This week I have the priviledge of promoting drug free awareness and education. I am well aware of the irony of the situation. I dread this week each year because it usually initiates an onslaught of questions involving my own personal use of cigarettes and alchohol. I attempt to never lie to my students, but I feel this is one area of my life that they do not need to know the truth. Fortunately today I did not receive the foregone queries that typically arise. I attribute it to the wonderful children I have this year. I feel blessed( I don't use this term too often due to the religious connotations), because they make teaching a lot of fun. They always are fun just to chat with on the playground. I've quickly figured out how to interpret their behavior and how each one reacts to different forms of discipline and praise. One student explained how his family has tried to get his mother to stop her heavy drinking habits. It was an uncomfortable question for me because I didn't know how to address the question without involving the opinions of the rest of the class. I took him aside during recess and discussed it with him privately. As a teacher, I never completely understand my place in those sorts of matters. I do not want to involve myself where I do not belong, but I also care for my students' well-being. It's a difficult prospect.
So I got an email today regarding dating strategies. At first I was put off, thinking that I'd never take advice directly from a book or other commercial distribution. Then my intrigue got the best of me and I found myself reading the entire thing. It basically claimed some truths that seem to get ignored in flirting/dating situations. Mainly, women want what they can't have. He claims that it doesn't matter if you are fat, bald, ugly or all of the above. If you make a woman think that you have better options or that you're too or if you can attract her attention by being original, then she will be more attracted to you. While I believe I agree with this strategy, I have difficulty performing this in real situations. Being physically attracted to a girl definitely makes me shy or inhibited. My sister always say to me that if I acted around girls the way I do with her, they'd be lining up at the door. I think it's a confidence issue, but those issues are like an iceberg buried beneath a mountain(is that even possible?). That being said, I'd love to be able to just approach a woman in a public setting with no real agenda other than to start conversing. For instance, there's a woman sitting in the booth across from me right now studying for some class. She's not here with anyone and has been here for a half an hour. What the hell would I say to her? So...you come here often? I'm not too good with that type of stuff. I guess like everything else, you just become better with practice and eventually the awkwardness would just fly away with my butterflies. Speaking of butterflies, where did that idiom come from? I mean I understand the feeling of jitters being described as butterflies, but why butterflies? why not moths? I think moths get a bad wrap. One of my favorite cliche literary images is the moth to a flame or light. There's something magnetic about it.
Time to tick, tick away...
