As I was looking for clothes, after I took a shower, I happened to look into the mirror and I realized that the only marks on my skin are scars, no fresh anything, and all of my skin is pink. and now i have complete control over that.

I woke up when the phone rang, it was my mom. She continues to beg me to come home, and this time she told me at least a little part why. I actually concidered it for a while, and then reality set in... I can't go back. By not going back I know i'm being selfish, but she needs to deal on her own. I took care of her for too long... there is another posibility though, the posibility that it is actually him telling her to tell me to come back .Me being here, he has alot less control, and i'm sure that is driving him crazy.

I think I will go back for Thanksgiving, not for them but for the rest of the family. Otherwise i'll be seen as the spoiled girl who never apreciated anything. I'm not really making sense anymore.

I've never heard her talk to me like that before, so comforting. It almost makes me want to go back.

I wonder just how much a person's childhood impacts their intelligence and emotional intelligence. There is no doubt that it affects it, but just how "possible" is it for a child who was abused to succeed in certain areas... Just how nourishing does an environment have to be?

The preschool I work at here is sooooo much less underdeveloped than the one I work in in Chicago, as far as curriculum.. just everything. I would NOT recommend the preschool I work at to anyone…Since I am a fulltime student I only work from 2-6 and most of the children begin to leave at 4… so I hardly have any time for engaging the children in learning and stimulating activities. There is no doubt that I try! But it is sad, when I see some kids just play with block everyday, and look at books, and paint… there is so much more to be explored!

            A large part of it are the parents.. see my preschool is composed of parents who do not make much money, and I am just saddened by some of these childrens’ lives. I talked to Simon the other say and she said “I don’t have a daddy, well he’s in jail because he did something bad. And mommy likes to watch tv alone in her room…” parents don’t spend nearly enough time with there children. There are plenty of kids we have that are there from 6-6… and then go home, eat dinner and are put to bed… A child was taken from CPS a few months ago because his mother was on drugs and was beating her children. At least, at least 1/3 of the parents at the preschool are single parents… and this is a conversation I heard the other day “daddy can we eat dinner tonight? (dad says) “you already are here” “but dad I’m hungry” (dad says) “well I have to buy something so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow”…

Ok I’ve lost myself in the original point in writing this….. but I do want to say that at least at school , children should be having joy and fun!... and this needs to be at all schools, not just a select few……

[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay For their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in Marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a Wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and Pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back Mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. On a bike. Makes Taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester , Mass. , 43 years ago, when Rick Was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him Brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him And his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an Institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes Followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the Engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was Anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.''

"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a Lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed Him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his Head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the School organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want To do that.''

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran More than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he Tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore For two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, It felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly Shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a Single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few Years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then They found a way to get into the race Officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the Qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he Was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick Tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud Getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you Think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with A cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best Time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world Record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to Be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the Time.

``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a Mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries Was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' One doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass. , always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

So the Kitchen is finally all clean! To give you an idea, there were two garbage bags full (we had to double bag them) of just empty liquor bottles.

Yea and we had pumkins outside in the front and the back, and yesterday morning when I was leaving there were no pumkins, only little reminats of orange gush all over the sidewalk... apearently the javalinas were hungry. I never even heard of a javilina before i moved here.. they are big ugly wild pigs with teeth.. scarry animal that is all I know. One day there was a pack of them around my door... i just sat in my car

So i'm going to clean the rest of the house now.

I have decided that i am not staying in Tucson after I graduate for the sake of my future children. One of the guys that was here last night, the one who was puking and then passed out on the bathroom floor, the one who broke a chair and almost broke the glass table, the one who was so drunk dosen't remember anything he did and the person who was still here when i left for class in the morning... he is a second grade teacher!

He was pretty cool though. He was having a bad day and that's why he suposedly got so fucked up (the guy he's dating is cheating or somthing) .... anyway. Tucson is a pretty pathetic city, why am I here?

sooo.. There was a party as my place last night and it was really crazy. I made some not so great choices : (

... but it makes everything so much better.

This is amusing...

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 545 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?