Worry Alert

This edition of my blog was going to be about my days working at KidNation Childcare, but I am temporarily shelving that subject for a later post.  Tonight I went to a late movie.  I saw the film, "Top Five".  It was written and directed by Chris Rock.  It had a good cast, and you could tell that Jay-Z and Kayne West had their share in producing it with all the n-bombs in it.  Despite that, I didn't mind the film.  I needed an escape.

I had some struggles last night with battling the old with new.  What I mean by this is that I wanted to sort through some feelings using old methods of handling them.  I was in that mode the past couple of days where I didn't want to speak up because it would cause too many ripples.  It is kind of like where you have your conscience on your shoulders.  You know what I mean, one voice on one side saying to just close your mouth because you'll upset someone, and the other side saying tell them what you think because you should be proud of what you are feeling.  As you have been following my blog, you can tell what my new direction is when choosing between the two options, but it is difficult.  I am still committed to being the new versus the old, but it is going to take a little bit of time and support.  I am not too patient when it comes to this type of thing as I want to be changed and be the new model as quickly as the newest iPhone.

So, as I have a lot of family holiday issues happening, I am worried.  I have had the time for the past few weeks to face some of these issues head on.  Come January 12th, however, I have three college courses starting up.  I am worried that this family "drama" is going to pull me down with my classes. Don't get me wrong, I am still going to stand my ground with my position on things, but it will make me sad if I struggle with focusing on my courses because the blame I am currently assigned with.  In the past two weeks I have received voicemails of yelling, accusations, and threats and it is not sitting well with me and that is why I needed the escape of a movie tonight.

I like to deal with things using humor, as I have mentioned before.  It is another escape for me.  My latest work being a PG version of a Jeopardy game at work that I usually only perform in the summer to celebrate the end of a school year.  The one at the end of the year is a little more "free" we will call it and it is more of a rated R version.  Right now, I don't know if I have it in me to write and perform the annual gameshow in June because of the toll of what the last couple of weeks has taken on me.  I know June is six months away and the last couple of weeks were just "a couple of weeks", so we'll see what happens.  As of right now, it is not looking good.  I don't see this battle with my family ending soon, unfortunately, but I am still going keep expressing my feelings openly because I feel that is the healthiest for me.  My next post will share my KidNation experiences and that should be an interesting read.  

#anyadviceaccepted

School Break, Canada, and WWE

It has been a few days since I have posted a blog.  Dull is not a term that I would use to describe my life the past few days.  As an update...I am continuing to get some massive friction from the reaction of my blog posting entitled "Even Without A Dad, Things Can Turn Out Right".  I spoke in that blog that I did not have a positive male role model growing up.  My point of that blog posting was not to call anyone out or to disrespect.  The instances that I brought up in that blog was merely to point out that I should of went down a road of trouble.  Whether that trouble be drug use, alcohol abuse, or teenage sex, it should've been me, but it wasn't.  That was message in that blog posting.  Things can be sugarcoated all they want, but reality is reality and things happened and choices were made.  I guess right now I am not interested in the responsibility being taken because it happened some 20 years ago, but I will not apologize for speaking my feelings, or for having the people that know me not know this about me, and most certainly for my attempts for attempting to heal from those traumatic experiences.  I just wanted to finally talk about some of those things because for the first time in my life, I feel okay doing so.  I'm not a person of drama.  I hate drama.  If I see a film listed as a drama...it's out! LOL.  But really, I don't like unnecessary bickering and I don't like getting into an argument over a very irrelevant issue.  Life is too short, and at times I have forgotten this.  Now, however, that message is shining bright like a theater on Broadway.

So I am getting ready to head to New York State for the second time in just over 60 days.  This time I went through the process of getting an enhanced driver's license from the State of Minnesota and let me tell you that Minnesota pretty much knows everything about me after applying for that sucker. The reason for the enhanced license is because I wanted to take a route through Canada instead of going through the states, which is the route usually taken.  There is no scenery left for me with the states and going through the City of Chicago is the ultimate drivers education behind the wheel challenge.  The other thing about going through the states is the amount of money spent on the toll highways.  It usually costs between $140-160 dollars for every round trip to New York and back going through the states and being efficient in time.  So Canada eliminates the tolls, it eliminates Chicago, and I was told it is about eight hours shorter in driving time.  I may have to try some new foods up in Canada when driving through.

