1960's

Everyday I secretly thank God that I was not born before 1987. I am grateful that I was born when I was born. I was born in a time of great music, (80's hip-hop, 90's hip-hop and R&B), semi-cool style of clothing, Micheal Jordan at the top of his game, and the list goes on. I honestly can't or at least should not complain about my life.

The reason I decided to write tonight is because I am watching a movie on TV One. The movie is called Brian's Song 2 or something like that. It seems like a pretty good movie. This move takes place in the 1960's and beyond. Its about the Chicago Bears when they were the first NFL team to room a white and black player.

What really gets me about this movie is the time period and how bad racism was. Racism is alive and well in 2009 but back then it was just terrible. The player Brian read his roommate a letter that his mother wrote. She just had all these ugly names for his roommate and all these reason of why he shouldn't be rooming with him. My blood began to boil and the sad part about it is its only a movie. Then after this Brian and some other teammates invite the black player "Gale" to go out to dinner with them. Gale accepted but was only joking, the teammates didn't get it at first. They knew he couldn't go out with him in public especially down in the south. They suggested to order take-out. That's something that also bothers me, a player couldn't be seen in public with his/her teammates because of the racism that existed in the United States.

I am grateful that I was not alive during that time period. Even the ignorant people that I have to deal with now are not as bad as the people in the 1960s. My blood boils now and I have trouble control my anger and words. If I lived back then I would have probably been killed. I do not think I would be able to peacefully protest and quietly go about my life trying to make it better for me and those around.

My request, be grateful and thankful for all of God's gifts and the gifts that your parent(s) gave to you.

I am both thankful and grateful.

Ignorance doesn't discriminate

Its funny how we assume that the more education some has the less ignorant they will be. I sit in class today, my professor is a soon to be doctor and he is Asian. It is not that hard to understand him but some of my ignorant classmates make it seem like he isn't speaking english. I had this one dude, who's father is a discrimination lawyer say "I hate people who can't speak english". I wanna say dumbass he is smarter than you and he is speaking english. Don't be mad because he wants to hold you and the rest of us accountable for our actions. Grow up and take a few seconds to honestly listen to what he is saying.
What do you think? Do you think I am being to sensitive? I just honestly feel bad for the guy. To me and probably many of you who love Madea, at times he sounds like her. For example he says "datter" instead of "data". I think its funny because of madea not because he pronounces words differently.
I have a lot to learn about people.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Family Greatness

As I explore life and meet new people I begin to really reflect on life. I have honestly come to really appreciate my background and my family,specifically mom dukes. Today a girl I met called to see if I wanted to go to dinner. Of course I was knocked out and talking gibberish so I didn't go. But, when it was time for dinner I found there was a stir fry program going on my floor so I stayed in.
Later on that evening I went to this girl's suite to possibly watch Grey's. I told her and her roommates about the stir fry session. She said I should have called her because she was hungry and didn't eat. I assumed she ate when she went out to dinner with her "friends". Come to find out she didn't eat, didn't have money nor did she have a meal plan. I honestly felt bad for her possibly regretting not going to dinner with her and her friends.
Here is when the realization set in. If I was ever hungry I know I could call my mom and she would order food for me or I could use one of my cards that are in her name or my nana's name. So I am grateful for my family because they honestly won't allow our family to honestly struggle. I'm glad my mom when I was younger fostered my obsession with money. She brought fake/play money and my grandmother gave me her old check books and deposit slips. My grandfather and uncle bill taught me how to write checks. What has helped me out the greater was the banking system we had when I was at Giffen. All of this put together I learned how to value money and save money. Now I'm sure others have had similar experiences but I am truly grateful for mine.
I am happy that I am fortunate enough to be able to save my money and not have to live paycheck to paycheck. I hope in the future I can continue to be as fortunate as I am now or even more. So tomorrow I will go get two thank you cards and begin reaching out.

Until next time...
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Racism

I will continue my story on how alive racism is in Feb 2009. In Albany, a few weeks ago. A White woman hit a pedestrian near The College of St. Rose and then she flees the scene. Well guess what? She came back to the scene and reportedly she said she left the scene because she thought she hit a dog or some other animal. Now what kind of person doesn't see a body fly up in the air or over their car? I know you have to know the difference between hitting a person and hitting an animal. This isn't the worst part. Guess what happened to her? She received a ticket. Yes you got it a ticket. No she didn't get arrested and charged with vehicular manslaughter and sentence to spend some time in prison especially because she left the scene of an accident. This is some true BS!

