Dream-Killer

Last year, my students started calling me a "dream-killer," due to the strict way I grade essays. I'm so particular with language and grammar that, regardless of the color pen I use, I manage to make essays bleed with the regret of existence. But even with the low grades and the disheartening sighs, my students laugh at me and at each other before they dig their heels to do better for the revision. In addition, I have to say that I have created mini-dream-killers; whenever they edit other students' work, they are as harsh as I am.

Although they call me a "dream-killer," it's more for humor; I like to think of it as a "call to reality." The quality of student writing has declined in the past years since I have been teaching. What really gets me is that some students believe they can really write; some even want to be professional writers. Yet they cannot even string a coherent sentence together. When they see the corrections I make or the comments I write, it's a reality check that they were not analyzing their own mistakes or paying attention to details.

There is one particular student in mind. Inspired by Twilight and teenage romantic notions of eternal love, she really wants to be a writer and write stories, à la Stephanie Meyer (that's the student's first mistake: idolizing low-quality literature). Far be it from me to say what she wants to write--but gosh darn it!--I will not let her believe she can be professional writer. She cannot write. She is inarticulate with sentences and incomprehensible with anything related to the WRITTEN word. When I bloody up papers, hers becomes completely anemic by the time I finish (pun intended).

Dream-killer. I'm going to kill that dream right now. She can write all she wants and aspire to be a writer all she wants, but I will make bloody sure she will know that she will not be a good one.

Reality is a bitch.

Cutting the Dead Weight

After nearly a month of silence, I was invited to lunch to visit a friend, only to have him tell me that he was mad at me. We had it out, and neither one of us apologized. This was a colleague, and we have (or had) been friends for about five years. He accused me of valuing my job more than our friendship. I never thought of it that way before, but now that he brought it up: I think it's true, and so I admit it: I am a selfish person, even when it comes to friendship.

There is nothing wrong with spending time with coworkers outside of the workplace, but when I discover things about a person that could intrude with his professional life, I can't lie for him when he gets into trouble. And yes, I may even lose respect for that person. So if I value MY job more than his job and our friendship, then it's a loss I'm willing to live with.

Symbol of Your Life

I see it everywhere: marks of individuality, signs of uniqueness, symbols of the "me."

There is a long history of the tattoo; one can even argue that God made the first one for Cain--a symbol that singled him out as a murderer. In ancient Egypt, mummies have been discovered with symbols and signs on their bodies, characters and designs to represent love, honor, respect, even punishment. Tribes from all over the world practice the art of tattooing to mark the men and women of status. Tattoos obviously have had a cultural impact in the world today, which is why I don't find them to be repulsive; tattoos seem part of the norm.

When I was a senior in high school, I secretly wanted a tattoo. But I did not dare reveal this wish because tattoos had such a dubious reputation as "marks of deviance." But the way I saw it, tattoos were a form of storytelling. Whenever I saw one, I would ask what it represented, and certain individuals would proceed to tell me the story of what their insignia meant. Gangsters sported them to show their allegiance, bikers showed off their artistic value, and servicemen collected them as they traveled.

I always thought to myself, "If I ever got a tattoo, what would it be?" I pondered this fantasy all the way through college, but I did not dare enter a tattoo parlor to even browse. Two things stopped me at that time: my future in a professional career and my indecisiveness. At age 20, I knew that some people (future employers, whoever they may be) would not look too kindly at a "mark of deviance." I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but I could not imagine myself wearing long sleeves for most of my life just to cover up a tattoo in the classroom. Besides, tattoos were meant to be shown; what was the point if I covered them most of the time? At age 20, I also knew I had a future that would change and shape who I was. The last thing I wanted was a tattoo that no longer meant anything to me at age thirty or forty; a symbol of regret and idiocy.

Now that I am older, I still ponder that question: "If I ever get a tattoo, what would it be?" I have thought and thought about this, and now I know what I want. I realized that I am comfortable now in my own skin, who I am and what I am and what I will be in the future. I think these symbols (yes, two of them) are apt in my personality and philosophy of life. And I have been thinking about this for the past four months. So what's stopping me?

Commitment.

I am comfortable in my own skin that I like my skin just the way it is: unmarked. As I have jokingly said to friends, a wedding ring can be taken off, but a tattoo is for life. One would even ask, "So why do you even want one now?" I know that there are so many ways a person can express their individuality, and for me, it always through this blog expressing my ideas. But a tattoo is also a way of expressing that I am a person of ideas, and most of all, a person who is multi-faceted. Even a teacher gets tired of being pigeon-holed as a "role model" for the future generation. It may be repulsive and it may be frowned upon, but a "mark of deviance"--may it be a tattoo, the unusual car, the strange knickknacks, the odd haircut or hair color, the piercings, the clothes, the jewelry--allows us to be who we need to be and allows us to be who we are.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and a tattoo symbolizes so much and encompasses so many ideas. In two pictures, my whole life and being is subtly told. I remember my past and where I come from; I remember my purpose in life as I live each day in the present; and I will keep in mind of what the future holds for me whenever I stray from who I really am. It's what we all strive for: remembering who we really are and staying true to ourselves.