So, with the past few days being tense, the highlight for me was spending time with my brother and going to WWE Monday Night Raw at the Target Center in Minneapolis this past Monday.  I don't get to see my brother as often as I'd like to.  In fact, I hardly get to see him with his busy life.  So, I was glad that we were able to hang out and revisit our youth by going to RAW.  It is the first time I have been to a pro wrestling event in over 10 years.  The reality is that the last time I went it was referred to as pro wrestling, and it is now referred to as sports entertainment.  It was a good time and it was a good escape for me with everything going on right now.

I am not sure if I will be having a blog posting while I am in New York over the next week or so, but I would like to.  Please make sure that you are checking for a new posting as I am going to try my hardest to do some blogging, because it is a good thing for me and that is what I need to always remember.

#kilometersnotmilesperhour

Being More Confident

For many years growing up, I was always worried about what other people thought of me.  I worried so much, at times, that I would even base my decisions on the "what other people thought factor". Now, there were a variety of reasons why I apparently didn't have a high level of self-confidence in those days.  As I learned more about myself, I learned on my own that I can do good things and this helped me build that self-confidence.  I would like to say that today I have improved on this self-confidence and feel confident in the things I do.  I also feel like that I have a strong sense of reason.  I am a thinker to a point, but I am used to thinking on the fly and not really dwelling on anything for too long.  I want there to be solid reasoning for the things I do, but I don't want to take forever to make a decision either.  I think my job has helped me with this "quick thinking" thing I do.

I still have a little bit to go, however, with this "what people think of me" thing.  This is going to be one of my resolutions for the new year of 2015.  I'd like to think that I have gotten a head start on this resolution as I have started to open up and not worry so much about what others think.  This has been a healer for me and I think it is going to lead to wonderful things in the future.  I will continue to not let what others think affect my decision making.  I will be making the best decisions for me because that is what is important for each individual that is alive in the one life they have.  I still tend to hold back somewhat at work, but there is a variety of reasons for doing this.  The first is that I am a paraprofessional.  At the school I work at, this position carries a little more responsibility than the typical paraprofessional position at most schools, but sometimes I speak out of place.  The second is that I don't want to come off as that guy that is labeled, "The Know-It-All".  I don't know it all and each year that I continue to work in this field is additional year of learning different scenarios that I may encounter as an educator.  The third reason is because I don't want to be known as a loud mouth. This is the one that stays on my brain often at work, because I don't want to be that guy and sometimes I think I come off that way.  So, for 2015, I will continue to make choices that are best for me.  I think that is part of a bigger overall resolution for 2015, which is to be more healthy. Becoming healthier takes steps, tough steps, that take a lot of commitment.  The first step that I took was in November of 2013 when I quit drinking soda pop.  I have stuck to this.  Now it is time for the next step.  I am nervous, but today I committed to joining a "Biggest Loser" challenge at work.  I am nervous, but excited for this next step.  It's funny how you figure out how you want to live as time goes on.  I look forward to taking care of myself and not taking what others think about me to heart. Don't get me wrong, I value some people's opinions more than others.  At the end of the day though, I have to live with me.  Everyone else can run and hide (LOL), but I am going to take care of me this year and here on out.

#appreciatethesmallthings

So Far, So Good....

Well, I am over a month into my blog since I started on November 3rd.  I think this blogging has been a good coping skill.  If coping skill is not the right word, then may be stress reliever is a better term.  I have opened up and shared a lot of personal information on this blog since the recent beginning and the reactions have been mixed.  Some people have said that they like what I have written and some people have not at all liked what I have written.  Despite the mixed reactions, I feel proud about everything I have posted.  Like I mentioned earlier, I just want people to know me.  That is my goal with this.

So, I just finished my first semester at Bemidji State University as my journey continues on to obtain my teaching license.  My classes were fine as I had three of them this semester, but I am thankful that I am now on break.  I feel as though I have some freedom again and it feels good.  To be able to come home from work and not have college to think about for a little bit is a blessing.

