So I’ve been sporadically reading This Side of Paradise from F. Scott Fitzgerald for a while now. I found a 1948 copy  of the book at Half Price Books for six bucks! We are talking a classic book from one of the greatest American novelists of all time. Anyway, I was really excited about my classic book. I continue to be excited as I read on and find the story to be timeless yet so eloquently and beautifully written that it makes it seem totally unique.

Below is a passage from the book that I liked so much, I read it over again about four times then wrote it down in my journal. It comes from a point when the main character Amory receives an encouraging letter from a friend that he recently visited. At this point in his life, Amory was feeling sort of lost and unsure of his place in the world. He had grown disillusioned with college life and felt that Princeton University forced him yet again to conform to a certain person to the point that he was losing sight of himself. He was just sort of going through a quarter-life crisis. I know that I have felt that way before in my life (not that I went to Princeton) so I really liked the perspective his older, wiser friend gave to him on the phases of life:

“…at fifteen you had the radiance of early morning, at twenty you will begin to have the melancholy brilliance of the moon, and when you are my age you will give out, as I do, the genial golden warmth of 4 p.m.”

What a beautiful way to describe growing up. Comparing the journey to adulthood to the rising of the sun, glow of the moon and warmth of the afternoon is just brilliant. Speaking of which, I love, love, love the notion of “melancholy brilliance”. Could there be a more perfect way to describe the moon? When I read passages like this, it makes me want to be a writer..like a real one, not this “on occasion pseudo-blogger” writer that I am now.

photo credit: http://storasysteralskarmode.blogg.se/

So some pretty heavy things have been going on in life right now, so I have been doing my best to cope. Turns out, my coping mechanisms are kind of fun…maybe I should have been doing them all along?

Coping Method #1: Hitting the gym.

I get a discount at Gold’s Gym through my job so I figured I had no excuse not to work out (that and the fact that my boss teaches classes there in her “spare” time added a little pressure). Anywho, I have been going to one of her classes, appropriately called Body Attack,  and although I thought I was going to die after my first time, I am now kind of addicted. I just couldn’t make it this Tuesday because it would have interfered with one of my other coping methods…

Coping Method #2: Partying like its 1999.

So I don’t know who I think I am, but somehow I feel like I can party like I’m a Hollywood It Girl and still be fine to be at work at 8am the next day. Turns out, while 25 isn’t exactly old, it sure as hell isn’t 21. One of my friends is kind of a rockstar, and he parties like its his job. Sunday, Tuesday, these may not seem like party nights but let me tell you, they most certainly are. He has single handedly restored my love for the nightlife. As luck would have it, I had been looking in the wrong places for San Antonio nightlife. Here is me, this heterosexual young woman looking for a great place to go dance, maybe partake in an adult beverage and just have a great time surrounded by beautiful stylish people. Apparently, in order to find the killer combination of those things, I needed to look in the one place I never thought of: the San Antonio Gay Scene, or as I like to call it, the SAGS–(not to be confused with the Screen Actor’s Guild, an equally gay friendly organization). Anyway, the SAGS is awesome and I’m pretty convinced that gay men and black women are cut from the same cloth. I mean, we are all really just divas deep down right? Who am I kidding, it ain’t that deep down. Let your diva flag fly b*tches!

Coping Method #3: Dancing.

Now most people would think that the whole dancing thing would be taken care of through CM #2, but no, not for me. I certainly like to dance when I party like a rockstar but I also think that there is healing in an iPod, underpants and your bedroom. Something about literally dancing like no one is looking is so much fun! I love to dance and I mostly just throw on my latest playlist (a scary mixture of hip hop and Myley Cyrus) and dance my ass off. Other times, I watch some hip hop choreography on YouTube and try to learn it. I usually fail miserably, but at least I pick up a few new moves in the process. Below is a video of one of my favorite routines from a choreographer out of Australia named Lizzie Wicks (and yes, it is to a Ludacris song which if you know me at all, you know how I have a burning love for Ludacris that could never be quenched).

Coping Method #4: Lost

Getting lost in Lost is the perfect form of escapism. 4.8.15.16.23.42.

Sometimes in life we have to hit the pause button. Particularly being a fairly ambitious, wannabe overachieving twenty-something American, my life tends to move pretty quickly with very little time left to just, well, live. I am a constant planner, obsessively planning things just for fun: vacations, parties, lessons. I don’t cope well with doing nothing. Then something happens that makes us stop in our tracks and remember that it is ok to just stand still for a while.

