The most valuable resource in the world is time. No one knows how much they are going to get and you can't make more of it. That is why you will not hear one word of complaint from me as another summer comes to an end. I will return to work on Thursday after what amounted to about ten weeks off and there are few jobs in the world where one has that luxury.
I will also never complain about the money they pay me for this job. I think anyone who works hard at their job believes they should be awarded more money, but the fact is my job is paid for by taxpayers and to think that teaching will ever get you a six figure income is not realistic. Besides money is not the only reward you get from a job. My last job paid me about as much as I made my first year teaching and I struggled most days to drag my butt out of bed by 8 to get there by 8:30. Now, I bounce out at 5 a.m. and there have been few days when I really didn't feel like it. That can not me measured in dollars.
Like anyone with a family I wish I had the options that come with great wealth. I wish all my bills were paid off. I wish my wife didn't have to work if she chose not to. I wish I could improve all the things around my little house that need improving, or just go buy a big new house. I wish I could buy my children everything I want them to have ( although my wife would claim I already do that). But how many people have all that?
What we teachers do get is time. Time to do what is important to us. Time to get a job to make some extra money. Time to work around the house. Time to read. Time to write useless blogs. Time to exercise more. Time to walk the streets pulling a little blond boy in a little red wagon. Time to ride the "firefighter" ride at the amusement park as many times as we want to. Time to snuggle up in a cool dark room with a Land Before Time video and drift off into a nap. Yes, time is a valuable resource and if we are granted enough of it a great reward awaits us, another summer. So Goodbye Summer I look forward to seeing you again.
BO KNOWS I probably upset my fellow teachers with my opinion about our compensation so I will make one point. I think the perception of teachers being underpaid has a lot to do with the amount of education required for the job. So teachers having to pay a good portion of their income to student loans probably is a problem. So what I would love to see the government do is somehow reward people who dedicate themselves to the profession by rewarding some kind of education credit. I don't know what would be exactly fair but the basic idea is you set up a number of years to be spent in the classroom and once the teacher serves # number of years they get a nice bonus of $ amount of dollars but it must be used to either pay off student loan debt or fund further education as they move up in the profession. I think this would be a useful way to improve teacher compensation. Good for teachers and good for teaching.
BO KNOWS it was nice to see Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn enter the baseball Hall of Fame. Two great players who stayed out of trouble and played their entire careers for one team. We won't see many like that in the future.
BO KNOWS I have all but given up dodging potential cancer causes as now a new report says my ink jet printer could cause cancer. Lets face it. There is nowhere to hide.
BO KNOWS our government has serious problems when a grade of "structurally deficient" makes a bridge still OK to travel on. I think at the very least we need different classifications just for morale.
BO KNOWS that Entertainment Weekly has made a list of the top 50 films that ESPN.com's Bill Simmons would say makes it "dusty" in the room. The list at http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20041669_20041686_20048641,00.html will probably bring back a lot of memories for movie fan's but what about those that didn't make the list. No Empire Strikes Back? Come on for all we knew that was the last time we were going to see Han Solo. And what about Armageddon. Bruce Willis stays on the asteroid so Ben Affleck can survive. It doesn't get much sadder than that does it.
BO KNOWS unintentionally it seems there has been a Star Wars reference in nearly all of my posts. I am a fan but I don't seek to mention it every week it just seems something related catches my attention almost every week. That being said I am going to make one more point and then no Star Wars for awhile. I need some advice. While I have promised my wife to wait at least another year to introduce my son to Star Wars. (she wants him to stay a little cartoon fan at least that long and she knows he will love it.) I am confused on how best to introduce a new generation of children to Star Wars. Do they watch them as we did starting with IV and ending with III? Or do they watch in order from I to VI or do we show them IV,V and VI and pretend the prequels do not exist? I can't decide.
BO KNOWS fantasy football is just around the corner so here are some clips to get you in the mood. See you next week.
2 comments:
Speaking as someone well known to be a hardcore Star Wars geek, I believe it is best to watch IV through VI before I, II, and III. Not only are the originals the better movies, (although III is better than VI), but watching the prequels first gives away too much information. If you already know that Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker you rob yourself of one of the greatest moments in cinematic history, "No, I am your father." Think about what you felt when you heard those words, don't you want your kids to feel the same thing? I know that's what I want for Leia and Isabella, it's too late for the three older ones they already know the whole story. I want Leia and Isabella to experience the saga the way I did, and feel the same things I did. Hopefully then they will understand why Leia is named Leia and why Daddy has an entire room of Star Wars figures downstairs, or maybe they will just think Daddy is a geek like everyone else does.
III IS BETTER THAN VI??!!!!???? ARE YOU A FUCKING NUT-JOB? Every crap movie I saw this summer was better than III. In fact, watching the Great Dane across the street take a big ol' shit on my lawn twice a day is better than III. That being said...
You are right. You have to time it perfectly that he watches IV and V when he is old enough to understand what is going on and unaware enough that he will not learn the best twist in movie history. That is the thing that he will thank you for when you are old and gray.
And after that, if he wants to watch those sad movies some choose to call prequels, he will be disappointed just like the rest of the world.
Post a Comment