The future of tomorrow …TODAY!!!

I was accepted into the NYC Teaching Fellows. I will be moving to a borough (which could look like this) in NYC in June and training to become a Special Education teacher. In September I will start teaching classes while I attend grad school. I am very excited, but also little overwhelmed.

Made?

I love MTV.  From “Parental Control”, to “Date my Mom”, MTV is on the cutting edge when it comes to programming revolving aound parents celebrating and/or lamenting their children’s sexual exploits. One of my favorite shows is “Made”, where a teenager asks MTV to be made into something they are not. Usually the plot goes something like this: overweight unpopular teenager wants to become a track star. MTV hires a coach who pushes the overweight unpopular teenager to work out, crying and high ankle sprains ensue, the teen tries out, and, hopefully, makes the team. Unfortunately, I have now seen two in a row where the overweight teen girl failed to make their high school teams (soccer and volleyball).  Listen MTV, these kids aren’t being “Made” into anything, except an example of how to fail miserably. When your “Made” coach tells you to cut back on the ravioli and run every day you better damn well do it. In this last episode, the girl went as far as locking herself into her room and pushing a dresser to block the door in order to avoid having to deal with the coach.  She then proceeded to “tryout” for the volleyball team by running a 11:07 mile (her personal best). Needless to say she didn’t make the team. She wasn’t trying out for the USA Volleyball team, college volleyball team, or even a volleyball team at a championship school, this was a plain ‘ol high school team (Varsity and Junior Varsity).

 Be realistic MTV, a self described “Princess” who has never, ever, ever, ever played organized sports is not going to make a high school team.  Set reasonable goals for these girls. Instead of “Made: I want to be a volleyball player.” how about “Made: I want to learn Oragami.”. Agility, athleticism and talent can’t be “made”. Little paper cranes can. 

Haiku

My employment:

My Job ends this week

I act like it’s no big deal

but what if I starve?

Earlobes:

What’s that by your face?

An unnecessary flap

lets stick things through it!

The Future:

Who knows what it holds?

Get in my DeLorean

look I grew a beard!

Unrequited love:

I steal a quick glance

It stays with me the whole day

You will never know

GOTCHA!

I enjoy a good distraction. Diversons, end-arounds, guerilla tactics, surprises. There have been some grade A tricks in the past. Take the Trojan Horse; this has to be one of the biggest fuck-you deceptions of all time. The fact that this idea not only got suggested, but actually carried out is astounding.

Greek General (GG): Hey, this seige sure is going slowly, I wish there were a way we could get inside these gigantic walls.

Greek General’s Assistant #1: We could wait out here and starve off the Trojans.

Greek General: Yes, that would keep in line with the standard seige warfare tactics of the day…

Greek General’s Assistant #2 (GGA 2): We should build a huge fucking horse.

Greek General:  (flatly) What?

GGA 2: Yeah, a really big horse with guys inside.

Greek General: My god, thats the greatest idea I’ve ever heard of in my entire life. Way to think outside the allegorical cave!

As ridiculous as a gigantic horse sounds, it worked, resulting in the massacre of the Trojans, who were, without a doubt, the most idiotically curious people of all time. In fact, the phrase “Curiosity killed the cat.” should actually be, “Curiosity killed the Trojans.”

Tonight, on MTV’s genius “reality” dating show “Parental Control” I witnessed one of the greatest deceptions since the Trojan horse. (to those who don’t know, the premise of Parerntal Control is: Mom and Dad hate their kid’s current gf/bf so Ma and Pa interview a bunch of girls/guys, and send their child on 2 dates. Meanwhile, the unliked current bf/gf watches the dates with the parents who loathe them. At the end a life crushing decision is made.)

Tonight’s episode featured a separated couple who hated their son’s buxom nymphomaniac girlfriend. After an exceedingly creepy intrview process during which the beady-eyed, lecherous father ogled and complemented a parade of teenage girls, the son went on his dates. After the first date you could tell this guy was going to dump his girlfriend for the attractive Asian girl who took him on a dune buggy race. Thats right, a dune buggy race.  During the date he repeatedly exclaimed, “Thank you so much mom and dad!” Defeat and desparation were written all over the girlfreind’s face as she watched her boyfriend have the time of his life.

