If I Wanted To

As I peruse the newest obsession maker, facebook, I come across an old coworkers profile. A friend of mine for a spell for sure. In case you are not familiar with the facebook process, it feels the need to update everyone on your friends list of everything you have done up to the last minute. If you took a sh@$, threw a snowball, listened to music. Everything. One of these updates includes pictures.

So she has updated her pics and posted many photos of her at the school we used to work at together. It made me miss the school slightly. It was very neat, organized and what not, but i definitely would never want to work there again. You see, they are in fact, kind of an undercover Scientology school and I am not kidding when I tell you they tried to brainwash me.

So I am looking at all the pics and all I can think to myself is "(Enter school name here) for life man!!!" These people suck you in and trust me when I tell you that they do not let go easily. I didn't' know if it's because they feel like failures inside when they can't get someone to commit or if it is because they are afraid of being exposed. At any rate it made me think of what my life would have been like had i not "defected" from the "group."

If I wanted to be POOR and get the equivalent of dirt in an envelope once a month I could have stayed there. If i wanted to work with a 104 fever and have no health insurance and no one to cover my class while i was dying, I could have stayed there. If I wanted to be berated ("slut, whore etc!") during "drills" that were designed to make me desensitized to the distractions and annoyances, so that i can "confront" anything head on, I could have stayed there.

If I wanted to be told how to dress, inside and outside of school, how and what to talk about with others in the "group," and have every conversation on the school phone listened in on, I would have stayed there.

In essence, even if i wanted to go back to the school to see the progress of the amazing students there, the innocent brilliant lives that they, in my opnion, isolate and manipulate, I couldn't because it is not a free zone for me. I am sure they have me on some kind of list as a "suppressive person" (these lists really do exist).

What is funny is that the year after I left my class's new teacher contacted me and asked me how to get the kids to stop talking about me. "Well Ms. V didn't do it that way- or Lets play the game from Ms. V's class, or lets dance instead of gym!" She asked if it was okay for me to write them a goodbye note and for them to send me one as well. I had no problem with that. That was the least I could do for them if it was hard for them to let go. Those kids will forever remain in my heart and to tell you the truth if the school administrators weren't so obsessed into turning me into one of them I would have stayed longer.

In the end I made the best decision for me, and thats all anyone can do. I miss the school grounds, the kids and the families but in truth my time in that city was up anyway.

And at least I know now why Tom Cruise is so weird.