Or focus on the future?
Published on August 19, 2007 By Ziggystyles In Life Journals
Well tonight, actually over the last day or so...Ive been rather torked off to say the least and another bloggers thread that she made, where my wife and I were not allowed to reply...or that if we did, they would be deleted. It started on my wifes blog, things were said, and from there, it moved to the other bloggers blog which turned into as she admitted it, a rant.

To be honest, I actually started a lengthy reply. Couldnt really make it short as there was so much crap to go through and reply to. Then I realized, lots of the stuff I was replying to was:
1. Flat out lies or manipulations of the truth.
2. Stuff that occured over 2 , 2 1/2 years ago.
3. Stuff that I thought was long gone and over with. I certainly havent posted much in the past two years about teaching, yet one thread in particular came back as well as another thread on my comments about disability. Dear Lord...how long will people keep bringing the past up?

But, I found myself replying to it. I had to put up with that junk at the time and defended myself vehimently. Now its back? What the heck, is crap from the past going to keep on being brought up all the time?

As a matter of fact, in one case, something was not only brought back from 2 1/2 years ago, but lies were added onto it as well.

I havent posted for quite a long time on my teaching, but attacks were made on my students, my students parents and how I think children should be raised...even with the accusation made that raising cats constitutes as raising children, lol.. wow.

The problem here is that not only is it false, the bloggers huge following gathers more people onto her side, which happens to be filled with said lies, misinformation, and angst against those who don't see eye-to-eye.

We have been looking for a place to live for three weeks, somethign she has said quite a few times...then on her blog...it shortened by a third to two weeks.

My bike suddenly doubled in price to 30k.
...etc so on and so on.

Accusations and insults were made which were ONLY gathered from what has been read on this blogsite. Same stuff I haven't seriously heard since I was in grade school.

I try to get along with everyone. I like talking to others and having a friendly discussion or debate, even disagreement. But when it turns vile, that is just sad and pointless and gets nobody anywhere, outside of just building up anger. I have a impression in my head of this said blogger based on what she posts, and I honestly do hope that I am wrong. I keep that in mind every time I try to read her blog or her replies. I try not to judge others and would like to meet many of the bloggers on here some time in the future.

The problem with having a huge following is many fold (un-good grammer Im sure). First, lots of people read your blog. I know I have seen one blogger in the top ten boast on another forum on the internet about this very fact. Two, the many readers have lots of respect for said blogger and will take what they say as gospel...without even researching the facts of the situation. Thirdly...facts really aren't needed because of the large following...you don't really have to be right. Lies help alot more than the truth when you are trying to attack someone. Said lies will then gather more people to their side and so on and so on.

I was going to reply, but thought to myself...why? All it will do is either, cause a long debate on here, or cause her to post another rant on her blog...even though she said she was done...and this has happened before with "being done" with us.

If you don't agree with a view, then say so if you want, even defend your stance. If you don't like a blogger for whatever reason turns your crank, then don't read it. But learn when to go on with life and move on.

There is a saying that if we don't learn from the past, we will relieve it in the future. Well to add to that, if we don't stop looking back, we will never be able to look forward.

Do you move on...or live in the past?

Comments (Page 3)
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on Aug 22, 2007
Well, today's society can't see this. Just because you can buy something doesn't mean you should. All needs should be paid for before wants are considered. Luxury items should only be purchased when all the needs are covered and the luxury item can easily be paid for.


I agree here. As to what one should do when they get said luxury item as far as how to pay...Im still up in the air. At the time I bought the bike, we had less debt than we do now (which might not make sense because Ive been saying we have been paying off quite a few debts, lol). There is a mentality that we are living beyond our means and I don't think we are. I have my bike which is almost three years old and before that, I had a 28 year old bike. My car is 11 years old and before that I had an 85 crown vic. Marcie has a new SUV and before that, she had a 96 Grand Prix she had for quite a while. The reason she got it, wasnt to destroy the environment or whatever. She heard about the winters out here and wanted something a bit safer and more reliable. Lots of the oilfield workers take cars rather quickly so the used car market is rather small and we wanted something with a warranty. If you look in our house at the things inside of it, youll find about 1/3 of the stuff we actually paid for, at most. We bought a sectional in Vegas which is paid off as well as a dining room set (whatever its called...4 tables, 4 chairs), also paid off. A couple tables, a couch, two chairs, ladder, and more are stuff we got from a couple in a Bible study that didn't want to pay the movers to move, so they let us take it for free. We had even more from them too but gave some of it away while we were in the process of moving from MN out here. The only thing we are paying for inside the house is our washer and dryer. Sure, we bought a double wide instead of a single. Well we have so much stuff, it wouldnt fit in a single and we just liked the look of this place and its design and it was about 20k more than the singles. As far as resale....who knows. We havent even listed it yet and just had someone take a look at it today.

So it's ok for you to have impressions about me based on what I've posted, but I'm supposed to read everything you post as if we've never spoken before?

Certainly not. But the entire quote is:
I try to get along with everyone. I like talking to others and having a friendly discussion or debate, even disagreement. But when it turns vile, that is just sad and pointless and gets nobody anywhere, outside of just building up anger. I have a impression in my head of this said blogger based on what she posts, and I honestly do hope that I am wrong. I keep that in mind every time I try to read her blog or her replies. I try not to judge others and would like to meet many of the bloggers on here some time in the future.

