end of the day, will be telling someone your own age to clean up their room.

    And there's nothing you can really do about something like this.  There's no background checks on usernames.  There's no amazing database that keeps the aliases of creepy adults.  Or a polygraph that hooks up to USB.  Even if something does exist, when would you know to use it?  At the first greeting?  Weeks into your cyber-ship?  After you reveal a lie?

    All you can do is keep your personal information and personal feelings personal.  I say a lot of things on the net, hiding behind a bit of anonymity, but you can never be sure exactly who is watching you, or what they're keeping track of.  (So if you're reading this Brett (if that is indeed your name), fuck you.)

Monday, 29 June 2009

  • "You're Ruining My Life"

    I want every teenager and young adult here on Xanga to think of these words the next time they have unprotected sex.  These words were said by my best friend's mother.  For those who don't know or don't remember, my best friend had a child when we were seniors in high school.  We're now 20 and the little girl is 2 years old.

    I hear a lot of teenagers say they could handle a pregnancy and the resulting child if they ever accidentally conceived.  I like to think that's total bullshit.  They like to glamorize success stories and think confidently that they could do it too.  But there are so many factors that change one person's situation from the next and you can't look at selected stories and get the whole picture.

    My friend was one of those people who thought she could handle it (there's also the fact that she and her family are pro-life, but I'm not getting into that).  If you haven't had first hand experiences of taking care of small children on a full time time schedule, I think you're already going into this situation deluded.  Children are hard work and the complex situations that come with them are even harder.

    When you're sitting on the toilet, positive pregnancy test in hand, you'll never think your own mother would tell you that you're ruining her life.  But then you probably would never think that you would have a falling out with the father, or that the father would become abusive, or that you're not eligible for WIC, or that finishing high school/starting college is actually harder then you thought, or that you thought there would always be someone to babysit, or some other thing that you would never think of, I could continue this list forever.  But you never truly know what the future would bring.

    My friend was understandably upset when her mother told her this.  A lot of times she feels her own life has been ruined.  Looking back, the last few years haven't been a wonderful story, and now she has the weight of knowing her ruined life has caused trouble onto others.  Having unprotected sex is no joke.  Being pro-life and having unprotected sex is a situation that's even more heartbreaking.  Having a child is a permanent fixture in your life, even if you plan to have it adopted.  From then on out you will always be a mother (or father -- I'm sorry that this post is geared towards mothers, but it goes for fathers too), and unlike tattoos, there's no way to cover it up and turn it into something else. 

    So if you go away with anything from this post, it's just to wrap it up and don't give excuses like "condoms are whack" (I actually had someone tell me this, *smh*) because condoms are not the only way to prevent the creation of children.  Something as little as not using protection is what can change your life forever.

Saturday, 27 June 2009

  • Getting Wasted

    I haven't quite grasped the awesomeness of "getting wasted".  Maybe my first few experiences of drunkenness have been the types of intoxication you want to avoid, so I might be a bit biased, but getting shit faced drunk is not entirely enjoyable - especially if you're at a party trying to avoid strenuous activities (please remind me to think twice about going to Jamaican parties drunk).  Being tipsy is one thing, but getting so drunk as to misplace damn near every step?  Yeah, not so much fun.  And hangovers?  Not fun at all.

    And then after you've downed another drink, you take some pictures that you don't even remember taking until your ass ("ass" can be both literal and figurative) is tagged in Facebook photos, which is not exactly the greatest thing.  But the worst (and most dangerous) part of being drunk is being vulnerable.  Hang around at the wrong party with the wrong set of people, and a night of getting drunk can turn into a night you'll always regret or wished you could forget.

    I could never understand why people took pride in saying they were going out to get smashed.  That's not cool.  Great, you're underage and you got ahold of some booze.  BFD.  The least you could do is just say you're going out drinking, there's no need for the extremeness.  Modest drinking isn't such a bad thing you know.

  • Poll #14: Have Race Relations Improved?

    I'm stealing a question from CNN, who is doing another Black In America episode (segment? investigation? ah, whatever the word is) later in July.  One of the questions they ask is "have race relations improved since the election of President Barack Obama?" 

    Xanga's a bit more diverse then my little corner in The Bronx, so I'll ask you guys this question.  What do you think?

Monday, 22 June 2009

  • He Doesn't Look Like Jesus

    Although it probably means something else, the line from The Killers' "When You Were Young" sums up morality and atheism for me. 

    "He doesn't look a thing like Jesus / But he talks like a gentleman" 

    You don't have to look like Jesus, you don't have to be Christian or even religious to be gentlemanly.  Acting civilized and moral is not intertwined with religion.  Moral correctness can very well survive without religion.