TFA is short for: Shot in the FACE

I can feel it: the obsession creeping in. I am checking MY OWN BLOG multiple times a day to look for comments and new posts.

Skuh asked me why I said TFA is the devil. The reality is that I just like to make outlandish claims without any substance to them. I don't know that much about Teach For America, but these facts make me distrust them:

1) they are an organization with lots of propaganda
2) you can write the TFA experience on your resume
3) their target age group = college kids

Organizations and Cults love to target college kids because often times college kids don't want to grow up and they don't know what they will do with their lives. College kids are legal-for-labor and they don't always place a high value on their time. The exploitation opportunities are endless.

Skuh, I know you aren't doing TFA so you can write it on your resume. But that will be the focus of the people you will be working with. You were an English major so you might not know how annoying pre-meds are. People who are too focused on resumes are a bitch to be around because they lack something that most other people have: a soul.

I am naturally distrustful of organizations especially if there is propaganda involved. From what I have heard, TFA does not tolerate any negative talk about TFA. Personally, I like the truth and I like free speech. TFA likes to smite the truth.

And finally, if you join TFA you may be shot in the face by one of your students.

Check the links:
Feministe: Why I Hate Teach For America
(read the comments on Feministe, too)
Philadelphia Rain
Loving to Hate Teach for America
How I Joined Teach for America-- and got Sued for $20 million

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Did yall watch the new HOUSE Tuesday?
If so you will love LOL House, courtesy of J-Money.
It is really funny! Scroll down to see the pics.

Goal 1: Control the Universe

The 1992 graduate asked me who I worked for, and when I told her she scrunched up her face in disgust. I smiled and said "yes."

"Maybe he's changed." She said.

"He hasn't. The person who told me I should work for him got fired the year I joined."

"That was the same thing that happened to my friend who worked for him." she said.

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Now in my third year, my boss is not the problem. He isn't going to fire me, because right now, I am more valuable to him than he is to me. On top of that, I have learned how to deal with him. I don't stress out about group meetings or seeing him.

The problem is now internal and personal. Personal because my house is a mess, and I have to study organic on my down time rather than clean my house. Internal because I feel like I haven't done anything worthwhile in the past 2.25 years.

I know it isn't true. I have a paper published in a journal where "only experts in the field" publish. I won a teaching award. I have led the revival of my Women In Science group for the past year growing our membership from 5 to 45. I passed my oral exam and all of my PhD qualifiers.

But I have not made a scientific contribution to my field. In reality this is mostly because of (1) choosing to work for an older advisor who has had several bad ideas that I had to entertain. and (2) bad luck, old instruments, lack of funding. I am certain that I am not alone in my current status of lack of contribution. A professor I respect got his whole thesis out of the last 6 months of the 6 years it took him to get a PhD. In fact, most people I know (haven't/hadn't) done anything worthwhile (at this point in their PhD education.) I guess I feel frustrated because Katu, a friend that I respect, HAS done worthwhile work.

To further Analyse the situation:

• Katu works longer hours than me, and she probably works harder than me 85% of the time
• Katu works for a young professor who has good ideas
• Katu does not have a paper in the esteemed journal that I have one in
• Katu hasn't led the Women In Science group
• Katu hasn't won a teaching award
• Katu has passed her PhD qualifiers
• Katu doesn't exercise regularly or have dogs

I guess I am only bothered because she is further along in getting the degree, but she is not further along in being the total person that I want to be.

I ask myself: Would I trade my accomplishments for Katu's? The answer is no. I just want it all. And that brings us to the truth: that you really can't have it all. Life is a trade off, and with each thing we choose we discard a different choice.

So I guess the answer is: focus on the positive. I am the person that I want to be except for the fact that I'm not omnipotent.

Obsessions

The people that know me know that I have a slight problem with obsessions. I get obsessed with things and I am compelled to live my life around the obsessed thing until I either get too exhausted by the whole thing and/or I get obsessed with something else. The compulsions involve thinking about the thing constantly, dreaming about it when I sleep, talking about it excitedly to anyone who will listen, and maybe pursuing it somewhat with my actions. This may annoy Jips. I am not sure what my girl friends think of it. Here is a list of some things I have been obsessed with in the past 2 years:

1. Teaching.
2. Making puff-paint and pom-pom and sequin decorated sweatshirts in a Christmas theme and having an ugly sweatshirt holiday party.
3. Live Local Music.
4. Winning free things.
5. My work.
6. Exercising.
7. Baking cakes from box cake mixes.
8. The chicken club quesidilla from Moe's.
9. Blogs

And this is just the past 2 years. I am sure there are many more that I have forgotten about.
So currently, I am obsessed with my work again, and the email from my boss didn't say this, but with our current funding (or lack-there-of) situation, I will probably have to teach this fall. So now I am obsessed with teaching again, too. Really, I am more obsessed with what pants-shitting-inducing things I will tell the kids on the first day to keep them in line for the entire semester. So I go over in my head what I will tell them.

I have taught so many semesters already that I have had the chance to start a semester by making the kids think I am a royal bitch on the first day, or being myself on the first day. So one day of "royal bitch" made the whole semester totally enjoyable. But when I was just normal on the first day in a different semester it was shitty as hell.