The boys in Jena were being charged as adults for fighting not even killing someone. A young boy who was probably about 13 in the 90's was being charged as an adult for accidentally killing his little friend that was a girl. He was wrestling with her and she died. He didn't mean to kill her, he didn't do it on purpose but he was charged as an adult at the age of 13. I am pretty sure other people know of other instances when White people have gotten away with murder, literally, and some Black people go to prison for selling illegal drugs.

I do believe that change will come but it is a process. The achievement gap between Blacks and Whites is even larger than it was twenty years ago. Everything takes time look how long it took for Black people to get the right to vote. Look how long it took for Native Americans to be considered citizens of the United States of America even when they were here before any of us. Just think about all that we have accomplished and how that success did not happen over night. President Obama did not just become president over-night [inauguration happened during the day :-)]. With time and patience things will begin to change. We cannot just sit on our couch and on blog sites expecting change to happen without our help. One man or one group of people can not make change for everyone in the USA or the world, we all have to be on the same page. Just like MJ couldn't win his six NBA championship rings without the Bulls program.

Remember Be Active because you want to see change.

Actions speak louder than words.

Women with Octuplets

So on January 26th, this women in California gave birth to eight babies. Everyone was so excited and thought it was sooo wonderful. Things changed once people who knew this woman spoke to the press. The press found out that this woman lived with her parents and what really set them off is that she already had six other children. The worst part (I do not think its that bad) is that she was already on welfare or something. Now that she is not some middle class white woman the media has all types of problems. Now they want to question how she got all the babies, some wonder why she did not opt to abort some of the babies, others want to know what doctor put all of those embryos in her.
You want to know what I think, I think that if she was the Goslins (Jon & Kate plus 8), or the Duggar's (17 Kids and Counting; TLC TV show) she would have gotten more positive publicity. People would be reaching out to her, she would be on rachel ray, dr. phil, good morning america...etc. But because she is a regular American people are complaining and now they think they know what is best for this woman and her family.
Heres what I think, I think its great that she had eight children plus the six that she already has. I would love to have a huge family like that. Do you know what you could do with that many children of that age. No matter the gender, they would definitely play basketball/football/baseball/softball/track...etc. They would practically be the team especially on a basketball team. It would be wonderful to have four boys and four girls. Of course they would all be starters and everyone would want them. lol
Back to the issue at hand, stop hatin' and let that woman and her children live life. As the old saying goes "don't playa hate, participate". With that said don't hate on this woman, offer her some assistance, shoot she is definitely going to need a babysitter. If you have a problem with her living with her parents in a two bedroom house, then how bout you let them move in with you or buy them a bigger house. Otherwise, shove it because no one wants to hear it.

Until next time...

Good Music

So I may be months late but of course I do not care what so ever. Today my cousin asked me to put some young jeezy on his ipod (who knows where he got it from) but anyway I finally heard Young Jeezy, My president. So after hearing that song I knew of another song about Barack Obama. I remember the varsity coach trying to tell me that Will.i.am has a song as well. I listened to it and you know what...it really touch me. If you know me I am not a person who really expresses happiness real well. Of course I know how to get madd and pissed off but excitement and happiness are not my strong points. Well anyway, when I heard Will.i.am's song about Obama I just got this feeling of what a great song this is. When I get this feeling I know when a song is really good and touches its audience. That is what Will.i.am's song does to me, it hits home and forces me to experience happiness and excitement, I can probably go as far as saying hope. Anywho I think both songs about President Obama are great and I really hope change does come to America and everywhere else.

Until next time...

Student Teaching

Student teaching has begin. The day and the life of a student physical education teacher. I do not just call myself a student teacher because as a physical educator, we are expected to coach as well. I do not mind coaching at all but what I do mind is having to stay up all day long. If you know me, you know that I have probably stayed up about twenty times since I hit high school. I am the napping queen but they are trying to take my title away. That's messed up I know tell me about it.

Anyway, student teaching is again a long day ending with bringing players home after practice. In the past three days I have watched a student pick his nose and put his finger in his mouth continuously with no shame, a little girl went on herself and she was insistent on holding my hand as we walked to the nurse, and I saw a little boy run fool speed down the court and run right into a metal circular basketball hoop. These kids are crazy (in a good way).

