Optimism

I want to start out with telling ya’ll a story about how my optimism affects me. Now I would say that I’m a generally happy and optimistic person. I tend to think that everything is going to work out great and even when it doesn’t I jut make a new greater plan. This usually doesn’t work out either but will get into that later.

So about a year and a half ago I decided that I would get a gym membership with my friend Casey in Abilene. Now I’m sure every female can relate to what I’m about to say. About once a month I make a new plan about how I’m going to lose a ton of weight for this upcoming thing and man will I look good. It never happens. So last year when we got these memberships we were doing really well about going every day and working out. In fact we were doing so good that we decided we were actually going to train for a mini triathlon and eventually do a whole triathlon. Now those of you who know me well will laugh in my face about this and if you don’t know me well then you should laugh too.

So here is what are training consisted of: we would do a few miles on the elliptical each day (you see because I just don’t like the treadmill or running… oh wait you mean you have to run in a triathlon? Dang it!) And then maybe 20-30 minutes on the bike every now in then. In fact I even had to teach Casey to ride a bike. Sure she used to ride as a kid but couldn’t remember how. So after buying a bike at Wal-Mart… a little boy’s bike at that… I’m short, get over it, and those are the cheap ones, we embarked on our adventure. After hitting a few parked cars and some trash cans we were on our way to accomplishing our mini triathlon. Did I mention that one time someone talked me into trying to pop a curb on my bike and it was the most painful thing I ever did? Let’s just say it didn’t work out. Don’t listen to your friends when they tell you to do stupid things. Now Casey also decided to start swimming because as you all know swimming is part of a triathlon. Well to tell the truth I really just don’t like to swim so I decided to ignore that part because when the time came the love for swimming would enter my body as well as the stamina to go the whole way. At least that is what I thought. So now from what you can see the only thing I’m actually doing that will benefit the triathlon is the bike and to be honest we only did that about once a week. But boy were we excited. Every day when we worked out we talked about our mini triathlon and we told our friends about it (they probably laughed behind are back). We are both so optimistic that we never thought for a minute that this might not happen. In fact eventually it faded out and I never thought about it again until today when she brought it back to my memory. I guess I was suppressing those negative thoughts of not completing my goal. Oh ya I forgot to tell ya’ll that this training, though it sounds like we kept it up for quite sometime, actually only lasted about 3 weeks. That’s when we started playing basketball at the gym. And when I say playing I mean we would talk about running lines but then we would just shoot free throws. We were pretty good if anyone wants to challenge us to a two on two match. At least we had good intentions. I really think that we should lose weight by having good intentions and not just by working out.

I have one last story for ya’ll and this story is about the time I decided not to be optimistic anymore. So last semester I began my search for the perfect teaching job. In fact I found one at Dallas isd. It wasn’t too far from home and it was Kindergarten. I love kindergarten because they learn so much and say the funniest things ever. Plus if you need an ego boost just go into a kindergarten room. They are obsessed with you and think you are the prettiest person that ever lived. It’s awesome. So I began the process of the online application. Now this took me about a week… I sometimes “feel” like I’m busy and can’t get things done but really I’m just “busy” hanging out with people. So during this week I began to picture my dream job. I imagined the lessons I would do and how much the kids would love me and how the parents would love me so much that I would get teacher of the year my first year and just exactly how I would decorate my perfect little room… in fact I even drew a diagram of that (don’t judge me). So I was in such a state of happiness I didn’t even think about the fact that I still had to apply, call for an interview, ace the interview, and get hired. Well I finally called the school and to my dismay the job had ALREADY BEEN FILLED!!!! Why God??? Why did you let me get so excited just to dash my dreams! Nothing will ever be the same again!! These were the thoughts running through my head.

Oh wait the next day I found a 1st grade job online. Ok so it’s not kindergarten but wow will first grade be so totally awesome and everyone will want my advice even the veteran teachers because I will have such innovative ideas. Man will I be good. Ok that job was already filled to. This happened about 2 more times before I decided to forget optimism. It was just too hard having my dreams dashed each time. So I finally landed an interview for a 2nd grade job. Ok forget it I just can’t help being optimistic because obviously this is my new perfect position. And since I got the interview then they were going to LOVE me and nothing was stopping me now. Ok so I didn’t get that job. Then a school contacted ME I mean I didn’t call them they called ME! Man I must have done something good and that surely meant I had it in the bag or they wouldn’t have even called me right? Nope didn’t get that one. Ok this happened one more time before I decided to forget teaching for the semester it was just to hard to get a job. I know I know I only went on 3 interviews but I’m not used to being rejected, after all in my mind I’m apparently the perfect teacher that everyone wants at their school. They probably didn’t hire me so the other teachers wouldn’t be jealous.

So I’m trying not to dream so much. Well it’s not working yet but I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much. That’s not working either. Oh well I guess I’m confined to a life of optimism. I hope you don’t have problems like me!