Status update

OK, so the Cardinals lost the Super Bowl and the Phoenix Suns are falling apart at the seams. The best sports news I've got going for me is that Spring training is about to begin which means two great things. First...spring training is about to begin (woo-hoo)...annnnnd our weather is about to go from 'better than most in the country' to 'the envy of America'. I've been in a lot of cities in my life and I can say that there is no where else I'd like to be than Scottsdale in March. The smell of orange blossoms in the air...beautiful dry 80 degree days and still cool nights. Hundreds more people walking around the parks and lakes near my house who, I know, do that so I can live vicariously through them on their road to better health. I pledge every year to be one of them. (Are you gonna finish those fries, honey?)

This year has gotten off to a slow start, as my schooling hit a delay waiting for financial aide red tape. Soon, I tell myself, soon. I continue working in the security detail of a north Scottsdale high school learning more each day about what it will take to be a teacher. Or am I? Some days are daunting, almost overwhelming, leaving me question what I'm about to do. I see so many kids everyday living in abject apathy towards everything around them. With experience raising teenagers myself, I know first hand of the complete self-absorption that overtakes these creatures as they attempt to navigate what they think is their real world, knowing all the while that they have not a clue what awaits them. But many in this school come from very privileged homes that amount in money only, lacking serious integrity and self-worth. Kids raised by nanny's are only as strong as their parents involvement, which in some cases is not much.

The kids are only as good as their morning latte, with worth measured in tall, grande and venti. Where status is assessed by the lowest possible hang of designer jeans under a 15 year old skinny boys ass or the maximum revelation of orange colored cleavage and mid-drift fresh out of a teen girls "tan in a bottle", just daring the tyranny of a security crew to implement a dress code violation and justifying a call to the family lawyer screaming harassment. Some days I don't know what's worse. Working at a privileged area school where kids don't seem to know who they are, believe that their lives are thee most awful and look at you with such incredulous entitlement that they wonder why you even exist...or a poverty stricken district where the kids are real and hardcore in addition to being real hardcore. Some days I'm not sure.

Until that one kid comes up to you...who has a curiosity about the world, a desire to actually learn something that day, and he or she shows you with one smile that there is a reason to be there. And you are filled with hope. Just as one bad apple spoils the bunch, so does one young mind who wants to learn ripen the fruit. Hope. There is hope in just one. And I continue to believe in the road I'm taking.

After such draining days all I can say is "Go D-Backs".