"There's nothin' like a bald pussy"

It's been more than a week since my first post. To be honest with you I've tried to write a new post at least 3 or 4 times now, but each time I psyche myself out. Why? Well, the feedback I received from my first post had me a little nervous that I couldn't meet everyone's expectations a second time! I was so excited and surprised by all of your wonderful comments. Thank you especially to Jill and Perry who even mentioned me in their own blogs. It just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. That being said, I decided it's time to give it another shot. It's not going to be anywhere as intellectual as the first (if you couldn't guess by the title), but I'm hoping we'll all get at least something out of it. Here goes...

So let's get to the topic you're all waiting for, the title of this post. First of all, get your minds of of the gutters, I'm talking about hairless cats (now who's the pervert? hmm?). Why am I talking about bald cats? Well, because that's just the sort of absurd creature that I can use to sum up these past couple weeks of my life.

Lets start with sheer aesthetics. Those cats are just plain ugly, and so too have these last couple of weeks. Imagine this scene: a grown woman wakes up around 10:30 each morning, shuffles into the kitchen for coffee and whatever food scraps are chillin in the fridge, she eats while she surfs the web and then sits down to play some Playstation 1 without even bothering to brush or get dressed. This continues until a shower is a necessity. Pretty ugly indeed.

Back to the cats. I think we can all agree that they are not aesthetically pleasing to look at, but what about their purpose? As far as I'm concerned cats (at least in terms of being our pets) are meant to be around for our pleasure. What's better then petting and snuggling a sweet little kitty? Nothing, unless that cat is a disgusting, fur-less rat! Sorry, but who wants to snuggle with a bald animal? They are not cute and soft and cuddly, i.e. they do not have what is necessary and sufficient to be a pet cat, ergo they are not good pets. So to own a hairless pet cat is pointless. This brings me back to my last two weeks: utterly pointless. I came to Baton Rouge for a reason. I didn't say to myself, "gee I'd love to uproot my life and just go live in Baton Rouge and play video games all day." I am here because I wanted to help close the achievement gap and becoming a highly effective teacher. Yet, here I am, 5 weeks into school, no classroom, no kids, no job. Not really the best way to make a difference in education, wouldn't ya say? So, just like owning a hairless cat, an idealistic new teacher without a classroom is pointless.

Is there anything positive I can say about these animals/past two weeks? Yes. And it can be summed up by one word: Humor. I believe those cats exist so that I can laugh at their expense. They have also helped inspire me to write again, which for all intents and purposes is probably very therapeutic for me at this point. I should really give credit to a certain woman for inspiring me to finally write again; this same woman is the one to thank for my lovely title. She is a SPED teacher here in Louisiana, she teaches middle school self contained out in the boonies. She kindly took the time to show me the ropes of SPED paperwork and teaching children with special needs last Friday. I observed her classroom for almost the entire day and I left with two revelations: 1) you cannot teach these children unless you build truly strong relationships with them, 2) you must have a good sense of humor about everything. In her own wonderfully obnoxious sort of way this teacher (whom I will refer to as The Dupe from here on out) embodied these two facets of teaching to the core. Before I left for the day The Dupe showed me pictures of her and the kids. She takes them places on the weekends, has sleepovers at her home and takes them grocery shopping during the week to help build their life skills. Pretty awesome. But as we were scrolling through these pictures we came across her other "babies" - you guessed it, hairless cats. She raises them. In an instant she realized I was not a fan of hairless cats (it was probably poorly veiled look of disgust on my face) so she leaned over and said to me, "let me tell you something important: there's nothin like a bald pussy." And so there ya have it, wisdom from a veteran teacher. Not the sort of direct knowledge I was expecting to be given when I entered her classroom, and yet it was worth so much more than any of the tangible resources she did give me.

So where am I now? I no longer get up at 10:30 and feel sorry for myself all day. I recently got hired for a new teaching job and will begin sometime next week. But from here on I am going to take what I learned from The Dupe and her bald pussies and apply it as often as I can. It is this message that not only lightened my disdain for hairless cats, but also helped me regain some confidence about my choice to move here. She reminded me not to take things so seriously. Lighten up. Don't spend so much time focusing on a thing's faults, see the value in it. Even hairless cats have something to offer (i.e. a great opportunity for inappropriate innuendo)! But seriously folks, why don't we all just lighten up and try to have fun with things more often? Why do we stress so long and hard over shit that really doesn't matter. Try looking at your situation and seeing the absurd rather than the serious. If you can manage to do that, you'll live a lot longer and you'll laugh a lot more!

Life is full of moments and events we cannot control, but are we or are we not conscious, thoughtful beings? Isn't it within our power to react in any way we please? Think of all those times you were able to laugh at something later that at the time seemed like the end of the world. Who hasn't said at least once in her life, "you know, when I look back on it, it was actually pretty funny" ? My goal before my next post is to enjoy the humor in a situation in that moment. Why should I wait for later to see the humor in it? Why go through the stress of dealing with it seriously at the time when ultimately I'm going to use it as a funny dinner story later on? We are such funny creatures. We create so many of our own problems with our pig headedness and our unwillingness to look silly or profane. We create social rules that make us uncomfortable and awkward and stressed and forget that they are social constructions built and maintained by us!

I bet those hairless cats get a good laugh out of watching people.


Remember,

"Be excellent to each other"