Decisions & Fruitless, Futile Anger
Sep. 13th, 2005 08:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perzephone
Rob & I hashed it out last night. I told him, straight up, using words I don't normally use: 'I want to stay in Las Vegas until I earn my Associates so I can finish at the same school I started with and I don't have to worry about credit transfers and fiddling with my student loan application'. I also told him that the one thing that makes me honestly happy is money. I would be happy if we had more money. Since he keeps asking me if there's anything he can do to make me happy, well, go make money. I would be happy if we had more than $3 and a quarter tank of gas to get us to Friday. I would be happy if I didn't have to put off paying bills to pay other bills. I would be happy if I didn't have to ration food supplies or go hungry all day because I can get a free meal (if you really want to call it that) at the EDR... In fact, I might actually be ecstatic.
So that's pretty much it: we're here til I get my degree or give up, whichever comes first.
I solved a complex math problem on my own after working it over for a week. It came to me in the shower.
If you have 27 tables and 94 chairs, and you need to figure out how many tables have 2 chairs & how many tables have 4 chairs:
All the tables have 2 chairs (duh)
2 chairs X 27 tables = 54 chairs used up. 94 chairs - 54 chairs = 40 chairs leftover. To make a table have 4 chairs, you need 2 more chairs per table, so 40 divided by 2 is 20. So 20 tables have 4 chairs, & the other 7 have 2.
I've also been brooding lately. Thinking about why I have no direction, why I have such a hard time setting goals, why I don't know what I want to be...
No one in my life has ever helped me set those big goals. No one has ever given me any guidance or direction. Whenever someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, when I was a little girl, I'd say either a truck driver or a paleontologist. And I knew the difference between archaeologist & paleontologist, too. I could spout of names & descriptions of dinosaurs, when they lived, where the fossils could be found, etc. all day long. I still love dinosaurs & prehistoric mammals, I think I probably always will. I had a blast out at the La Brea Tar Pits last year - I think one of these weekends when we have gas $$ I'm gonna talk Rob into a road trip out there. But I digress... anyway, my parents always told me "You are smart and you can be whatever you want to be, just stay in school". My teachers & various other adult figures that drifted through my life from 3 years to 10 years gave me the same kind of reply. But no one ever really 'cultured' my primary interest. Oh, yeah, I got dinosaur toys & models & books, but I also got general animal & science books & toys - all that kind of stuff. None of my toys were ever 'just' toys. It all had some kind of developmental goal behind it.
So then I went to Penny... gods, what a bitch. Penny didn't think very highly of a 10-year old fat kid who wanted to be left alone, who wanted to live in the library & who wanted nothing more than to read all day... Penny was derisive of knowledge & anyone who displayed intelligence. So I just stopped talking to her about anything. I just sat in silence til she passed out drunk when I could read, or I volunteered at the library after school & on weekends so I had an escape. Yup, 11 years old, walking to the library on crutches & spending 4 hours a night shelving books & doing odd office work. But I met Ann, ye old Hula Rat, and she was actually interested in a little kid w/a big brain. But once again, she was just wowed & a teenager, too, so I had a friend, but not really a mentor.
So then to Aunt Liz & Uncle Ernie. Uncle Ernie liked that I could hold my own w/philosophy & world religions - he could pull me out in front of his intellectual & philosophical friends & they thought I was the coolest thing since sliced bread. But Aunt Liz got tired of me not wanting to be a debutante & put an end to me spending weekends w/Uncle Ernie at the University coffee shop. They didn't even really put too much emphasis on me going to school, but they at least supported my band things.
Jody & Terry - Hel's bells. They were so busy trying to not act like 'mom' that they forgot that I was 15. I was mature, but also clueless about the future. I never thought I'd live past 18. And once I got that trustfund, I was easy money. They put their hands out for cash, but not one person said, "Hey, why don't you go to school? You could be making bank by the time you're 25."