Along rolls elimination.  It’s down to the thick nympho girlfriend and the hot asian. Not surprisingly, the guy says to his girlfriend, “I don’t want to date you anymore.” The girlfriend looks crushed, she could totally see it coming. The hot asian gives a winning smile and a knowing glance.  BUT THEN! The boyfriend stops his recently jilted ex and says, “I don’t want to date you, I want to marry you!” It was unbelievable, about 10 times as surprising as finding an army of Greeks inside a gigantic horse! Clearly, the relieved girl accepts. The parents, who had been berating and arguing constantly with the girlfriend throughout the show are forced to instantaneously accept and love her. Meanwhile, the attractive asian girl has to stand there! She just stands there and watches as a less attractive, openly loathed girl is lavished with love and affection. It was the ultimate reversal of fortunes! I was completely floored.

Anyway, I think that being told you are being broken up with and then instantly being proposed to on MTV’s “Parental Control”  is definitely as sneaky as the trojan horse. Also, watching soldiers pour out of a gigantic horse and slaughter your city is just like thinking you’ve won on “Parental Control”; and then finding out that, not only didn’t you win, but you made the object of your affection love someone else more. I hope that the attractive asian will take some comfort that she wasn’t the first person in history who was horribly deceived, just the first one who rode awesome dune buggys and was then horribly deceived. 

Adulthood is not for babies

Having recently graduated college I am now, permanently, an adult. Although techinically this this title was legally bestowed upon me when I turned 18, everyone knows that college doesn’t count as adulthood, because adults don’t drink until they forget where the bathroom is, nor do adults have to observe quiet hours.  Unfortunately, my salad days are over, and I am forced to “sing for my supper”.  By “sing” I mean answer insipid emails outlining why someone can’t access their fantasy football team, and by “supper” I mean  money for rent, car insurance, student loans and, well, supper.  This wouldn’t be such a problem if I enjoyed singing. Come to think of it, I do enjoy singing, although not if I mean singing by how I defined it above.  I think I’ll just scrap this whole murky conceit and just say that working sucks. 

I have held numerous crappy jobs throughout my life.  I take great pride in my occupational history because it is varied, and has produced excellent anecdotes (I worked with a man who actually used to have African-Americans as friends!), useless trivia (Bananas are 4011, limes are 4048, lemons are 4053), and random employable skills (I can drive a forklift!). However, the best part about all of my jobs was that they were temporary.  From rental store slave laborer, to overqualified, starving, grocery clerk, to lazy, sleeping, carefree painter, all my jobs shared one immensely important quality; a definitive termination date.  Now there is no end in sight. 

The idea that I will be working for the rest of my life frightens me. And not in a “I hate working lets join a commune and rub our bodies with rock salt instead of actual deodorant” kind of way.  Rather, I am afraid of having to finally decide EXACTLY what I am going to do.  Throughout high school and college I always managed to juggle extracurricular interests, never committing all my time and energy into one group. This wasn’t because I didn’t enjoy group A, but rather it was because I thought that group B was pretty fun too.  As an “adult” I am coming to grips with the fact that job A requires 3 years of prior experience and interviews for job B take place while I’m “singing for my supper” (Baby has to have supper). 

Although I obsess about my future and the job prospects I imagine myself having missed, I realize that it is important to keep 2 things in perspective:

1) I have only been a real adult for 4 months (there’s plenty of time left to agonize  and establish a career)

2) I have extrordinarily long arms for my height.

For all eternity.

After much cajoling from Grace I have decided to begin this blog. As the title suggests, you should not expect much. The idea that this blog exists is a little scary, and it makes me wonder how I will be remembered for all eternity. I used to think the answer was time capsules, but I guess it is going to be this blog.