salience
August 11, 2003
1. JLo is everywhere in my life these days--whether it's my dad ranting about the nerve of a puerto rican portraying a mexican in Selena, my mom watching Maid in Manhattan, the twins blasting her records in their room, or my brother contemplating whether or not she wears a butt clamp to bed every night (you know her wagon isn't that small normally...). I don't mind really. It's not that I consider her a role model or anything, it's more like she's a presence in Hollywood I approve of. Yeah.
2. The guys started school today--the twins as freshmen, my brother as a junior. I swear, where does the time go? One minute I'm changing diapers, checking math homework, and helping them memorize the Gettysburg Address. The next, they're all growing up and hormonal. It's weird deja vu. I see parts of myself in them and I can only hope that they won't make the same mistakes I did.
3. It's a little over a week until I leave to go back to BC. I can't wait. Not to be offensive, but I am so sick of Georgia. Usually it's one of those situations where I can semi-forget where I am. Any place can have office buildings, parkways, elementary schools, and radio stations. The actual landscape is not what bothers me. No, I enjoy the heat and I have a blast with my family. It's when I am out in the culture that things get rough. There are the slobbering drawls and the confederate flags. The in-your-face-born-again Christians and the pickups with high suspension. The white supremacy and the anything-for-cheerleading mothers. Then there are the Valdosta, Georgia Southern, Clayton, Georgia State, Tech, Kennesaw and UGA stickers on every third car which represent these things to me. Even better are the vehicles with three stickers, a license plate cover, and a flag displaying every letter of a Georgian Alma Mater. It's a contest to see who can smother whom the fastest. I suppose it's because I believe in Social Darwinism, but why all of this pride in a Georgian instituion of higher learning? Is one's educational experience in Georgia so valuable that the state can't contain itself? It wants to share the wealth and just give it away? I doubt it. Especially when Georgian schools are ranked at the bottom of the lot nationally. Sure, it costs next to nothing. But it's also worth next to nothing. It's brainwashing: mediocre education for people who have set low standards to perpetuate the middle ground. Heaven forbid we expand our minds and comfort zones by assimilating to foreign places with new people. And really, if one can go places with a Georgian education, why the hell stay in Georgia? Oh, right. If you left the state, no one would recognize the school names. Pardon me, my mistake. Lord knows it all comes down to parading those stickers, license plate covers, and flags we all covet so dearly.
2. The guys started school today--the twins as freshmen, my brother as a junior. I swear, where does the time go? One minute I'm changing diapers, checking math homework, and helping them memorize the Gettysburg Address. The next, they're all growing up and hormonal. It's weird deja vu. I see parts of myself in them and I can only hope that they won't make the same mistakes I did.
3. It's a little over a week until I leave to go back to BC. I can't wait. Not to be offensive, but I am so sick of Georgia. Usually it's one of those situations where I can semi-forget where I am. Any place can have office buildings, parkways, elementary schools, and radio stations. The actual landscape is not what bothers me. No, I enjoy the heat and I have a blast with my family. It's when I am out in the culture that things get rough. There are the slobbering drawls and the confederate flags. The in-your-face-born-again Christians and the pickups with high suspension. The white supremacy and the anything-for-cheerleading mothers. Then there are the Valdosta, Georgia Southern, Clayton, Georgia State, Tech, Kennesaw and UGA stickers on every third car which represent these things to me. Even better are the vehicles with three stickers, a license plate cover, and a flag displaying every letter of a Georgian Alma Mater. It's a contest to see who can smother whom the fastest. I suppose it's because I believe in Social Darwinism, but why all of this pride in a Georgian instituion of higher learning? Is one's educational experience in Georgia so valuable that the state can't contain itself? It wants to share the wealth and just give it away? I doubt it. Especially when Georgian schools are ranked at the bottom of the lot nationally. Sure, it costs next to nothing. But it's also worth next to nothing. It's brainwashing: mediocre education for people who have set low standards to perpetuate the middle ground. Heaven forbid we expand our minds and comfort zones by assimilating to foreign places with new people. And really, if one can go places with a Georgian education, why the hell stay in Georgia? Oh, right. If you left the state, no one would recognize the school names. Pardon me, my mistake. Lord knows it all comes down to parading those stickers, license plate covers, and flags we all covet so dearly.
lasaliente, 16:36
