Primal Journal - Patrick (who has a filthy pirate hooker mouth) page 3

[geostump]

I swear in foreign tongues when I'm really pissed. If I break out the Serbian, the kids head for the hills.

[Coconut Girl]

Random thought: We can't always get what we want, but we always have the power to make the best of what we have.

random thought to add to random thought: ...and often, the best of what we have turns out to be exactly what we really wanted all along... and needed.

[Patrick]

random thought to add to random thought: ...and often, the best of what we have turns out to be exactly what we really wanted all along... and needed.

Damn right!

I just finished reading a book called Stumbling on Happiness that deals with the delusion of what we want versus what makes us happy. Very interesting stuff.

[Pebbles67]

Great Journal so far and....Happy St. Patricks' Day!

[Patrick]

Thanks, Pebbles! I just realized that you and I went Primal within two or three weeks of one another.

I just sent off a contract proposal. If I get it, it could change the rest of my year... which could possibly the direction of my life. I guess I'll see. If I don't, I'll just keep going after the same sort of thing. Being an editor, my ultimate goal is to be able to work from anywhere, since all I need is a laptop and a phone. Right now I'm kinda tied down and not in a good way.

[Pebbles67]

Thanks, Pebbles! I just realized that you and I went Primal within two or three weeks of one another.

I just sent off a contract proposal. If I get it, it could change the rest of my year... which could possibly the direction of my life. I guess I'll see. If I don't, I'll just keep going after the same sort of thing. Being an editor, my ultimate goal is to be able to work from anywhere, since all I need is a laptop and a phone. Right now I'm kinda tied down and not in a good way.

I started September 24th, but didn't join the forums until October. Good Luck with "freeing" yourself. Good Vibes coming your way. I'm a teacher, so I'm always tied to one spot. Today I was just staring out the window at the beautiful weather.

[Patrick]

Yeah, but being a teacher is fucking awesome. I miss my kidlets. I was a ESL teacher in China for a while, and I had two classes I absolutely loved: one of 4-5 year olds and a class of 5-7 year olds (that I started and considered "mine"). My god. So cute and so awesome. The best feeling in the world was walking into the classroom and seeing every little face light up and hearing them explode with "Hello, Teacher!!" I mean, shit, I'd say "Homework! Where's your homework?" and they'd cheer and start shuffling through their folders so they could be first to show me.

Now I assume it's not exactly the same in New York, but still. What grade(s) do you teach?

[Pebbles67]

I teach HS Spanish, mostly grades 9-10. That's a sweet story about the little ones. How did you end up in China? Sounds great.

Here's a story from my world...This week I assigned Workbook page 69 for homework. The next day I got several comments along the lines of. Senora, I really liked doing 69. (snickers all around). Now I love my job and it is all about being "real" with the kids, but that was a bit over the top. It's my fault though. My teaching style tends to be very laid back and let's have fun, so now that we have been together for 7 months, they are getting overly comfortable with me. Even so, I wouldn't change a thing. I suck them into my world, make them love me, then they are open to learning from me.

[Patrick]

I did the corporate thing for 4 years, got sick of it, was in the process of being screwed by it, reversed it and screwed them, and decided to do something totally different: teach in China! So I landed in Tangshan just 3 days before the 30th anniversary of the earthquake, with Hu Jintao's arrival shutting the whole place down. It was nuts, but fun as hell. I had some awesome experiences while teaching for 8 months, then traveled much of the country for 5 weeks before coming back.

It can be tough when you get too close to them. They can resent being pulled away from. I had that happen with my teenage class (15-17 year olds). They took it for granted and got lazy and slack. I had to go old school on them and they hated it... for a class or two. Then things realigned alright and we just carried on.

[Patrick]

I guess MDA decided the pictures I uploaded to an album were not a threat to national security and allowed them to come out of moderated status.

Album