Another day, another mind bent towards insanity and destruction

Today I began volunteering at a local elementary school, and I must say it felt nice to experience a daunting reality outside of my life of priveledge.

Not that it felt nice to see teachers immersed in a method that relies on belittlement and intimidation. Nor was it good to see kids stuck in two modes of behavior, apatheticness or willful malevolence.

But I did enjoy the walk home with Rudy and his younger brother Sterling. They're in the fifth and fourth grade, respectively, and have lived near me for the past month since their house burned down. They both complain about school, but emphasize that it's alright as long as they keep their heads down and don't argue too much. They could do much worse, other children in the class today would clamor for attention with the intention of appealing to my fresh new face or making the teacher regret yet another day that she signed up to dedicate her life to the pursuit of lower education. Anyways...

Rudy and Sterling are among my favorite kids in the school. They are dead broke, low key, and still seem to have an affection for the pleasures of life. Rudy is an enthusiastic Slipknot fan, and I used our walk home as a chance to educate them on the dangers of sex and the conditions of child labor in the 18th century. He seemed knowledgeable about the first subject but was appalled that children could live harder lives than himself. Hopefully his surprise will not turn into a dijected acceptance of his lot in life.

I myself must say that I enjoyed the day, but I'm not sure how long I can keep up the charade of being a bright-eyed youngster in pursuit of a teaching career while bantering to the truly obscene elements of these kids that most adults either purposefully ignore or immediately punish. I let loose the word fuck today in front of a student while lecturing to him about why he should be nicer to his teacher. That might just get me in trouble tomorrow.

On the way back from the kids hotel on Nevada I stopped in at the Conoco to roll a cig, and then got into a conversation with the gas station attendent on a smoke break behind the store. She said she knew the two kids I had walked home, and agreed with me about the shoddy conditions of our public schools, strangled both by their meager budgets and their strict adherence to a code of ethics. She said I should probably pursue a career in private education. If that's true, what am I spending the next year getting certified in a public school for?

The first blog, hopefully not the last...

Hey, my name is Charles Nichols and I'm creating this blog on an impulse. If you've heard of me before, you probably think I'm an asshole, or you're one of my good friends, probably both. What you may not be aware of is that I've got a big hard on for exceeding expectations and making the world a better place. One of my favorite things is showing apathetic people who are stuck in their ways the beauty of transforming the world into a better place by vision and force of will. And I've got some ideas, but no muscle (and often little motivation). However, I am crazy enough to try shit out, and I hope that this site can possibly provide a sphere of action. If not, fuck it. There's plenty of useless webspace out there already.