10-20-30

I just checked the blog of one of my favorite authors to find she had posted a meme of sorts– A clever idea to see how many folks one blog can reach.

Quick: What were you doing ten, twenty and thirty years ago?

10 years ago–I was into my second month of my first full time job–teaching high school Spanish. I had just moved. I was living with my college boyfriend, who turned out to be a huge loser. We had a townhouse–really cute. I drove a purple Dodge Stratus with a moon roof. I played with a lonely little neighbor girl sometimes in the afternoons–her parents never seemed to be around. I was generally unfulfilled and I was sick a lot. And hungover a lot.

20 years ago–I was in seventh grade. I had just moved. I was playing volleyball on the B team, which I hated. I wore purple glasses and got teased a lot. I had a bad perm. I was too outgoing and opinionated for a lot of my peers tastes. I aced vocabulary tests and math tests–and this was before it was illegal to say scores out loud in front of the class– Everyone knew it, and didn’t like it, unless they wanted to copy off me. I got interested in boys and listened to the Top Ten at Nine- which included “Faith”…..George Michael “Livin’ On A Prayer”…..Bon Jovi and “I Think We’re Alone Now”…..Tiffany, which we always sang on the volleyball bus.

30 years ago–I wasn’t potty trained. We most likely had just moved. I liked to take all the pots and pans out of the cabinets. I liked to ride in the backpack when my parents went hiking. My mom’s already in bed, or I’d post some adorable Jessica anecdotes.

I tag:
Mary
Colleen
Dawn
Andrea
Candi
Leanne

And if you read me, have a blog and I didn’t tag you–consider yourself tagged.

Link to Relevant Blog, in your post, if you please…

***EDITED*** I just have to say, I’m a huge ditz. What I posted as 10 years ago, was really 9 years ago!

The Actual 10 year ago: I was student teaching, having already finished the Spanish part of my student teaching, I was assigned to work in an elementary ESL class room with 7-11 year olds from mostly Bosnia and Mexico, and a few other countries to boot. My cooperating teacher hated my university’s ESL program, and was overworked in a district unprepared to accommodate a huge influx of new immigrants. She was one of the few teachers with experience and was expected to help out a lot in other areas. She was crabby and didn’t have time for me, never really warmed up to me, was never in the classroom once I took over, and then wrote me a 1/3 of a page review that was mostly negative in tone, even though she didn’t have any specific complaints. It was a rough couple of months.

I worked at a company with group homes for the mentally and physically challenged. Most were students, although a few were adults. I worked at several different homes picking up extra shifts. I really enjoyed it. I worked a lot of overnights that semester. I held that job for the longest of any job besides teaching. I always got bored at any given job pretty quickly, and would move on to ‘greener pastures’ after a few months. I stayed with that company for a few years however.

I was living with the above loser boyfriend, only in a cute little bungelow on Eureka Street. (I’ve always loved that name!) I drove an old Ford Tempo that inexplicably died at stop signs and stop lights. I never met my neighbors. I was unfulfilled and sick a lot and hungover a lot.