community college | The Sadder But Wiser Girl

I’m doing the 15 Getting To Know The Blogger Challenge, started by A Little Unhinged. Today I’m answering question 4 about school!

4) What kind of student were you in school?

From braids to no braids. First picture is from 2nd grade maybe? 4th grade and 5th grade. I believe all pictures until high school were burned.

I was an ok student in elementary school. I was a daydreamer. I had some issues with bringing my work back. I understand that I hid my work under a rock or something even though it was completed. I was an odd kid. It might have had something to do with moving around so much? In 3rd grade I was in Gifted and Talented but I didn’t like the extra work. I’m not sure what happened after that. This is when I lived in Connecticut. Honestly the only thing I remember about this place was the following: 1) There was a giant boulder behind our house 2) I got glasses in 4th grade 3) I started band in 4th grade and was told I had no musical talent 4) I started private lessons at a studio that smelled weird, 5) There was a creek between home and my elementary school 6) There was no hot lunch program, so I took PB&J every day for a year 7) We read Huck Finn in Gifted and Talented, and then visited Mark Twain’s house.

This must be 11th Grade.

Somehow I got it together and from then on I was a terrific student. I graduated in the top of my class from high school, went on to Community College and then later a 4 year private school and STILL got good grades. Unfortunately for me, this did not help in the long run. I’m good at school, it’s the real world that has not been good for me! HA HA!

Ah Senior Pictures. Big hair and big dreams.

I graduated with a BME-This is not a BM with Extra Power or something, it means Bachelor of Music Education. I was persuaded to switch to this major. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do then and I still don’t know what I want to do now. I know I could teach preschool and be perfectly happy, but they are making it harder and harder to do that without an Early Childhood degree. For you who are not familiar with our educational system-you cannot simply use one education degree to do something else in education. They make you do it all over again. Is it really worth shelling out all of that money to go back to school to do something that pays so little? I don’t know!

Me graduating from Lord Valdemort College (The College That Cannot Be Named). Quit smiling kid, it’s all downhill from here.

Previous Blogger Challenge Posts- This Could Be Fun: Doing The 15 Day Blogger Challenge, Where I Grew Up, Favorite Childhood Memories

Are dreams like the tree in “The Empire Strikes Back”, where you face your fears?

Oh boy, I had another anxiety dream last night. This one was really weird. Freaky.

I moved back to my hometown. I don’t know why. I went out and applied for some jobs. I got hired at one place right away. I mean I literally started working immediately. It was a place that sold jewelry. And comic books. And I think Chinese food too. Yeah I thought that was strange too. There was a cash register, only the boss didn’t actually keep any money in it. At least not one dollar bills. A customer needed a dollar for some change, which is weird because it’s usually the other way around. But I couldn’t find any dollar bills. I went to the boss and asked her where they were. She blew up, she exploded at me, called me all kinds of names, because I didn’t know where she kept this stuff. Apparently there was some sort of drawer that was nowhere near the cash register just chock full of one dollar bills. And I was just supposed to know that. Then I had to work really late and wasn’t allowed to leave until all hours. After I left work I really had to use the bathroom, so I stopped at some random house and used their bathroom. There was just a blanket covering the doorway, and the toilet sat dangerously close to the door. Just as I sat down to do my business, the police raided the house. And I was there, using some stranger’s toilet with my pants down.

It wasn’t like this. There was a blanket.

Then the alarm went off.

The kicker about this wasn’t just the fact that I literally was about to be caught with my pants down. It was who the owner/boss of this Chinese restaurant/jewelry/comic book store was. It was a combination of the evil supervising teacher who got me off on SUCH a good start of my music education career and the babysitter that my son used to go to who never had a good thing to say or a smile, ever.

The babysitter one was easy to explain. She just got a job where I used to work. Doing not the same job I had done but something similar. I was surprised and not surprised that they hired her. She’s just the negative person that they like there. Toxic environment. Good for her. I hope they all bring each other down together.

But the Supervising teacher? I really had hoped that 15 years later I would begin to move on from that negative experience. This is one of the reasons why I started my blog. I wanted to be able to tell about my life, mostly funny, and to be able to look back on those bad experiences that have been dragging me down with humor.

The first two years of my college career were shockingly awesome. I was so down because I didn’t get any money to go to the school I really wanted to go to. Instead I lived at home and went to a community college. I was expecting to loathe it. But some good stuff happened right off the bat. Remember I was a band geek. Upon exploring my musical options the band director at the time asked me this question: “Is there any other group in the music department you might be interested in?” I thought about this for a moment. I was terrifed of the high school chorus director, therefore I never did any vocal music. “I always thought it would be fun to sing.” I barely got the words out of my mouth when I was almost literally picked up and thrown across the hall into the vocal music director’s office.

Guess what? I could sing. I could sing well.

Memorieeeeeeees….All alone in the mooooooonlight…

For the next two years my college career centered around music. Community College is an interesting place. You meet people of all ages, from all walks of life. The professors are more interesting than anyone you’ll probably meet. Not only are they your mentors, they get involved and are your colleagues. I left that place really feeling that I could make something of myself. Then real life reared it ugly head.

I went on to attend Lord Valdemort College (The School That Cannot Be Named). At first it was exciting to be out on my own and all that jazz. As time went on I should have known something was wrong. In the end I realize that after everything that could have happened I could have so SUED THEIR ASS. But as usual, I rolled over and took it. I crawled under the proverbial rock and tried to go on as if nothing had happened. And stuff kept happening. That hole under that rock got pretty deep.

HA HA HA. That’s some dark humor for ya…

I’m not necessarily blaming the school itself. But there were certain people involved with that school that did stuff that they shouldn’t have. They should have let me transfer without fighting it, and filling my head full of things that you don’t tell a person with anxiety problems, like I’d have to pay back all my scholarships. But they were more interested in my money than they were letting me be successful.

My student teaching experience had to be beyond a shadow of a doubt one of the most awful experiences that anyone should have to endure. I’m saying that because there would be more awful experiences. I was given no direction, no mentoring, no support, no anything from my supervising teacher. I was yelled at, told I was useless, and taunted when I tried to tell other people what was going on. If I hadn’t opened my mouth to that other teacher, however, I would have probably gotten an F because no one seemed to realize what was going on. I wish I could have seen the whole thing go down, the elementary band teacher chasing down my adviser as he left the school, screaming at him. All because he never even set foot in my classroom to see what was happening. That woman to this day is my hero.

I’d like to think my supervising teacher was like the Borg Queen. She had her own body though. And to think if she wanted to assimilate me she would think something I did was valuable.

I eventually was rescued from that situation but I never recovered. I understand the supervising teacher had a nervous breakdown the week after school got out, brought on by personal issues in her life. Turns out that what happened had very little to do with me. To this day though I spend a great deal of time wondering how I could have dealt with that situation and made it work for me. I analyze it over and over. But the awful truth is that she was against having a student teacher from the start. And she was a brilliant pianist, I could plunk out chords and could play music with a lot of practice. Noone seemed to get that I set out not to teach vocal music but elementary band.

I really think I was thrown to the lions. Even when they pulled me out of the coliseum, my wounds were pretty bad. I floundered.

If there was only Facebook, and blogs, and search engines at that time. I may have felt like I wasn’t the only one in the world going through this. I’m sure I wasn’t. And people could comfort me by sending me stuff like this:

And I have yet to share the worst experience. That’s enough gut wrenching sharing for today. Tonight we’ll see what else I dream about. Unless I have a cool dream like working on the Enterprise, I don’t know if I want to have any dreams!