If you could do it again. . .

You ever wonder what you would do if you could live your life all over again, knowing what you know now?? If you had complete knowledge of how life works and unlimited resources with which to achieve your goals? Would you be something completely different, or would you choose the same life path?

Now don't get me wrong. I am pretty satisfied with my life right at this exact moment in time. There are things I want still, but on the whole I am pretty cool with my life. I adore substitute teaching. I love the fact that it is teaching in it's purest form without the worry and hassle of grading papers and dealing with parents and the long list of stresses that regular classroom teachers deal with each day. I am especially proud of the fact that teachers will call me on their cell phones and chase me down the hallway asking if I am available. I have worked hard to cultivate a reputation as someone who can just be thrown into a classroom cold, handed a curriculum book, and handle any class with professionalism and grace. (wow, way to toot my own horn there. lol That came out surprisingly vain for a sec there, sorry) VERY long story short: I feel like I was really meant to do this all along. And I especially love being in a new classroom every day, having new adventures with new children I may have not met before.

But what if I was able to be someone different. Maybe just for a little while. If you had asked me this question last year, my answer would have been this: I would become a meteorologist. Maybe on The Weather Channel. This is in no small part due to my raging love for both Jim Cantore and the entire Weather Channel itself. (Don't believe me. This: http://www.xomba.com/ten_ways_tell_if_you_are_addicted_weather_channel and this: http://www.xomba.com/weather_watching_hobby might convince you. Both written with love by me!)

But today I have a very different idea of what I would do. This idea was perhaps born from being trapped in the house since September without a car of my own, or maybe from currently reading "Eat, Pray, Love" or I suppose from multiple viewings of "Mamma Mia", but I think in my alternate life I would like to be a travel writer. I would travel the world having adventures and then writing about them. Given that the temperature outside hasn't risen above 40 degree in almost a month, I would probably start by traveling to somewhere warm, and then go from there. Doesn't that sound like a very exciting life to lead? Travelling to distant and exotic places, meeting new and different people, and then being paid to write about it? I suspect I would probably take to such a lifestyle very nicely if my reasons for loving substitute teaching are any indication. I appear to have a itch for adventure, no matter how small.

For the past two years, my in-laws have taken us on vacation in leu of Christmas gifts. We have been on a caribbean cruise and traveled to the Yucatan Peninsula. Both times I had a marvelous time soaking in the local atmosphere, speaking in my pathetic Spanish to natives, and revelling in the opportunity to experience life through a different set of parameters. I would love to travel beyond the Western Hemisphere and perhaps visit Wales, France, Spain, Greece, and India. (I am sooo loving this book: Eat, Pray, Love. Totally read it if you ever get the chance.) If I could visit all of these places, and get paid to do it, it seems like the perfect deal. The best of all possible situations to live in.

But as I think about it, I am not sure such a lifestyle, as exciting as it may be, would be conducive to raising two little children. And I love having my children. So maybe, despite my yearning for foreign adventure, I am living exactly the life I am supposed to be. Maybe I will get a chance to visit all the places I want to in my life, I think the slow, plodding path to them is my path after all. That way, I get to take my adorable babies with me.

Explain this show to me please. . .

Okay, will someone please explain "Army Wives" to me??

Not the actual concept, that I get. I live and work with enough of Army/Navy/Air Force wives here already and I get why the show is incredibly popular in this area. You literally cannot chuck a rock in this area without hitting some employee of "the fort".

What I don't get is the show itself. Maybe I need to watch more episodes to fully understand it. Maybe I will never get this show because I am not a military employee or spouse. My best friend, who is a former army wife, introduced me to this show off of her tivo a couple of weeks ago. I got to watch two episodes with her, including the incredibly dramatic season finale, (You know, the one where the presumed dead army something or other make a surprise appearance at his daughter's high school graduation), and it has been bothering me ever since. Not constantly, like I lie awake in bed pondering this, but every once in a while when I have nothing else to do I think about it.

And what I think about it how I just didn't get it. From what I saw, most scenes in this show seem to consist of different characters crying while Catherine Bell looks on with that incredibly selfless understanding look on her face.

Now I have cried in front of my kids and husband at different points in my life, but I think only once have I cried in front of a friend (and you know who you are, it was at at the playground and your house if that give you a clue). And if any of my friends ever shot me that look that C-Bell ever exhibited, I would probably smack them across the face to snap them out of it. I know it is supposed to be a look of caring and concern, but to me it just looks condescending and a tad bit self righteous.

But maybe that is just me. If you are a fan of this show and get a great deal of enjoyment out of it, could you please explain it to me? I want to hear your opinion.

And for the record, do you know why there isn't a show about the "other employees of the fort"? Because it would just be a bunch of women complaining about how their husbands are never home. And who the heck wants to watch that?

Random Thoughts about Math

I had a very odd thought today. It was a totally off the wall thought that I want to share here in case someone out there knows what the heck I am talking about. This odd thought concerned math. You know, Math. The school subject that a lot of us absolutely hated and couldn't wait to be rid of. (except we know now as adults that we are never actually rid of it, it follows us forever)

In an effort to get my mind off of all of the stress in my life, I sat down this morning to read the new Elin Hilderbrand novel, "The Island". In the book, there is a small part where one character was talking about how her son was at one point failing Trigonometry. She sent her husband to deal with the child's teacher at the parent/teacher conference, and he dealt with it by having a year long affair with said teacher. In recounting the story, she remarked that the worst part was that her son never actually learned any math that year. The teacher was passing him solely based on the affair with his father.

Now, as a former educator, there is so much I could say about that whole situation. SO MUCH. I could really go to town on this subject, but I'm not going to today. My mind went a totally different direction on this subject. I started thinking about higher math in general. Now, I never took Trig or Calculus. I just barely passed Algebra and I believe I passed Statistics, but I can't be absolutely sure. I liked to tell people that I just couldn't do it because it was too hard, and I just wasn't a math person. And this may well have been a little true. I was always artistic and very right brained, but mostly I realize now I just didn't want to concentrate and do the work required for these subjects. There were just too many things I would rather have been doing. There were dances to go to, boys to meet, the mall to hang out it, my ballet recitals to practice for, and art to create. There didn't seem to be a single moment allotted in my day to devote to learning higher math concepts.

Well, good Lord! Here was my thought for today: If I knew then what I know, I would probably be a math whiz. A mathmetician probably. With all the obligations in my life now as an adult and a parent, I would love it, LOVE IT, if someone told me that all I really needed to do for the next hour was sit down and learn math. Not referee fights between my children, worry about what to cook for dinner, or whether the bills are paid, just sit down and learn math. I almost think I would possibly find it relaxing.

But I guess that is the story of all our lives. If only we knew then what we know now. Oh, the things I would do if only I had that information back then.

What do you think you would do/be now if you knew then all that you know now???