24

When I thought about my twenty-fourth year of life, I always said that I wanted to be married, a film director, or something that was artistic and abnormal. It's now been three months since I have turned twenty-four and all I can think of, is my life is not where I thought it would be. And it has been freaking me out.

First, I'm not married, though I'm in a relationship with a nerdy amazing man who is more than I wanted or ever expected. I am finally on my own, with a full-time job and two degrees attached to my being. And yet, it still feels like it's not enough.

I feel as though I should be doing more. Starting a career...know what I want as a career. I should have figured all this crap out by now. I spent so much time in school, that I think I forgot that there is more out there. Being a student is easy. People tell you what they expect, how they expect their papers and they even give you lovely curves when they know the entire class is going to fail. Life isn't like that. And that is the part that I wish any teacher from high school to college would have drilled in my head more so than whether or not one version of a Greek myth turned play held traces of social commentary of the time.

As much as I loved my time in school and learned about so many different periods in depth or of writers that slipped through he cracks of my high school, I never thought of what to do after I finally graduated. Then it happened. I graduated with an English degree. One of the many humanities majors who had no technical skill other than the standard YouTube, Facebook, Google quality. What was I going to accomplish? What was my reason of being? I started feeling utterly depressed with my sudden conclusion that I just and not ready.

In my existential crisis, I have annoyed my boyfriend and best friend because they could see something that I couldn't, and still have some issues with seeing myself. They understood that for my age, I'm not doing too bad. It could always be better, but I'll eventually get there. Worst part of it all was that it was my supervisor who finally got it in my head that I'd be fine. He repeated exactly what everyone else was saying, but it was the look that he gave me which really got me out of my crisis. He looked at me as if I had two heads as he recounted the fact that I just graduated and got my own apartment. What more could I want right now (other than a raise, though I wasn't going to bring that up then)?

And so I thought about it. I could use a better paying job, but the job that I have now gives me benefits and experience that I can use to build up my skill sets. It gives me an inside into a city job that may lead to other city jobs which may help me stumble across something. My supervisor's look of "are you serious right now" made me realize just how childish I was really being. I was upset because life was not going the way I wanted it to. Because I had no control over nearly every situation. I started to realize that I was so not done growing up and that I still needed time to be reckless in certain ways. I take my life far too seriously and at times, I just need to let go. I can't control every aspect of my life...though I really want to, and I will seriously need to chill out and just enjoy what I have and build little by little for the future.

Or some nonsense like that.

Education System

In New York, there has been a lot of talk about the expansion of quality education and rooting out the problems with the system. The parents feel that it is inadequate teachers, as well as the Department of Education against them and their children. If it's not that, it's the mayor and his lackeys preying on the minority (which happens to be the majority, but that is another topic entirely). In all honesty, the real problem lies in the parents and the government.

The school administration can only do so much to help families out. A principal can do so much to assist a parent and their child. It doesn't help that most parents feel that their children are perfect beings that have been sent to Earth to enhance the lives of others by slowly eating away at their psyche. Nonetheless, parents find fault in the school system without taking some of the blame on their part.

I receive questions constantly on why a child did not get into a particular program or school. And despite (or maybe in spite) of what I am saying; there are parents who automatically feel that every issue needs to be taken to a lawyer or to the news media. Policy is policy to be quite frank.

If a program has a limited amount of seats and has a set list of priority groups that the selection methods are based upon, why do you think your child was not chosen?

In regards to the mayor and his fiends; a specialized school with an assessment that tests the abilities of the students who aspire to take said assessment, does not make it a racist (or excludes students based on race). If you feel that the SHSAT (an acronym for Specialized High School Admissions Test) has too many students that belong to a specific group, the solution is not to have a quota for races. If you build up the skills and the love of learning, then you have more students from different backgrounds that want to be able to excel on their own merits rather than their races.

It all reeks of disaster. Politicians with agendas and no brains, and parents with...this desire to bend the world to their will. The best way for children to learn anything about life is to experience disappointment. It teaches humility. The best way for schools to succeed, is for parents and the school staff to work together. But this is all just...wishful thinking. Perhaps the school systems of other states appreciate their school staff more...but in this day and age, I'm starting to highly doubt it.

I once wanted to be a teacher; with this crazy idea to open minds through the books that I've read. But now, with the nine students winning the lawsuit against the teacher's union in California, and everything that I've experienced in New York, or read in the news, it all seems like a waste. Why bother trying to get a child to learn, or to teach when all there is now are parents who don't know the difference between a great teacher and an awful one; or the mayor pulling the race card out of his sleeves like a sleezy magician,

-Alicia