showtime, synergy!

Has there been anything comparable to Jem & the Holograms in the last 20 years? I don't think there has. I watched a few episodes today from Netflix. All camp appeal aside, the show embodies the best legacies of the 80s: the charity was as big as the hair, and it encouraged girls to believe they could be both philanthropists and high-fashion singers. A world where a group of thin-voiced girls in torn clothing and wigs use their cachet to make a pro bono 'rock blockbuster' to pay for a blind foster child's eye operation? Only in the 80s. You will never see Lindsay Lohan put the deed to Starlight House on the line for the benefit of others. I am not ashamed that I organized my friends in 10th grade into a Jem club. Or that we adorned our schoolwork that year with drawings of Jem's earrings and held slumber parties expressly for Jem screenings.

48 hours from now, I will either be:
-promising a roomful of high school sophomores six packs and cigarettes if they'll be nice to me
-counseling migrant parents (mostly coffee pickers from Mexico) with parenting and learning exercises for their toddlers
-traveling among schools to observe special education classes and enter data into some sort of tracking system. I don't know.

I won't lie; the third one, with its promise of hours at a desk and lack of potential humiliation, is my favorite. Lately when I go to the bank, I find myself eyeing the tellers' candy jars, photo frame magnets, and giant insulated mugs of soda with envy. What a job, all from the comfort of a padded swivel stool. I'm sure that, like waitressing, the glamour of the profession will fade after the first few Splenda-fueled hours. But, like waitressing, I would probably relish it. Even after I'd poured my thousandth glass of iced tap water and cursed the cheapos for not ordering bottled, I got a little thrill from being entrusted with people's sustenance. They drank when I said they would drink! There is something essential about such work that allows me to romaticize this and other wage labor jobs I have held.

But, really, I'm just lazy and afraid of conflict, which I fear awaits me in the classroom. So if I can get an office-y job, I will take it. All of these possibilities come from my parents' connections through the teacher mafia.

Today is B-minus two. Tomorrow is my last B-free day. Yippee! Ben told me that he liked reading about himself (but seemed bored by the rest), so I will now try to mention him in every post. Gotta keep the man interested.