My Thoughts

I understand the true consequences of generational poverty.  I understand that it takes years and sometimes isolation and a lot of rejection, disappointment and self-doubt to move one small inch into change.  I also understand that immediate gratification is easier than having faith in yourself or having faith in something bigger because in generational poverty, trust is a huge issue. I also know and understand what it takes to get intrinsic motivation from those who come from low socioeconomic families.  I have heard all the excuses and not because I am a teacher but because I was a child in that environment and heard all the excuses for my mom, my sisters, my cousins, and my neighbors. I lived the struggle as I watched so many people struggle. The Raitzyns quilt project.........stunning Struggle, not for change and improvement but struggle from one quick fix to the next; that's the cognitive restructuring that has to happen.   It has to be a change in t...

Dazed, confused and other musings........ Like a stealth fog creeping into sunshine, silence stalks, threatening to continue its perpetual torture of my sanity. Heavy laden, my mind searches for solutions and instead finds bitter agony and seering jealousy. Just when I think I can finally breathe, rest my weariness in optimism, the cycle repeats itself and I sucumb, drowing in misunderstandings and isolation. I want to get lost completely in Chagall, to find my wedding veil the center of my own life's portrait. Instead, I feel the red and black swirls of Munich's "The Scream" seduce and capture me, hauntingly whispering, "you will never get out." When passion and dedication become the chains of despair, what then? How to reconcile a character trait to its disruptive foundations........my mind swirls around so many possibilities, and in complete exhaustion, I want to curl into a world of my own understanding, of my own making. No longer do I wish to be a mere...

Illness and Isolation I have to make a choice very soon about dropping my class since I've been so sick and unable to complete the class requirements. Not sure why I feel like such a failure for being unable to complete this right now...........even though I know that I have done a good job considering I have been dealing with pnuemonia. I truly feel very alone. Even as I write, I ask myself why I am pushing myself so much, why I am so hard on myself. I am not even sure where my ideas of perfection come from or why it is so important to me to complete graduate school. It's definetely not what I thought it would be. Terrified to dream anymore...........this was my last dream for myself. As I watch it crumble before me, I know there is a bigger story unveiling, something beautiful that will bloom in the rubble. But right now, my pain and disappointment so great I scarce can breathe. Recently, I saw a documentary on the rebuilding of London after WWII. In the rubble grew these bri...