Career?!

I've always had a secret interest to teach. I know I wouldn't mind teaching at the college level, but I would really like to teach at the public school level. Currently, I am a Sales Assistant in a large publishing house. I love to read and I like publishing but this is not hte position that I desire. I would prefer to be in Marketing. I do not feel like there is any creative aspect of m yjob which is what I desire. I nejoyed making sell-sheets and things like that, or brain storming to think of different ways to push books. In Sales you only think of ways to sell books, which doesn't really include the 'pretty' part of marketing.

So I was accepted for an interview for NYC Teaching Fellows, but I never went for the interview because I was then hired for this position. But now, I just keep thinking about teaching. And surprise, surprise it pays more than my current job. I am at $32,000. Teaching starts at $43,000. Thats a good $11,000 difference. That's my school loans.

Then there is school. For the NYC teaching fellows position you have to sign up for a Master of Education program at a NYC school. It is subsidized and you only end up paying about $6,600 of your tuition. That's fine, my only problem is right now I am currently in an online only Master of Communication program. I think that if I ever want to teach at a college level I will need a Ph.D. And I would much rather have my MA in Communication alone or along with a MA in Education than to just have an MA in Education. So I am caught in a limbo. If I would have taken the full-time track I would be finished in a year and that would not conflict. But I am on the part-time two year track. :-/ I really do not know what I should do?

Any, any suggestions would help. You may ask yourself why I want to teach so bad... Well it is because the school system seems to be failing inner-city children, to the point where they are running trial programs which pay children to do well. They literally give them money based on their grades. I do not agree with this at all. It's not like this program is for 12th graders, to promote them to move on out of the system. This is for like fourth graders and 5th graders. Then when they are promoted and in junior high their ambition drops right back down because they feel like they need to be paid to educate themselves. Does anybody else besides me see the ugly irony in this?

Everybody Isn't Meant to Be a Parent

One day I was going to the store and I saw a young woman with two children. One child was in a stroller and there was a little girl, about 4, standing next to her. The child asked for some chips, or some type of snack and whined a bit like any normal child would do. The saying "a kid in a candy shop" exists for a reason. The little girl was not being really bad or loud but her mother yanked the girls arm so hard and dragged her out of the store while muttering some type of expletive to the child. I could not believe my eyes. It was not as if she pulled the infamous tantrum and threw herself on the floor, kicking and screaming. She was calm, just the usual plea of a child who wants sugar. Another lady and myself simply looked at each other and then she said "some people simply are not meant to be parents" I am pro-choice by nature. But incidents like these make me wish there was more information and resources, not necessarily for abortion, but just about parenting in general, whether it was adoption info, abortion info, birth control info or parenting counseling. There needs to be more resources in inner-city communities to help young woman adapt to parenting or opt-out of parenting. Supposedly teenage pregnancies have dropped but the incidents of unprepared/faulty parenting have not. These are issues that need to be severely addressed.

Hair Weaves

Am I really the only one who is starting to truly despise hair weaves? Or better yet women who act like they cannot live without one. Boy these Korean beauty supply store owners are making money off of black people! Now I have rocked weaves in the past and yea I looked cute. But, they pull your edges out, they make you tap your head like a mad person. And I was not a habitual hair weave wearer. I switched it up from perm to braids to weave to whatever. But now I am natural, well I am locking my hair actually. I have friends whom hair I have never seen without a weave that I have known for several years. I have friends who cannot go outside without a wig or weave in their hair. I have a cousin who is locking her hair but wears a wig everyday because she doesnt want to experience the "ugly phase". But my thing is oh, so one magical day your going to pull off your wig and you'll have dreads down to your shoulder? All I can say is 'loser.' Black women embrace some of the same qualities we criticize men for desiring. A bit hypocritical to me. As a recent college grad maybe I will go open a beauty supply shop and watch the premium yaki fall off the shelves just as fast as hair dye and skin lightening creams...

tell me what you think.

Sean Bell

This past Friday, April 25, 2008, the three police officers involved in the Sean Bell case were acquitted of all charges. I was immediately repulsed at the way such criminal cases involving the police are treated. Crimes against the police offer increased mandatory sentencing but crimes from the police towards civilians do not. I do know that the specifics of this particular case may have been unclear, particularly on what started the tension between both parties, but the amount of police force used was excessive. I think that is indeed undeniable, especially for one office that fired 31 shots, and had time to reload.

I know many are seeing this as a race issue as well as a power issue. Yes, two of the cops are Black, but one of those fired only 4 shots, and the other if I am not mistaken was supposedly undercover with alcohol in his system? I am not exactly sure. But either way, working for the police as a Black man is a tricky issue in and of itself. Often Black cops feel that they have to raise the bar with certain issues to prove their allegiance to the police system which often results in stiffer treatment of Black criminals or suspected criminals. In addition, if the victim’s were White I strongly don’t think that these cops would have gotten off regardless of the race of the cops who did the shooting. Although the case was very unclear in some ways, the cops weren’t even charged of being reckless. One bullet even hit the AirTran platform. Now if these charges aren’t criminal and we are blaming it on police training then maybe police training should be altered. My mother is a correction officer and an Air Force Reservist, I am aware that law enforcement officers are trained to shoot to kill. But in the same notion, I wonder if they are taught to use excessive force. It definitely takes my mind back to the Diallo case where the trial was moved to Albany and the cops were acquitted of all charges. Sean Bell’s trial was seen by a judge without a jury, which is something that should be definitely be mentioned.
It definitely presents an issue of whose lives we value. As a state we definitely value the lives of our law enforcement, especially cops but yet they are the lowest paid. I would like to say we value the lives of our citizens but in some realms we probably value the lives of our pets more. In the case of Michael Vick, and the illegal dog fighting ring, which included some deaths and malnutrition, he was given two years jail time. Some of the dogs were also given ‘rehab’ care afterwards. But in the case of human lives, since the police are involved, it isn’t criminal and they are only protecting themselves. I definitely think some things have to change. It sends a horrible message. Naturally, there will be a civil suit, but even that doesn’t overturn to what me seems like an injustice.

JUST STARTING...

I'll be back before ya know it.