GUEST BLOG: Are Teachers' Unions the Enemy of Reform?

Like myself, many of my friends are (or have been) teachers. Teaching in the NYC public school system can be a huge struggle and many of us try to go in so hopeful each and every day but are met with so many different challenges. The job is not an easy one, that's for sure.

A former co-worker of mine reached out to me with a guest post about her thoughts on the public school system in NYC today. I agree with many of her sentiments and I am sure many other teachers in our situations will as well.

I agree that the current education system needs an overhaul. I agree that there are bad teachers out there shielded by our outdated union contract. I agree that poor leadership makes for an unsuccessful school. If you treat education as a business, a new union contract would be necessary. Under the current contract, it is very difficult to boot a tenured teacher out of his/her job, let alone the union. Many of my friends  (tenured teachers) may dislike this, but I think it should be within a boss's right to fire an ineffective employee, regardless of how many years of service he or she has contributed. It's the parameters within such a firing takes place that needs an overhaul. How do you evaluate a teacher's "effectiveness?" According to the education reformers, a lot of the evaluation needs to be aligned with standardized test scores to weed out the "bad" teachers. To a layperson, it does stand to reason that lack of student progress is directly related to the effectiveness of the teacher. I was a good teacher. I was a good teacher with about a 55% pass rate. If you judge me by that alone, I should have been fired (side note: I voluntarily left the system). But those in education know better; they are not the lay people trying to instill this new way to evaluate teachers.

GUEST BLOG: Guilty Pleasures Without the Guilt

Many of my friends have been super supportive regarding my adventures in blog writing. They also happen to be very smart and witty. (Remember you are the company you keep!) I always encourage them to help a sister out and give them an opportunity to express themselves if they so desire. I mean, why should I be the only one able to rant about my life? With that being said, here is a guest blog, the first in looong time. Enjoy. 

If you are like me and a lot of my lady friends, whether you are texting, or talking face-to-face; at least part of your conversations include a confession of indulgences followed by a rationalization or apology. Often, we call these indulgences “guilty pleasures”. 

I started thinking about “guilty pleasures” and suddenly thought…Who the fuck said we had to feel guilty about our pleasures?

After talking about this with a few of my friends, I realized, women, or at least the women I know, feel guilty about pleasures that involve three things.

Our Bodies 

Have you ever found yourself pulling out your hair while watching TV?  Your thumb and forefinger focused, fixated and grasping for that particularly coarse strand or split end, anticipating the pleasure of tearing it out and glaring at it with pride before you let it float to the floor? Or perhaps, you’ve gone to brush your teeth and found yourself absorbed, for 20 minutes or more, pinching, prying and presssing that in-gown hair or pimple, knowing you will not sleep until you are rewarded with the overwhelming satisfaction of release? Maybe you are like Sylvia Plath and you derive “sexual” pleasure from the “illicit sensuous delight” of nose picking...

GUEST POST: The Non-date date

Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Boy says, “Hey, I like spending time with you. You are also very (pretty/smart//funny). I would like to take you on a date.” Girl likes boy. Girl replies, “Oh, that sounds like fun.” Boy says, “Awesome. Let’s get (drinks/coffee/ice cream). How does (semi-hip but not too fancy bar/hipster coffee house/ Serendipity) on (Friday/Saturday/Sunday) at (7/8/9).” Girl exclaims, “Perfect! I will see you then. It’s a DATE.”

In a perfect world, this is how things would go down. It’s not brain surgery after all, it’s just dating. However, it seems now a days we lack communication skills and are always looking to save face. Therefore, the scenario more often than not, goes like this: Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Boy sends girl a Facebook message that says something along the lines of:  Hey, so great running into you the other day. If you are ever in midtown (i.e. where I live and work), let me know. I will buy you a drink. I know a really great bar where they always have $2 beer specials. Let me know.

Clearly, I swoon over messages like this. Facebook Guy is basically saying, hey if you are in a location that is convenient for me, at a time that works for me, than I am more than willing to buy you a $2 drink. I will not call it a date. I will make it seem as CASUAL as possible. I will actually make you set up the entire thing, but don’t forget, I will buy you a beer. So, the question is: Is this a date?

