Skip to main content

Parachuting

I have been reading What Color Is Your Parachute, hoping to glean some job tips, further find myself, etc. Last night I did this exercise where you compare, two at a time, two values (what the author refers to as broad outcomes of you life) to figure out which value you value more. In the end, after you have compared all nine to each other, you end up with a ranked list of the most important. The idea is you can use your talents and skills to serve these values. My top ones were as follows:
  1. Will/conscience (when I am gone, I want there to be more morality, justice, righteousness, and honesty in the world)
  2. Heart (when I am gone, I want there to be more love and compassion in the world)
  3. Human spirit (when I am gone, I want there to be more spirituality, faith, compassion, forgiveness, love for God and the human family with all its diverseness) 
  4. Possession (when I am gone, I want there to be more savings, simplicity, and a broader emphasis on the word "enough")
It was a difficult exercise; in many cases, one edged out the other only slightly. But my results were not surprising. I have always valued honesty and justice. And in the last year, I have really made a conscience effort to be a better person, more compassionate. Do the right thing. I am all about turning the other cheek and forgiving. And my faith has been strengthened (for the record, even though I am Catholic, I don't think that is the one "true" religion). The top three are what you are supposed to focus on, but I feel pretty strongly about my fourth one, so I included that as well.

As I was sitting in church today for the start of Catholic Schools Week, I once again thought, "I love these kids." Some of these same kids who are disrespectful towards me when I sub. But I really care about them. Isn't that crazy? And I enjoy subbing. I actually teach. I try to bring current events into the class. And I encourage the kids to be nice, often throwing around God's name (you can't do that in a public school). When a student told me some boys had been making fun of her, I addressed the class as a whole and told them to ask themselves if what they say can hurt another's feelings. And, as I have mentioned recently, I am all about lunch duty. I think of it less as a duty and more like an opportunity to better get to know the kids, parents, and teachers.

I reread a post I wrote about two years ago, one where I talked about how I came to be a teacher, why I left, and how although I liked my current job, I did not think it was my life's work. I am not sure that teaching is my life's work. But it may be. Perhaps I have come (almost) full circle. I am pretty sure, as I have said quite a bit over the past year, that I am meant to make a difference. I can't bring myself to apply to a soulless job (I will, however, if/when we run out of money).

If you would have told me when I wrote that post almost two years ago to the day, that I would be thinking of going back into teaching (well, I kind of am back in teaching) or that I wanted to find a job where I cared more about making a difference and less about finding bad grammar, I would have laughed. Said you were crazy.

And here I am. I have a few upcoming sub days lined up. I have also applied to another school as well as a non-profit. Hopefully something will soon find me. But until then, I will try to continue to make the world a better place in some small measure as best as I can.

Comments

Lynnette said…
Go Facie! I love you, man!

Popular posts from this blog

Let's build something together!

That is one of my favorite slogan's (Or is that a tagline? Over a year removed from a design firm, and I can no longer remember). It belongs to Lowe's, although I am more of a Home Depot gal. But suffice it to say if someone handed me a $5,000 gift card to Home Depot (or Lowe's), I would be ecstatic. If I had $10,000 to spend, you could hear my shouts of joy from miles away. The things I could do with that money. Well, the things I could have Brian do with that money anyway. I love walking around Home Depot and admiring the fancy bathroom sinks and tubs. I look at the lighting and think about where I would put each fixture. I touch textured and colorful tiles and wistfully look at the fancy kitchen cabinets. I admire the various carpet styles and blinds. I look at the fancy front-loading washer and wonder what it must be like to have a steam dryer. I even look longingly at the vacuum cleaners because I can no longer buy a replacement filter for my eight year old mo...

Summer in review

This summer I made it a point to try to take at least one pic of Jordan whenever we went somewhere, which most often was a park. I wanted to capture all the great, fun things we did this summer, knowing that it was probably going to be my last summer not working for quite some time. So here goes. I have expressed my love of Frick Park, particularly Blue Slide Park, in other posts ; it really is one of our favorites. And this summer marked the first one I did not feel the need to follow J around like a little puppy dog. I actually let her run around and explore, though, admittedly, I would panic if more than three minutes went by and I had not seen her. In the pics above, J is at the end of the blue slide, and then hanging several feet above concrete (which scared the crap out of me). We also visited another section of Frick Park, the area on the corner of Braddock and Forbes, a few times. There is not as much to do as Blue Slide, but we go there to mix things up a bit. In the p...

If only I had taken pictures of my detoured drive

When I moved to the Burgh just over 14 years ago, I had a lot of anxiety about getting from "here" to "there." I found the city, which is triangular, and even some of the suburbs quite confusing. On top of that, a lot of the signs were of little help. Clearly they were put up by either natives who had no need for directions or people with a sick sense of humor who thought it would be funny to put signs in random places, leaving off important roads. At some point, I got over that fear of driving to a new building downtown. I don't recall when it happened, but eventually I just figured most of the city out; and when I had to head to a new place, I just drove around, no longer with a feeling of dread, knowing I would eventually get there. But on Sunday morning, that awful, long-ago feeling returned, thanks to the closure of the outbound Fort Pitt Tunnels. I had to pick my mother up from the airport, so there was no avoiding it. (For some reason, my family think...