How much is your happiness worth?

A couple of weeks back a friend of mine made a question that has been roaming through my mind for a while now: How much is your happiness worth? This question of course has stayed with me as days have gone by because believe it or not, for me, this is a difficult question to answer. We live in a high speed world, a world in which we spend loads of time and money in everything we like, but think it twice to spend time or money in what we need. How many times have you felt alone, or trapped within the limits of your life and yet refuse to seek professional help because it would be too expensive? Instead you go to the mall and spend 300-400 dollars in a new phone, or shoes and clothes that you will probably never have a chance to wear. Aren’t you spending more in this escapade? And in the end, once the shopping is done you go back to feeling miserable. Cuanto vale tu felicidad? How much are you willing to invest in your own happiness?

If you are like me I consider exercise a wonderful therapy but lately I have found the perfect excuse to avoid it, “I don’t have the time” and yet, I spend time in Facebook, I check twice a day all my e-mail accounts, I keep up to date with all my favorite tv series, I follow all my favorite authors and books, etc, etc, etc. Bottom line is, it’s been a while since the last time I exercised. Does it sound familiar to you? We have to learn to make time for the things we love and keep us sane, that help us feel happy and healthy, understand that if we make time, there will be time. How much is your happiness worth?, It is worth as much as you are willing to invest both economically and spiritually in yourself and last but not least it is worth as much as the man or the woman in the mirror.

Once you start taking care of yourself you will start being happy, but this time it will be a long term effect.

Justice

A 30 year old male teacher rapes a 15 year old girl and he is immediately perceived as a monster, a perverted human being and a lot of other categories that involve unpleasant and heavy words. However when the situation is the other way around, when a 30 year old female teacher rapes a 15 year old boy, it is not a felony but a fantasy. The dynamics of gender that our society deems as correct don't seem to be based in morality or in right and wrong for that matter, but on power relations. When the authority figure that abuses his power is a male, whether the abuse is directed towards a female or a weaker male we consider it abnormal and abusive; on the other hand but when the weaker male conquers the female figure of authority it is considered an accomplishment to the conquering male. Double standards anyone?

Why can't we be objective when it comes to justice? I believe people have come to forget that justice being blind does mean that it will be played with at will and it will not notice but that it will treat everyone objectively, no special considerations will be taken because you are rich, white, male, powerful among lots of others that I will not mention here. Why is it so hard for people to understand that actions have consequences and that punishments should be applied according to the consequence not the level of education, money or power that the culprit might have. Maybe if we could convince people that consequences will be upheld no matter who you are the world would not be as it is, maybe we would have more equality, respect and better social interactions with those around us, we would have less hate crimes, robberies, murders, rapes, civil rights violations, etc, etc,etc.

Nonetheless I do not want you to see me as an idealist that is proposing an immediate solution to obtain world peace, that would be unreal and idealistic. However it would be a nice first step.

If you liked Mac Farlane's Twisted land of Oz Collectible figurines, you will definitely enjoy this artwork.

http://caffeineandcarpaltunnel.tumblr.com/post/1246223992/the-twisted-princess-series

Enjoy!

On the evil nature of humanity

As I was reading an article on a freshman's suicide because of a roommate's prank, I sat down and I asked myself, What could possibly drive a human being to be so evil towards another? Why would you feel such satisfaction ruining another's life when you don't even know him?
You know, some people say that children are naturally good, I disagree. As members of the animal kingdom we are taught to be nice, we are inculcated with a sense of morality and right and wrong, we are not born with it. Could it be that we channel the frustrations of out lives by doing to others what we would love to do to those that hurt us directly? Or are we just psychotically driven to hurt others just because it feels good?

To think that as humans we consider ourselves an evolved and civilized part of nature and even sometimes, we think we are above nature. But when things like this happen it is when we remind ourselves that we are not above nature, actually we are below it, because there is no other animal in the face of this earth that loves so much so the an innocent suffer, there is no other animal that enjoys destruction as much as we do. It pisses me off to see how this is reported in the news with easiness and calm as if it was just another natural thing that we cannot control, but it is not, we can control it. Why don't we? That is what really worries me.