If you weren’t sure, Facebook Guy is real, and Facebook Guy did pay for my drinks that night. We had fun, but the whole time I had no idea if this was just two friends drinking where one friend paid for the other, OR if this was a date. He didn’t try to kiss me when the non-date-date was over, therefore I declared it was NOT a date. Maybe he was deciding if he wanted to date me with a “trial date.” Maybe I didn’t pass the test, which was why he didn’t try to kiss me. Fair enough, Facebook Guy. To my surprise, a week or so later, he asked me out again. Or rather, suggested we see a movie together. In which he paid for my ticket. I insisted on buying the pre-movie drink, as if we were just going to be going out as friends, it was only fair. We drank, saw the movie, had a good old time again, and then NOTHING. No kiss. No, “Hey this was really great and you’re pretty and I would like to date you, but I am too nervous to make the move to kiss you right now, but know that in a few more dates it’s going to happen.” Nope. None of that. I am usually pretty patient, but when he tried to take me out again I was so confused on what the situation was that I just could not bring myself to say yes. I could not go on any more non-date-dates with Facebook Guy. The non-relationship was over.

What is the moral of this story? The moral is simple: Be clear with your intentions. If Facebook Guy wanted to to just be my friend then he should not have paid for my drinks/movie tickets. If Facebook Guy wanted to date me he should have asked me on a date. I know it isn’t easy. I am surprisingly shy when it comes to matters of the heart. I am not always the best communicator. However, knowing what I know now, if I EVER ask anyone out I will use the word DATE in the sentence. If they aren’t interested in dating me I’d like to know sooner rather than later, and if they do want to date me, I would like to know that I am indeed on a date so that when I try to kiss them at their door when I walk them home (yeah I’m classy, what of it?) they won’t be thrown off. They will simply say, “That was an amazing date. Thank you for kissing me goodnight. I will CALL you tomorrow.” And then he will!

Author: The Gu

GUEST POST: My Friends are Too Pretty

Many of my friends have been super supportive regarding my adventures in blog writing. They also happen to be very smart and witty. (Remember you are the company you keep!) I wanted to provide them with an opportunity to express themselves if they so desire. I mean, why should I be the only one able to rant about my life? With that being said, below is the first of what I hope is many more guest posts on this blog. Enjoy.

I am an actress. I am a quirky, curvy, five foot tall actress. I may be cast as a best friend, little sister, or turtle. That’s right, I played Tina Turtle in a musical called “The Goldfish Twins Swim the Big Blue Sea." I went to summer camp for theater. I did all of the shows in high school. I attended college for musical theater, and I moved to New York to pursue my Broadway dreams. Therefore, 90% of my friends are actresses (and actors but we are going to focus on the girls right now.) These talented ladies are not just any old assortment of actresses. They are really, really beautiful actresses. My best friends from college, who are still some of my best friends, could be described as a model, a Zoey Deschanel type, and the girl with the perfect dimples. We can add to that (now that I have made even more actress friends from various shows and auditions and my current job at Lululemon) another model, a natural beauty, and a hotter version of Lindsay Lohan in her “Mean Girls” days. I love my friends. They are amazing, motivated, warm, intelligent, funny, and delightful human beings. I realize it is not their fault they are so attractive. I should not stop being their friends just because people literally turn their heads when they pass by.  

I was at work the other day. I was having a dance party, like I do, and these two men walked in my section. I said hello and we struck up a conversation. They even joined my dance party. While we were talking I found out one of the men is here in New York because he is doing his pediatrics rounds. This man was also super attractive. We talked for about ten minutes. Dare I say, some flirting occurred. I started to get really excited. I got super girly and in my head I was all “Oh my gawd he totes likes me. I think he may ask me for my phone number. What if I date a doctor? My bubbe is going to be so happy, etc...” He then inquired about a feature on one of the men’s shirts I didn’t know about. He was all, “Let’s go look at it.” I was all, “Yeah, let’s, because I totally don’t believe that feature exists.” We wandered to the men’s section and he was totally right. Cue my hot Lindsay Lohan friend joining in on our convo. It’s totally not her fault. We were in HER section after all. I then had to return to my section, leaving Doctor man, his friend, and Hot Lindsay Lohan to chat. Five minutes later, the two men shout goodbye to me and my friend comes rushing over “He asked for my number.” Cue, almost epic temper-tantrum/meltdown by yours truly. 

I kept it together. To be honest, this type of thing has happened to me more times than I can count. It seems as though guys tend to like hot girls. Weird, right? The moral of the story is, having gorgeous friends makes things difficult for us with “unique faces.” (One of the men who lives on my block loves telling me I have a unique face.) Men tend to be distracted by the long legs, shiny hair, and tiny noses of the ladies surrounding me. I refuse to play the victim. My options are to find myself some homely looking friends, to put myself together, or keep on keeping on in hopes that Mr. or Dr. Right will come along and not be blinded by the perfect tens that surround me day in and day out. I think I am going to keep on keeping on in my cowboy boots and blue mascara. 

Author: The Gu