So, I wanted to write a blog posting tonight and I have a little bit of writer's block tonight.  I think I am just a little tired from not using pillow mist at night and I had a busy day at work.  So with this blog posting, and since I do post it publicly, I want to put the question out there for you to answer this time.  We'll call it an interactive post for our learning-by-doing learners out there.  What do you want to know about me?  Please let me know.  This could be fun and I look forward to all responses to this post.  We'll talk soon.

#askalotofquestionsplease

Student Motivation and Interest

I am currently attending college right now while working full time.  I just wrapped up my fall semester courses this last weekend and there were two big points that constantly come up in all of my courses.  These courses were education courses as I am in the process of earning my teaching license. Those two big points were that student motivation and student interest was two major factors that contribute to success in the classroom.  This past week a teacher in my school in an indirect way disregarded the importance of those two things.  Maybe a better way to look at it is that his classroom management and academic achievement suffer as a result of the lack of student motivation and interest.  We have a behavior level system in our school and I take a lot of pride in it.  The reason for my pride in it is that I was a major player in developing the system.  The goal of the system is to promote positive choices by students and in return we, as staff, give them the positive attention that they seek and deserve.  We had a student this week ask a teacher what level on the system he was on and how many points he had lost so far that school day.  These are questions that are not usually timed very well by the students, but are questions we like to see asked because it means the student is bought into our behavior level system.  I will talk more about the behavior level system in a future post.  Anyways, when this student asked this teacher these questions, the response he was given was, "I don't know and I don't care".  This silently angered me.  I am busting my ass in college to be the complete opposite of what this teacher is doing.  In addition, he was making our school and his colleagues look bad.  He was and is a bad representation of what a teacher should stand for.  I take my challenging job as a paraprofessional very serious and I make about a third of what this teacher makes.  My point here is not about money.  Money would be nice, but it is not the driving factor as to why I am in the education field.  The thing that angered me the most is that a student absolutely cannot be motivated to learn or offer suggestions on their interests in an environment such as this filled with disrespect.  It also angers me because I am not the only support staff currently enrolled in college attempting to get a teaching license at my school.  So there are two of us trying to better ourselves and give the students an opportunity at a high quality education.  This leads to another factor to success in the classroom, and that is accountability.  Many people see accountability as a bad thing.  I have written about accountability in a previous blog post before.  The problem here is that the accountability to these actions are still missing.  I don't want anyone to lose their job and have their lives put in jeopardy.  What I am looking for here is for the accountability to take place and have this teacher start doing their part once again.  Like I said, I take my job seriously.  I purposely go above and beyond the requirements of my position to help make our school be as good as it possibly can be.  I am not the only one at the school I work at who puts this type of effort into their positions at the school I work at and I can't express in words how much I respect them because of it.

#teachingrequireseffort

Rocket Buddies Mentoring

Recently, I wrote a blog posting about a youth organization that I helped create called Youth Action Force.  One of my projects that branched off of that organization was one-to-one mentoring program called "Rocket Buddies".  The reason for the name was the school district mascot was the Rockets, so we didn't have to get to creative to come up with a name.  Now one general question that comes to mind when introducing this program is, "Why do I get help develop and start another program when the last one or the district hasn't paid me for my work?"  I guess there are two answers that question. The first being that I was too neive to realize understand the politics or what was going on.  The second answer to this question is that I was that dedicated to helping struggling youth.  Youth Action Force had a focus on high school students and getting involved in the community.  Rocket Buddies Mentoring Program had its focus turn to the elementary students and that was something that interested me.  With my involved in YAF, I went to a lot of community meetings.  I was considered the official "youth" representative at community meetings.  The beautiful thing about Rocket Buddies Mentoring is that the mentors were the high school students.  Many of the high school students were already involved with Youth Action Force, but that was okay.  You see, in a small community, people and students often times wear many "hats".  In the case of this mentoring program, it worked out well because we had captains of varsity sports coming to the elementary school once a week after school to hang out with an elementary school student.  It was great.  In just two weeks after the launch of the program, we had 21 matches of elementary students with high school mentors.  It was awesome.  It went very well and it helped those students self-esteem by interacting with those high school role models.  You could see it in the students' faces.  The program continued on for the remainder of the school year and we had good things cooking.  This program eventually fizzled along with Youth Action Force due to the funding element.  The district and the community loved what was happening, and again it was a lot of work, and I did it to help students who may not have had a positive role model in their life.  It also was just as much a benefit to the high school students because not only was it good to have on a college resume, but it was a perfect reminder to them that they were role models and their younger classmates were looking up to them.  I didn't again end up getting paid for this program again, but I was proud of my work and it boosted my pride.  I respect people who give youth a positive opportunity.  Especially today, youth have a lot on their plate growing up.  I know I did and I didn't have to deal with the stresses of social media and cyberbullying when I grew up.  I have these programs on my resume with others that I will share later, and I hope to maybe use these skills again in the future.

