Daily Life And It's Crushing Detriments To Attaining An Education, or How I Get By.

I suppose living my post-high school life the way I have for the last 18 years has conditioned me, like a slobbering Pavlovian dog, to mentally shut down and immediately revert to a neanderthalian, almost instinctual aversion to "school" as an instutition that gleefully and greedily accepts my scant, hard-earned money in order to grant me the privilege of being part of a "society" that I never really could fit into as far as the basic carriculum requires. It's a defense mechanism, I admit, and a stance that I am now ready to discard. I've come to realize that these were the basic fears of someone that simply didn't want to try. In the past, I always had convenient excuses to not try in school. I am dyslexic, was diagnosed with ADHD and was considered "smart but unmotivated" by the doctors-that-be, so my school career was never a stellar venture. I still find myself falling into this mind-set at times, as a confortable place to reside: I go to work, make my meals, and have my fun with friends, and never have to deal with a deadline that may cost me my precious dollars. I try to not equate my education to money- I really don't want to be hung up on that. It's yet another excuse. I want to commit myself to the fact that I need and WANT an education that will lead me to a career that I can believe in. That I can stand behind, and that will make me happy (the least of which, make me money- as the path I've chosen to persue is in elementary education, which frankly, is not the glamorous playboy career one would think it would be.) My point being, I don't think that I have any daily life issues to keep me from attaining my education (the assigned topic of this blog entry.) All the excuses are within myself. It all has to do with my motivation and my willingness to put aside my long held notions of why I shouldn't go to school, and why I should get off my ass and grow the fuck up. Sometimes this is a hard realization to deal with. When I take a step back, and really look at my reasons for putting things off, or my lack of reasons for doing the things I know I need to be doing, it's hard to make excuses, but somehow, someway I still manage to make those flimsy reasons hold water. It's not something I'm proud of. I'm making the effort to change this, but it IS an easy ditch to fall into. Like stepping into a puddle with sandals on, I don't want to get my feet wet, yet I know that that is the only outcome that will happen if I don't take the precautions of stepping over the puddle. But it's so much easier to just go about my usual routine. This I am going to change. I need to change. I want to change. I will change.

Library database and it's functionality (or lack thereof)

I was really impressed, but probably not for the reason I should be. When the substitute teacher took us to the J. Sarge library's research database, it was like a vast compendium of materials to help one research just about any topic one cared to peruse. Being the type that enjoys the past (I've been accused of living there) I thought it was very interesting that there were articles from the early 20th century. I love to read how language was slightly different and to see some words that just aren't used anymore, or had different meanings altogether. I realize I'm getting away from the assignment here, but I couldn't help but just look at old articles on topics that are "hot-button" topics today. Of course, you're not going to see much about abortion before the 60's, and something like stem-cell research isn't even going to be a topic until the 90's, but it was still delightful to skim articles and see how attitudes have changed (and not changed for that matter.) OK, so while I briefly actually did some research on my topic, which at the time was still just an idea for a topic, I found the fertility of the database to be rich, if not especially intuitive functionally. Basically I'm glad the sub was there to show us how to use it, otherwise I would've been lost. I hope I can remember how to get everything I need from it.