One of those days.

Ever little once and a while I am convinced that God has stored up punishment for all my little sins and has to release them all at once. Not Big, Smiting, type of punishments. Just the punishments for not being as good of a person as I could be: Not being as nice to my fellow creatures, missing a prayer, really wanting to swear, adding my own lyrics to hymns, teaching my kids little habits that drive my wife nuts... etc. Anyway, I think there is an angel somewhere that running a tally on all my little misdeeds and punishment has to come down.

When punishment finally comes down it happens all in one day. A day when nothing goes right despite your best efforts. You can't find your keys, your late for work, you take the blame for something, someone is mad at you and you don't know why, you're overly self conscious, you forgot a bit of homework, you lose a glove...etc. So you spend the whole day in what feels like a broken treadmill. You can't get ahead no matter how are you run.

Usually when these days come around I find a nice controlled area of my house and don't answer the phone. As long as I am in an area that I can control then nothing can hurt me and once the day is over then I can resume my regular activities.

I just wish I could avoid these days, but as of now hiding is the best way that I have found.

Oh yeah, there is something else.

Of all the reasons that I had that kept me from going back to school there is one that I forgot to mention and it's the one that angers me the most.

I hate people that tell me how to think.

I love to write. I've written a lot more since I graduated, I feel this is due because I can write about what I want, when I want and however I want. Sure it doesn't pay, but then again I do it just because it's something that I enjoy doing.

The problem that I'm finding at school is that my writing assignments are coming back with points knocked off because the teacher didn't like the way I did something. I didn't do it wrong, I just didn't do it the way they wanted me to. For example, on my last assignment I got to tell a story (I'd put it here but it's in Spanish so I don't think most would get it) I wrapped up the story with one sentence. That was my conclusion, I don't like the wordy conclusions because I feel that they distract from what I was trying to do with the rest of the story. In the case of this story I was just trying to make the reader laugh, I didn't want to muck it up with my feelings and reflections on the incident. Turns out the teacher wanted me to expound on my feelings and knocked me 15 points for it. WTH?

I've always had a problem with people that tell me that I need to do things the way they tell me to. Especially when there is no other reason other than they say so. I've made it my own personal goal that if my kids don't like the way I do something they can sit down with me and figure out why I do it the way I do. That way we can figure out a better way to do things or my kids can come to the realization that I do things for good reason. Either way we both win.

There is also that problem I have with conforming for the sake of conforming. Throughout school whenever I would point out that the teacher was wrong in the way they were grading I was usually told "Just do it his way for now and down the line you can do it right." That never sat right with me. I just think too many people sit back and do things the way they've always been done and don't think about trying to do it better. Then again these people are smarter then me, you know it because they get paid more than me.

A couple of frustrations

There are a lot of things that set me off. Over the years I can safely say that this list has gone down but still there are a couple of things that really get my garments in a bunch.

Stay on Task!
I recently took a calling to teach the 4-6 year-olds in primary. I did it back when I first got home off my mission so I felt that I could certainly do it again. My big problem is with the Primary presidency. First, if you have any announcements for the teachers you can do it over the podium and the beginning of primary. Second, once sharing time starts you and all your councilors are doing a certain job. You don't go off to do other things or talk with other teachers. You can take care of business before or after church, sharing time is about the kids, give them the attention they deserve. Third, if there aren't enough teachers to keep the kids calm, then get more teachers. I shouldn't be the only adult during sharing time trying to keep the kids in their seats and paying some kind of attention. Forth, if I'm teaching a class then you should wait until after if you need to tell me something. There is no reason to interrupt my class to tell me to prepare a game for the Halloween party.

Just like Banker's hours, just shorter.
So I've been preparing myself to go back to college this next year and as I do so I've been trying to find out what classes I should be taking. So I got an e-mail informing me of the academic counseling and that I could call from 8-5 so I called at 4:00pm. Turns out all the councilors leave a little earlier than 4:00pm. At least they still had a secretary to tell everyone that they don't work their whole shift.

Good Boys, Good Boys what you gonna do?
So we got a dog a couple of months ago and overall he's been great. The one problem is that when we leave him home he barks to almost no end. We got a complaint from a neighbor so we started to tie him up in the garage when we leave. Well, the other day we left the garage door open. When we came back two hours later we found the animal control officers leaving a nasty-gram (ie. your pre-citation) the cop was very obtuse about the whole thing and as cops usually are very arrogant. Suffice it to say that I've never had a good relationship with cops. I've always been on the good side of the law, but when they pass sixteen-year-olds out past curfew to grab a guy heading home on his bike after midnight then I start wondering about their intentions. They've even pulled me over for not stopping behind the white line at a stop sign, hey I usually do it but this one is set way to far back. Nevertheless, there is a house not a block away that everyone knows is a drug house and the cops are hanging around my house to give me a citation for a dog that was barking for no more than two hours and doesn't do it hardly at all.