Is Stress Management Real?

Recently, for a college class, I had chosen to research a wellness article on stress management. Managing my stress is something I struggle with and that is why I chose to do the assignment on the topic.  I am a worrier.  I think I was blessed with the "worry" trait from my late grandmother, whom I love very much.  In reading this article, it started off by saying that, "the simple realization that you're in control of your life is the foundation of stress management".  Then the article went on to state that, "managing stress is all about taking charge."  This is where it started making some sense.  For most of my life, I didn't allow myself to take charge.  I always worried what others thought first.  I put my own feelings second.  I am still trying to fully take charge of my stress and I'm getting better at it, but I still have room for improvement.  It also stated that, "stress management starts with identifying the sources of stress in your life." Next, you are supposed to look at reasons and causes for the stress. Then, it talks about a stress journal.  For me, this is one of the reasons why I started to blog.  It is my journal.  Now for some people, journaling is private.  I respect that fact if that is what that person needs.  For me, however, I journal on my blog and I post it for others to read, because the other part of it is that I want to have a voice.  For a lot of my life, I had a voice that wasn't heard.  This is where the taking charge part comes into play for me.  I blog about the things that matter to me.  I post it so my voice is heard.  Some of things are light and pleasant to hear, and some things are not.  Some think it is selfish and I call it personal.  My goal of this blog is to accomplish exactly what I read in my stress management article, journal your feelings and that is what I am doing.  Another reason why I chose this blog route is not to attention seek.  I know that it can come off that way and appear that I am desperate for someone to pay attention to me.  That is not the case here either.  I have a good social life.  I just often times think that if for some reason my life were to end abruptly, I want the people most important to me to kind of know my whole story.  See, I was taught growing up to keep things to myself and not "share" feelings.  That is how I was trained.  I now know this isn't right or healthy. This stress management article exactly states,"to express your feelings instead of bottling them up".  I bottled them up for a long time and now I am ready to share them.  A blog, for me, is a good way to start opening up.  When talking in person, I still struggle with opening up, because it is still a fairly new concept to me.  Everyday, I remind myself to not bottle things up and not let someone else decide how I feel.  This is leading me to a healthier lifestyle.  I would like to think that I have come a long way already in the ten or so blogs that I have written and released.  I can tell you that some people close to me are extremely unhappy with me because of some of the things I have published.  What those people need to understand is that I didn't name anybody, I didn't write anything to belittle anybody, because that is just immature and unnecessary.  What I did instead is recall facts about me and my life, which is the goal of my blog.  I also disclosed how those recalled facts made ME feel and how they affected ME.  I did not go the direction of slamming the sources of those feelings.  That solves nothing.  I look forward to continuing my blog and sharing with those who are important in my life, because I want those to know me for who I am.  I think the world today is so fast paced that we don't take the time anymore to get to know people past a first impression or a quick judgement.  I don't want to be that guy that someone says, "What the hell is this guy's deal?", or "he's an asshole."  I just want people to know me for me and what I am about.  My blog is one of the best decisions I have made in quite some time.  I hope you enjoy what I am sharing and I will continue to share my stories and feelings as we move forward.  

STRESS MANAGEMENT by Helpguide.org

www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-management.htm

#personalthoughts