The Beauty and the Mess

Everclear's "Santa Monica" is one of my favorite songs. I'm not sure why.

So I think I've had it with marriage books. Evan and I have read Reforming Marriage and Each For The Other (we both preferred the latter). Now I'm reading The Excellent Wife. It's stressing me out a little, and Evan suggested maybe I should stop reading it. :P Each For the Other left me feeling optimistic and encouraged about becoming a wife. This book is causing frustration and despair, since I am a sinner and can't possibly attain the perfection that the book models. Also, it seems to be geared more toward women whose husbands are not believers. The main message I'm getting from it is, "Your husband will mistreat you constantly. You must respond in perfect joy and love. The end." It's depressing, especially since Evan is so good to me and so easy to love. Am I supposed to tell myself he's going to turn into a cruel, selfish ogre after the wedding?

I'm also reading a book called Super Foods that I borrowed from Kathy's mom. It's about the fourteen most beneficial foods. I don't usually read diet-y books, but this one is interesting. I already eat most of the Super Foods- blueberries, spinach, salmon, broccoli, and tea are included. Yum! I'm eating so healthily now that I'm on my own. It's great. However, I'll have to start cooking more meat for Evan's sake. I made chicken last night, which I've done maybe three other times in my life. It actually wasn't that hard! Next time I might try Jessica's Sesame Chicken recipe.

My city's government has lost all pretense of sanity. Last week they cut millions of dollars from the county school system, laying off 100 people and cutting out music programs (which always makes me very angry). Yesterday our mayor pulled all funding from the city school system. You read that right- ALL. As in, hundreds of schools now have no money. My boss says he's trying to force a consolidation of the city and county systems, which will mean the official end of Memphis public education. I predict that within two years we'll be like New Orleans, where the schools are so bad that kids have to go to private school to even have a chance. I was sort of planning to put my future kids in private school- now I think I better start saving today. :P It's so discouraging.

Enough hot button issues for one day. :)

I mentioned yesterday that I wanted to talk about education. So here goes.

I bring this up because there have recently been some alarming changes at my brother's high school. Some of you might know that Memphis (and Tennessee in general) has one of the worst public school systems in the country. It started to decline during my school years, but in the seven years I have been a graduate, it's gotten shockingly worse. I'm not just talking about the lack of education, which is terrible. I'm also talking about the way students are treated. Discipline problems are so bad that they can't let the kids have a semblance of a personality. They have to act like little robots. (Hey, looking at what I said yesterday, maybe there's more to this than I thought.) Just sit still, stay quiet, and don't have any interaction.

Well, now they're cutting back on lunchtime, which is the only opportunity all day for the kids to be social. When I was in high school, there were four lunches of twenty minutes each, the first of which was at 10:30 am. I thought this was awful enough. Now they're adding a fifth lunch and cutting them all to fifteen minutes. You can't even get through the lunch line in fifteen minutes. Also, after I graduated high school, the board raised the breaks between classes to seven minutes. This made it possible for kids to actually go to their lockers. Now they've cut it back again to five minutes. You can get to class in five minutes if you're really good at dodging and weaving. The bottom line is, students have to carry all their books at all times. They don't get any time for human interaction. They can't even go to the bathroom. My brother's conduct grades are suffering because he keeps having to be excused to take care of these things. I am very, very angry about all this, and I have decided for sure that my future children are NOT going to public school. I don't care if I have to take out a loan to pay for their private school. I'm not putting them through this.

admael, I'm curious to hear your opinions on these subjects. I know your school is one of the better ones, but I can't believe you haven't complained about these things.

Anyway, out of curiosity I made a poll for those of you who went to public high school. I want to know what everyone's experiences were like. ( Saved by the bell )

Oh, and happy birthday, nikichick4! You're awesome and I hope you have a great day. And happy Ides of January, everyone.

New Clay icon courtesy of tingilya! :)

I'm back at work, but mainly just sitting here. I went to the doctor this morning, and, to no one's surprise, I have a severe sinus infection. (Have I ever been to the doctor and not had a sinus infection?) So basically this is the logical end result of my Month o' Headaches. I begged her to prescribe some Allegra, and she complied. Allegra is my friend. One of my co-workers suggested I ask for one of those "sinus cocktail" shots, so my mom would never know I had been sick, but I'm a wimp about needles. Although the few seconds of pain would have been better than the five days of "Stay Away From Brenda" that I am soon to experience. :P

However, my complaining is totally unjustified in light of the sad news I got this morning. The lady whose job I temped when I first came here- who left several months ago to start a non-profit organization- has lost her husband. He died last weekend in a freak accident. He was only 33. I just can't imagine. Time after time, God uses things like this to remind me that He's the only thing we can count on in this world. You just never know what's going to happen. Maybe this is another reason why we shouldn't put too much stock in other things- in the end, we're just going to be hurt or disappointed. Anyway, her husband was a believer and she's finding some comfort in that. Please pray for her if you think of it.

On a lighter note- I forgot to mention that I got a cool CD in the mail from Lauren. Thanks! I like it! :)

( Random and boring thoughts about education )