Yes, I'm independent. I can be very hostile if someone tries to tell me what to do & I don't like it. But no one ever sat down & really talked to me about my potential. No teachers, no school guidance counselors, no AA/Al-Anon/Al-Ateen mentors, no therapists, no psychologists, no friends, no relatives. Not one person. Sometimes it's fine & dandy to tell someone "You can be anything you want to be", but sometimes it's better to say, "Hey, go to school now & become a paleontologist" or "Let's set up some kind of housing & go to school to become a mortician" or even, "Hey, if you start now you could be a ____________________________"
I think that, should any young aimless person ever find themself at the mercy of my advice, instead of doing the ego-boosting "be all you can be" speech, I'm going to ask them what their interests are & run with it.
So that's pretty much it: we're here til I get my degree or give up, whichever comes first.
I solved a complex math problem on my own after working it over for a week. It came to me in the shower.
If you have 27 tables and 94 chairs, and you need to figure out how many tables have 2 chairs & how many tables have 4 chairs:
All the tables have 2 chairs (duh)
2 chairs X 27 tables = 54 chairs used up. 94 chairs - 54 chairs = 40 chairs leftover. To make a table have 4 chairs, you need 2 more chairs per table, so 40 divided by 2 is 20. So 20 tables have 4 chairs, & the other 7 have 2.
I've also been brooding lately. Thinking about why I have no direction, why I have such a hard time setting goals, why I don't know what I want to be...
No one in my life has ever helped me set those big goals. No one has ever given me any guidance or direction. Whenever someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, when I was a little girl, I'd say either a truck driver or a paleontologist. And I knew the difference between archaeologist & paleontologist, too. I could spout of names & descriptions of dinosaurs, when they lived, where the fossils could be found, etc. all day long. I still love dinosaurs & prehistoric mammals, I think I probably always will. I had a blast out at the La Brea Tar Pits last year - I think one of these weekends when we have gas $$ I'm gonna talk Rob into a road trip out there. But I digress... anyway, my parents always told me "You are smart and you can be whatever you want to be, just stay in school". My teachers & various other adult figures that drifted through my life from 3 years to 10 years gave me the same kind of reply. But no one ever really 'cultured' my primary interest. Oh, yeah, I got dinosaur toys & models & books, but I also got general animal & science books & toys - all that kind of stuff. None of my toys were ever 'just' toys. It all had some kind of developmental goal behind it.
So then I went to Penny... gods, what a bitch. Penny didn't think very highly of a 10-year old fat kid who wanted to be left alone, who wanted to live in the library & who wanted nothing more than to read all day... Penny was derisive of knowledge & anyone who displayed intelligence. So I just stopped talking to her about anything. I just sat in silence til she passed out drunk when I could read, or I volunteered at the library after school & on weekends so I had an escape. Yup, 11 years old, walking to the library on crutches & spending 4 hours a night shelving books & doing odd office work. But I met Ann, ye old Hula Rat, and she was actually interested in a little kid w/a big brain. But once again, she was just wowed & a teenager, too, so I had a friend, but not really a mentor.
So then to Aunt Liz & Uncle Ernie. Uncle Ernie liked that I could hold my own w/philosophy & world religions - he could pull me out in front of his intellectual & philosophical friends & they thought I was the coolest thing since sliced bread. But Aunt Liz got tired of me not wanting to be a debutante & put an end to me spending weekends w/Uncle Ernie at the University coffee shop. They didn't even really put too much emphasis on me going to school, but they at least supported my band things.
Jody & Terry - Hel's bells. They were so busy trying to not act like 'mom' that they forgot that I was 15. I was mature, but also clueless about the future. I never thought I'd live past 18. And once I got that trustfund, I was easy money. They put their hands out for cash, but not one person said, "Hey, why don't you go to school? You could be making bank by the time you're 25."
Yes, I'm independent. I can be very hostile if someone tries to tell me what to do & I don't like it. But no one ever sat down & really talked to me about my potential. No teachers, no school guidance counselors, no AA/Al-Anon/Al-Ateen mentors, no therapists, no psychologists, no friends, no relatives. Not one person. Sometimes it's fine & dandy to tell someone "You can be anything you want to be", but sometimes it's better to say, "Hey, go to school now & become a paleontologist" or "Let's set up some kind of housing & go to school to become a mortician" or even, "Hey, if you start now you could be a ____________________________"
I think that, should any young aimless person ever find themself at the mercy of my advice, instead of doing the ego-boosting "be all you can be" speech, I'm going to ask them what their interests are & run with it.
