It's good to be wanted....

You know you are a college graduate when....

You get that letter from the Army, trying to convince you that now that you've spent all this money getting an education, the best thing you can do for yourself is to sign up to be cannon fodder. Well, that's not exactly how they put it, but certainly, when the Army is taking whatever it can get in terms of volunteers, you can bet they might even accept a 56-year-old woman with numerous medical conditions. I wonder if they'd let me be the boss?

There's been another mass shooting, this time at a mall in Omaha, Nebraska. Loner/loser kid, just fired from his job, just ditched by his girlfriend, apparently with a history of problems, decided to "go out in a blaze of glory" by randomly picking off Christmas shoppers. Give that boy a medal, somebody. He's itching for his 15 minutes of fame. Too bad no one bothers to teach the difference between fame and infamy. Well, even if his school taught it, he might not have been there, since he was a drop-out. I can't even imagine standing there, trying to decide between gift ideas, when suddenly, BAM BAM BAM, and people are screaming and dropping and bleeding all around me. It really puts the Ho Ho Ho back in Christmas.

Excuse me for sounding angry, sarcastic, and bitchy. Today I spent some wonderful time with my students on our last day of class, including one who was arrested recently for making a rather large error in judgment. People under the age of 30 are often still figuring out who and what they are. People under the age of 21 are for sure still trying to figure out who and what they are. One of my colleagues in the cubicle room, a math teacher, stopped by my cubicle today to tell me how impressed he was with my warmth and encouragement of my students. Why wasn't there a teacher there for that boy in Omaha, someone who saw more in him than even his own parents did? I know that it is true that people will live up to--or down to--what others expect of them. Sadly, tragically, that boy lived down to what others thought of him.

Gentle readers--I know you're gentle if you have been hanging with me--wherever you are, whoever you are, go and hug a child. I've hugged about six today. They might have looked like grown men and women, and part of them is grown, but the part I hugged was that little kid who still can't sleep on Christmas Eve, listening for Santa Claus. So tired.... Dr. S.