On family and blindness

After two days without being able to focus (literally, my eyes were not working properly, I couldn't focus) I realized how much you sometimes want to kill your family members and how much you love them. First, my mom was supposed to go with me to the doctor's appointment cause i forgot the location of the office(something pretty common with me to forget addresses and locations)but then she called and says she had a couple of things to do with dad so she canceled and I got pissed off, but I calmed down and went along with the day. Thing two was that my husband decided to do things his way and his way makes me nervous because it involves leaving the house an hour after the hour I had planned and it is a long trip, so it made me nervous and annoyed but still, I took a deep breath and allowed GPS system in the I- phone do the magic. In the end, I did make it to my appointment on time, I arrived there with my husband and left with the whole crew, my mom arrived there with my dad and my sister came into the picture like half an hour later. Those are things that make me remember that I love them. But this is a family themed posting so here is the other part. There are also things that make me remember how much I would like to strangle them sometimes. Once the test was done, given the side effects of the meds, I was unable to focus on anything so for me everything, specially at short sight range was a blur. And there they were, making jokes about me being blind. Making hand gestures (not nice ones) and asking me what they were doing.That was not funny. I guess family is like that, you can't change them, you just have to love them.

That last comment helps me make the transition to another thing that has been on my brain lately. Ok, so I am completely hooked with this TV series, "Parenthood", I guess, after all they remind me a little of my own family. The series was harshly criticized for being an idealized version of what a family is but I think that is not completely true. Those of us who have big families know that sometimes things can get messy, but no matter how messy, in the end, almost all the time, things work out and we end up forgiving and forgetting just because they are family and we love them. If I had to choose a favorite from the series, I guess it would have to be Julia because she is constantly trying to juggle her career with being the type of mom that always know what is going on in her 6 year old's life.But since her work consumes so much time, she is always making mistakes and getting into trouble with the other moms. It's so funny how being a lawyer she can't handle "pre-school politics". I guess sooner or later we will all get there.

Have a nice day everyone.

On Education, manners and imitation

For a couple of days now the faculty members of my Department have been at war because of a "consideration measure" taken in favor of the Seventh Day Adventist students and faculty that attend to classes on campus(given the strike that lasted almost 2 months we are now bound to give classes on Saturdays). This situation has taken me to ponder about a couple of things, one of the most important being that education does not make you educated. We are talking about faculty members that are published and worldly recognized scholars in their field of study and yet they cannot hold a civil e-mail conversation without attacking each other publicly. Why did they prefer to do this verbal exchange through e-mails? The world may never know. I guess some of them just need the recognition, some of them just enjoy arguing, but one thing is for sure, ethics and manners workshops should be held more often in my campus, some of the fellow educators need them, fast.

In other topics my students and I are talking about imitation in the classroom and how does it affect your life, your behaviors and your learning. I found a couple of pretty cool videos to compliment the readings, tomorrows article sounds promising and I'll see if I can make a psychological experiment with them, I hope its fun.

I leave with this question, why do we imitate?

Parent does not equal Good Teacher

A couple of days ago I was watching a TV show in which a man was demanding from his wife for her to take charge of their 12 year old daughter's education. The father wanted to remove the girl from the public school system and force his wife to home school the girl because he felt it was safer and it was the wife's duty to educate the girl at home. These statements done by the father other than being exaggeratedly chauvinistic and unreal left me thinking about home schooling and the level of involvement parents should have in their kids education. How far should a parent go, how much should a teacher tolerate? Where are lines crossed? Today while I was roaming the children books section at Borders I involuntarily witnessed a situation that chilled my bones but provided me with some answers to my own questions. I saw a mother trying to teach her daughter how to recognize verb tenses in Spanish. What's wrong with that? Is what you might be thinking, well, the part that chilled my bones and made me want to bitch slap the woman was that the girl was probably around eight years of age and the mother was talking to her as a drill sergeant would talk to a private during the first week of basic training. As could be expected the child was scared, about to cry and could not concentrate so every time mom would ask a question the little one would get it wrong and the whole children section plus the corridors of the store would know she got it wrong for to add insult to injury, she wasn't using her indoor voice when she corrected the child. The point this example proved to me is that being a parent does mean you are a good teacher. Not all parents have the disposition, patience and training that being a good teacher requires. There is no hormone released during pregnancy that readies you to be the appropriate teacher for your child, or somebody else's child for that matter. Being a good teacher just like every other good professional is a matter of loving what you do and those that you do it for. So if you can't take the heat, get out of the classroom before you damage your child's education in ways you would never wish to. Because as I have witnessed a vast amount of times during my years teaching, good parents are not always good teachers. Something that the aspiring teacher should always have in mind is that teaching is a calling, not just another 9 to 5 with a set of paid vacations twice a year.