Ok. I am a teacher's aide in our local school district. That being said, sometimes there are days that just make me want to tear my hair out and scream, and then there are days that make me glad I'm there, helping kids.

Today was one of those.

One of the girls in my 6th grade study skills class (again, I'm not the teacher, I'm just a push in aide in there to help with the underachieving students) brought a frog to class. A real live frog. She was keeping it in this little bag with a handle that had mesh around the top half of the bag. I'm not sure what it was really meant to carry, but it worked pretty well for the frog. I found myself hoping it was really a toad, as there was no water in there for an actual amphibian to survive for very long.

This girl has problems: she likes to cut herself. She's very thin and I wouldn't be surprised to hear she has an eating disorder. When I first started working in that class, she didn't like me. But over the course of the past month, we've come to an agreement, she and I, and now we get along pretty well. She still doesn't do her work. She still occasionally bothers the boy next to her, who has his own host of issues, but she's settled down. She asks me for help when other kids are bothering her. She seems to trust me.

And today she had a frog.

I wasn't sure if I should say anything and jeopardize our arrangement. I didn't see that the frog was bothering anyone. She wasn't going to pay any more attention to class if I took it away, and she seemed quite attached to the thing. So I told her to put it away and left it at that.

She didn't though.

She kept pulling it out. I kept reminding her to put it away. The kids around her all knew she had this frog, and by the end of the class, one of them, with a defiant, "I'm gonna tell" look on her face finally opened her mouth and told the teacher. I thought, "Oh no, I hope he doesn't take it from her. She would have a breakdown, and it's not hurting anything." What did he do? He ignored the tattle tale. Let our girl B keep her frog.

Sometimes it's just better to let those things lie.

But it was a good day. Because this girl, who seems to have issues with trust, she finally trusts me. She knows I'm not going to yell and scream and be mean. And a lot of these kids who live in chaotic homes really need a schedule and someone they can trust not to take their frustrations out on them. They come to love school, because it's safe. I find that sad. But I *am* glad that I can help them.

I spent the weekend in Boston, visiting my long time friend whom I recently re-connected with. We've always kept in touch, but I hadn't seen her since 1999. I miss her. I miss the relationship that she and I developed through our years in college at Eastern New Mexico University. I miss having a friend that knows me so well; that I feel so comfortable talking to that I'm not worried I'll say something inappropriate or politically incorrect to. She doesn't care. She accepts me for who I am, as I do her.

Which led me to musing morosely on my life, such as it has been lately. When I was younger, I knew what I was going to be doing with my life. I was convinced I could make a difference and contribute something to society. I have always been a scientist at heart, even though for a while it seemed I might chose another path. So I diligently applied myself to getting my bachelor's degree, and then I applied to graduate school to get a Ph.D.

Well, life happens. Things spin out of control and all we can do is hope to hold on while we get whipped around. While I was in graduate school, my mother died, which led me to rethink my whole decision to get that vaunted of all degrees, and change my mind. So I left with my Master's degree and moved back to New Mexico.

And things haven't really stood still since then. I still tried for that scientific career I knew was mine for the taking, and for a while I held it in my hands. It was disillusioning however. Instead of feeling like I was making a difference, I felt more like a cog in the corporate money making machine. Sure, I might have been working on drugs for AIDS and cancer, even veterinary medicines. But I got bogged down in the corporate politics and the subtle discrimination that still exists in this world. Maybe it was just that one particular boss who seemed to think that women aren't good for anything if they're not attractive. But I grew tired of banging my head against a wall.

Luckily, my life took another abrupt veer to the left and I was forced to quit my job to stay home with a medically fragile infant. I was glad that I was forced into being a stay at home mother - it isn't something I would have chose to do. I don't regret staying home with my boys while they were little, but once they both were in school, I grew bored. I'm not one for sitting around.

So I've been teaching, a bit, at the elementary school and now the junior high. And there are moments when it is supremely satisfying: when a child you know has been struggling with multiplication finally *gets it*. When students tell you that they missed you over Christmas break. When students in previous classes tell you they wish you were still teaching them, because they don't like Mrs. X or Mr. Y.

But there are perils in education as well. Apathy is rampant among the junior high age kids - there are many who just don't give a damn about school. There are children whose home lives are so atrocious that school and learning can't be a priority for them. Children whose behavior disrupts everyone around them, forcing the teacher to take time from teaching to deal with those negative behaviors. So you live for those few who make it worthwhile, and hope that the others don't get you so down and out about teaching that you want to quit.

I have been teaching, in some form or another, since I was in undergraduate school. I was a peer tutor then, helping out fellow students with chemistry and math. In graduate school, I was a teaching assistant, teaching organic chemistry labs. Now I'm back at it, in a different guise, and I'm considering making it a full time career. But I remain leery of it. My father was a teacher, and there have been teachers in my family as far back as anyone can remember. So it's in our blood. I've been told I'm good at it, that I suck at it, and everything in between. And yet I remain torn as to whether to commit the bulk of my resources to a career I'm just not sure I want.

So here I am, in the middle years of my life, having to re-invent myself. I was never going to win the Nobel prize. I realized, pretty early on, that I was also never going to be one of those famous scientific researchers whose discoveries would herald in a new era of science. I enjoy my time at home with my family far too much to dedicate myself to research in that fashion. And now that I've been away from the industry for 9 years, I don't see me really getting back into it. Time to find a new way to spend my energies. That left turn I wasn't expecting at the birth of my first child has certainly taught me a few things. I've learned things I never expected to - never wanted to. But it is what it is.

Life.

Unexpected and chaotic.

All I can do is hold on and hope to regain my feet after the wild ride is over, bracing myself for the next. Things are calm now, it's time to dust off and find something to engage my interest. The question for me now is what? What do I do as I sit on the cusp of my 4th decade, needing to find myself a new career? I'm sure it will come to me. Maybe through trial and error I'll figure it out. I just need to get out there and do it.

Why is it that when you live in a small town, people think you're stupid? That somehow moving into a smaller community, and living in the mountains must have sapped all the intelligence right out of a person? Small towns seem to be equated with the uneducated and the less fortunate. Maybe that is in some part true. But I *choose* to live in a small town.

Cities may be the hub of culture. The ebb and flow of humanity as it wheezes in and out of its daily existence: building upon that which came before. But in a city, you can lie half dead on the sidewalk as hundreds of people pass you by; too scared to care. Or too jaded. Too something.

In a small town? Those same people would stop. Figure out what was wrong and get you up on your feet or to the hospital or where ever you needed to go.

So I was surprised to find rather vitriolic comments in the Sacramento Bee last week in response to an article about Placerville's upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations. The implication seemed to be that up in the hills, we had no need for peaceful coexistence and a desire for equality for all. That somehow our smallish town consists of hicks and tweekers, neither of which are apparently deserving of peace or tolerance.

http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/1546506.html