Rewind to a little over a month ago. I, having just now felt comfortable with my job duties decided it was time to extend my responsibilities. I wanted to get involved in my community and in local politics. I joined a couple of organizations and before I knew it I was set to be the coordinator for all of the colleges and universities in San Antonio for a particular candidate for governor. I was back to my NYC mode: constantly checking emails, voicemails, Twitter updates, Facebook posts, everything. I would get home from working a full day at the center and spend another four to five hours researching and doing work for my new political role. This is the kind of stuff I lived for.

Then my Grams got diagnosed with cancer.

It is still kind of weird to say it out loud. Even though we have received promising news from the doctors, it wasn’t that difficult to decide that I should slow down a little and enjoy life and just press pause for a minute. I stepped down from my college coordinator role and (as you may or may not have noticed) stopped writing for a while. I didn’t want to think about my life, didn’t want to analyze it, I just wanted to live it. I wanted to be free to take care of my Grams if she would need it. I wanted to be available to my family should I need to step up my personal responsibilities. I didn’t want to have to rearrange my “schedule” to spend time with my Grams. My mom flew in from DC to come back home indefinitely while all of this is going on and I wanted to be near and spend time with my family.

So that is where I have been for the past six to eight weeks. Contrary to popular belief, I have not spent the last month and a half mourning the end of my favorite show Lost (though I do get kind of sad on Tuesday nights when I flip to ABC and realize it is not coming on). This is the first time I have written in a long time and it feels good to be back. I feel now that it is ok for me to write again, even if I don’t have a specific agenda in mind. I feel encouraged that (according to wordpress anyway) that people have still stopped by to check in and see if I had updated my blog lately. Thanks guys, I appreciate that.

This break was much needed, but I am ready to press play.

PS: Last week, my mom, dad, uncle and grandfather celebrated Grams’ 69th birthday with delicious barbecue, cake and ice cream. The next day she got her latest test results back that gave us the green light for a promising surgery (most often with her form of cancer, by the time it is detected it is inoperable and incurable). Grams is doing well and is scheduled for surgery on July 27th.

I love a good book. I just wrapped up The Global Achievement Gap: Why even our best schools don’t teach the new survival skills our children need–and what we can do about it by Tony Wagner.

The notion of the racial achievement gap and the achievement gaps between rich suburban kids and kids from inner cities is pretty much common knowledge (while the causes of said gaps and how to fix them are widely debated). This book though has nothing to do with those educational fails. This book, as the title suggests, lays out why even the best of the best from the US are still not good enough when you compare us with countries around the world competing for a place in the global economy.

The author is co-director of the Change leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and besides having worked as an educator himself, he acts as a consultant to schools, districts and foundations on education reform. In the book he speaks to corporate CEOs and college and university leaders in hopes of discovering what essential knowledge high school graduates need in order to succeed in post-secondary education and/or the workforce. What he found time and time again, was that content knowledge took a back seat to essential skills and the consensus was that a majority of American high school graduates (including those from prestigious private college preparatory schools) were severely lacking those skills.

I won’t give a full-on book report, but I will list some highlights (stats, quotes, points) that I took notes on (yes, I am a note taker when I read). These are things that spoke to me when I was reading and the sorts of topics that I think would make for an interesting dialogue. I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy a good intellectual, political or ideological discussion over some food and/or drinks. It is a way to challenge yourself and your beliefs and in some instances, create a passion and desire for activism. Open dialogue, in my opinion, is an anecdote for apathy.

So here are some of the highlights!

Wagner discovered that employers and colleges alike are looking for employees and students with Seven Survival Skills. These skills, he believes, are what the school of the 21st century should have as the foundation of all curriculum and instruction. If the content being taught does not lead to the acquisition of these skills, that school is not preparing their graduates to be competitive in the global community. They are:

U.S. high school graduation rate: 70%. Denmark: 96%. Japan: 93%. Poland: 92%. Italy: 79%.

40% of all students who enter college must take remedial courses.

1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
2. Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence
3. Agility and Adaptability
4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
5. Effective Oral and Written Communication Skills
6. Accessing and Analyzing Information
7. Curiosity and Imagination

“What goes on in classrooms today, is the same stuff as fifty years ago, and that is just not going to cut it.”

Thomas Jefferson is said to be the first to declare that literacy is the key to citizenship.

“Kids are learning to read but not learning how to think or care about what they read, nor are they learning to clearly communicate ideas orally and in writing.”

The NEW 3 Rs: Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships

“‘Navigation’ may well be the main form of literacy for the 21st century.” John Seely Brown, author, Growing Up Digital

“Having a choice of schools is critically important.”

And perhaps the most important question the author posed came in the conclusion. It seemed fitting to conclude with this thought as it is this question that is the prologue to education reform (in my humble opinion):

What does it mean to be an educated adult in the 21st century?

So if you are looking for a good book, you know which one I am going to recommend.