Here's a question. What do you do if a student spits in your face, as a teacher? Let me tell you what happened. There is this little boy who has an unknown disability to me, I decided to try to roll the ball to him on the bleachers. I was attempting to engage him in some kind of physical activity. Basically we were pretty close and he would just throw the ball towards the court whenever I gave him the ball. I overhear the student helpers from the high school say "maybe we should go over there and tell her". I am thinking to myself what am I doing wrong now. They wanted to inform me that this little boy was a spitter and if he gets upset he will spit on me. They explained how accurate he is with landing his spit on people's face. I had to get up after that because I knew I didn't know how I would react to a child spitting in my face. I did not want to have a reflex that is out of my control especially one that I thought of write away. What do you think I would have done to a child spitting in my face? What would you do?

until next time....

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Obviously as we all know, today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Today I went to practice, we have a big game tomorrow against one of the better teams in our league. Actually all the teams are good in our league except one, we have one of the most competitive leagues. Anyway, I had to leave practice early today because I had to go to the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration at one of our local middle schools. I was very excited to have the opportunity to speak in front of my community at the celebration but then I find out Friday that I will only be speaking for one to two minutes. I'm thinking to myself what kind of crap is this. I was getting ready to get up there and talk about how just like Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, so did I. I was ready to go in...then I was shut down, which made me very upset. How you gonna call me and ask me to speak one to two minutes about your organization on this important occasion. They could have had some 5th grade talk about how they love the organization and all that it has done for them. I will be laying the law down and let them know not to waste my time again. I had to miss the majority of practice to go to the celebration and talk for one to two minutes, but you know I spoke longer. It wasn't the fact that I had to go to the celebration but it was that I had to miss practice for one to two minutes of public speaking. I didn't take public speaking in college to speak for two minutes max. Hey this is how I looked at it last night, this isn't the grammy's or something so I knew that they wouldn't have music to play to get me off stage so I was gonna say what I wanted which was going to be longer than two minutes. I did out of respect make the speech only about five minutes long. Overall I think it was a cool celebration, I wish more people were there, and stuff but the important folks were there.

Practice was okay today, for the most part. I did notice that there were only five players from the freshman team who showed up to practice and they have a game tomorrow. All the varsity players finally showed up with no excuses. They all needed to be there because we have a big game tomorrow and we need them to focus and work on a few things. In our last game we had about 27 turnovers, redic I know. We did come out with the W but it was redic. We also missed too many layups to count, which is very sad on the varsity level because when we play great teams we are going to have to make our layups and free throws.

I have come to the conclusion that I am going to make a small packet called Basketball and Life Etiquette. There are things that our girls are just lacking, such as please and thank you, basic manners. There are somethings that they don't know basketball wise for which is, you need to wear an undershirt that is either white or the color of your jersey. You do not, I repeat, do not wear a pink shirt under a white, blue, and grey jersey, especially when the jersey is white. Anyway I am going to work on this packet and get it to the girls in the whole program by the end of the season, definitely by the end of the year banquet.

Gotta go watch Nip/Tuck then record the inauguration for tomorrow because I am going to miss a good portion of it because I am going to this Barack Obama Celebration at one of the local elementary schools.

1 Day and 10hours until student teaching!

Many practices and many games later

I'm back. I've been observing, learning, and teaching bball at the varsity level for about a month now. I have learned so much in this past month it's rediculous. Any way the team is onthe path to success. We had our first big when last Friday at home and then we won again this past Tuesday away. I was very proud of them and very excited for the head coach who used to be my coach because it is very hard for our team to win at this particular school. The parents are terrible and the refs are always terrible. But we pulled out our second W in he league and tonight we won our third game in a row. Not only are we on a roll but the boys varsity team has finally come together and has won their last three games as well. So on the outside the high school bball program is finally doing well and we are playing well on all levels. We have a big game ahead of us. I think the boys might have more trouble but I confident in the girls that if we come of and play are like webhave in the past three games we are surely to beat our next opponent. Of course we are not perfect. We the girls' team is definitlylacking leadership, commitment and as Coach K (Duke Mens Bball Coach) personal responsibility. It's said there is really only one person on the team who is hurting us as a team because she always has somethig going on. Grant as coaches we are not doing her any favors by allowing her to always have an excuse of why she didn't come to practice before a game, why she didn't go to PE, why she doesn't have her pracice uniform or bball sneakers, why she can't run in practice... and the excuses continue. It makes me made because I know the people on the bench who might not be as talented but more dedicated should receive more playing time. I hope today is the last day for excuses. I hope tomorrow she is on time and ready to play no excuses.

My new motto: NO EXCUSE!