10:45 a.m. - 2006-11-08
Victory is ours!
I took a part time job at a daycare center this week. I start on monday. It's at this church near where we live and it works well with my schedule - it's just a few hours in the mornings. I'm mostly doing this because this project that I'm involved with - the youth center we're trying to raise money to build - is going to include a daycare center. I realized that if the job responsibilities fall where we've been planning, I will be the one in charge of the daycare staff. I have no idea what goes on in a daycare center besides my vague memories of the Early Childhood Learning Center, the private school I went to until second grade. I remember snack time with items like animal crackers, the sand box (ours actually had corn meal in it for some reason, and a lot of legos. I also recall some interesting memories that I'm sure my mom really enjoyed - the day I stole some little girl's coat and had the other kids throw their trays of leftover food away on top of it (I remember claiming I did this because the little girl was smelly.) Then there was the day I went to school in a dress without underwear on. And don't forget the time I shoved a piece of bristle block into my ear canal and had to go to the emergency room to have it retrieved. Probably the most sinister was when I was in first grade. We had htis self-paced learning system where you got a whole sheet of assignments at the beginning of the week and you had to complete it by Friday. If you finished early, you could go play. See, I got frustrated that the smart, focused Indian and Asian kids were always done with their work before the more um, social, students like myself. So I would steal and hide their assignment sheets. The whole class would have to stop the BORING work we were doing to have a classwide hunt for the assignment sheet. And surprise, surprise, who would find them every time? Me! I was praised and given a lollypop. Excellent. It took those teachers at least three times to figure out what was going on. Hee hee.
So I start on Monday. Now I will be the one making sure the children have remembered to wear their underwear.
Interestingly I have an interview on Thursday for something completely different. It's a community development and event planning position. I hear there is "a lot of interest" in this position, so I'm not emotionally invested in it. Sometimes that ends up working out better. One appears less desperate when one is, well, less desperate.
I'm dying to share some fun news and express my enthusiasm about it, but there is nothing worse than stealing someone's thunder, so I'll wait until the initial news brief goes out. Stay tuned.
OK, so THE ELECTION! I didn't think I'd be this excited. But I am. I feel like what many of us were saying years ago about not going into Iraq in the first place is now echoing. Everyone thought we were unpatriotic and crazy to protest the invasion. Four years later, a lot of people are singing a different tune and for some reason that makes me feel vindicated. I think our country is going to change directions. Away from attacking gay people who want to get married. Away from attacking young, desperate women who are scared to death that they're pregnant. Away from tax cuts for rich people. Away from hinging the financial future of a school district solely on test scores. Woo!
BUT. I really do think the Democrats need to be fiscally responsible. I think that there are a lot of wasteful programs out there and a lot of potentially wasteful programs on the way. There needs to be a better system for measuring impact. Someone should get on that.
Speaking of the election, I had this conversation with a co-worker yesterday where I asked her if she voted yet. She said "No, I don't vote" and kind of shrugged. I thought about her situation: She is struggling financially, has a special needs child, and works for a government funded program. I decided not to get into it with her (apparently she's not even registered.) But I thought to myself, what is it going to take for people to understand how important it is to vote? Some of the races in PA were close and some were pretty crucial to the larger cause of the majorities in the House and Senate. I don't think people realize how this can impact big situations like the availability of public assistance, the war in Iraq, gay rights, etc.
Anyway, big day for the liberals. I'm excited.
