My Blog

What I realized about my students is that 95% of them fit into a "category."  I realized this some time ago, actually, but i thought about it again today when i worked with 3 individuals consecutively and realized that they all came from different places, different backgrounds and yet all were HIV positive.  Total coincidence.  They did not know each other.  Nothing to do with GED, and yet everything to do with GED.  GED seems to be a hodgepodge place where folks from everywhere who have been into everything end up. 

One student called to say that he missed two days of school because his brother died.  Another came back to the program after 2 months of being absent.  They come, they go.  All the "jargon" that you learn in school and that is repeated in meeting after meeting of your funders/employers/sponsors about causes of and solutions for poverty becomes personal when you encounter it day by day, hour by hour. 

I came home and watched I Heart Huckabees for the first time.  Probably not the best decision, since ordinarily I would have been engaged in such an ‘existentialist’ production (with quite a cast line up), but after dealing with a routine day at work, on a Monday no less, I kinda found the whole thing a bit silly.  I guess if I want to find meaning in existentialism I should save it for the weekends.  I learn enough lessons when I get on the bus each morning.

Three people in the past week have, at various points, told me to start writing down the nutty, crazy things that happen.  In the 12 years or so that I have been working (in some capacity), this is by far the most insane day-to-day experience.  Basically, I have a story to tell each day.  However, as days go by, each story gets lost or fades into another one.  This is going to be my attempt to record the crazy, the tragic, the happy and the romantic…

Let’s see if it flies.

-p