I was trying to say that I try to keep an open mind every time I read someones blog, thoughts and replies. I said it was an "impression" and I try not to start every reply or writing towards you with a negative / aggressive attitude. The internet is a place for people to communicate and you have this mindset of me which is far from the truth and as dumb as that sounds...I know its far from the truth because I know who I am. Im easy to get along with, very friendly, I laugh to practically everything, and blah blah blah and if you met me in person, you'd realize that.
I find it kind of funny that you're carrying on this way, when my original issue was with Marcie and the totally snotty way she responded to me when I had offered some sincere, well-thought out, and well-meaning advice, advice which AGREED with YOUR wishes to keep looking for a place.

Well I saw it differently, I apologize for the confusion.

It's no secret that I've never liked you, Ziggy, and nothing you can say or do at this point is going to change that. I listed just a couple of the reasons, and yes, those reasons came straight out of my previous experiences with you.

Well no crap, you pull out a twister board, take my words and contort them (or select parts) into something I didn't mean or intend. As far as previous experiences...how much longer are going to keep bringing up those previous experiences? The fact is that that issue you have with that one, single, particular incident with the way I handled a student in my classroom was almost three years ago. The comment I made about people with disabilities working was also at least a year or so ago (I think more, not sure). Ive clarified both of them as best I could and still years afterwards, you bring them up. Can we move on, or are you going to again, in the future, dig upon those to use against me?

what I do know is that neither of you have been invited to teach a second year at any of the schools you've worked at. And that's what I said.

Well again, you are missing what I write. The truth.

what I do know is that neither of you have been invited to teach a second year at any of the schools you've worked at

In Vegas, I WAS invited back. I WAS scheduled to work again. I HAD my own classroom. I DID move my classroom twice during the summer as they made room changes. I DID work at the district throughout the Summer. Marcie WAS also scheduled to return and WAS invited back. So yes, we were invited back.

In Vegas, your quote is not true for either of us.

what I do know is that neither of you have been invited to teach a second year at any of the schools you've worked at

In MN. She had difficulties with her principal, simply none of which you dont know and that is a fact. I do because I was there. Marcie was told what she needed to improve on and did, and when her next eval came up, the principal ignored those and found outher issues she thought should be taken care of. In Vegas and here in WY, she had excellent reviews and evaluations. In MN, she had a mentor and used every single available thing ...available to her to improve. If you look at her evaluations, nothing was detailed, no improvement plan was offered...she asked the principal to come in and do obserations (which the principal didnt do).

what I do know is that neither of you have been invited to teach a second year at any of the schools you've worked at

For me, in MN. My position was eliminated. I had low seniority and they moved a bunch of other paras around and quite a few were in my boat as well. I was invited back towards the end of the summer. So I wasn't invited back, because they did not have enough funding ot pay for my position.

In MN, your quote is true for her and not for me.

what I do know is that neither of you have been invited to teach a second year at any of the schools you've worked at

In WY, yes, I was not invited to return. I was not told why. Marcies position was cut due to a lack of funding. They had three people with the same job title she did at her school and they had to cut one, and even though she had more experience, she had the lowest tenure and they cut her position.

So for WY, your quote is true for me, and NOT for her...which means that:
what I do know is that neither of you have been invited to teach a second year at any of the schools you've worked at


Those are the facts, and while there may be a gazillion 'good' reasons for neither of you being asked to stay on for another school year, neither of you HAVE.


Well yes, pointing out the obvious is what you are doing here. We moved to Vegas to get experience, when we did, we moved back to MN because we simply did not want to live in Vegas anymore, nothing wrong with that. We moved from MN to WY when my position was eliminated and hers wasn't renewed. She tried the best she can. Out here in WY, my position was not renewed and hers was eliminated. Are they 'good' reasons? I dont know. What I do know is that of all the jobs I have worked throughout my life, I have had one and ONLY one job where I wasnt brought back, and the reasons behind that are many and detailed and of which, I will not reveal on the internet.....which unfortunately helps me zippo.

And the thing is that to have somone try and tell me and the world that reads blogs that I am not qualified or not good in my field or whatever is extremely offensive when all they have to go on is the select things that I choose to write about. The fact is that what you are doing is judging me based on what I have written in the past. I havent written hardly anything about this past school year (I had a couple things, but took those off)...and most of the writings of my teaching stuff and school stuff in general are a few years old.

How is that a lie? And isn't it just a little strange, considering how much we hear about teacher shortages in this country?

Depends on where you live, there might be shortages. In the upper midwest, there is a teacher surplus. The shortage doesnt come from more students or more schools, it comes from the aging population of the current teachers. My mom has been teaching for 40 years. She tells me all the time how they have teacher meetings when sub teachers will go up and ask her jokingly when she will retire...there is a line of teachers waiting for her to retire. There can be shortages, but when each position has well over 100 people applying to it...Im not sure how much of a shortage it is. There can be a shortage, but there is a huge amount of qualified teachers out there that are also looking for jobs. In Vegas, we were scheduled to come back. In MN, my wife did everything she could think of and used every tool available to her to help and she asked everyone including her supervisor to watch. Still, despite everyone saying and showing she improved, she was not brought back. Now, that sort of says something if everyone shows you are growing and improving by leaps and bounds and only one person doesnt see that. Out here, as strange as it sounds, My first evaluation was next to perfect...only had two things to work on and those were related to my organization and something else. Nothing was brought to my attention about ANYTHING at all until I asked a question in January. Everything that was wrong was due to my following the advice of others around me as well as lack of anyone telling me what was expected. So yeah....rather interesting when Im doing fine for the first half of the year and then I get in trouble for the first half of the year. How does that work? I also was given nothing in writing telling me what to improve on, so its rather hard to improve when you aren't given anything in writing telling you what to improve on. I guess Im the kind of person that likes to know what I need to do in order to be a better teacher. Never mind the fact that my class met AYP, something which my grade level (according to a few people in my school) has not been able to do for a few years. Whether or not thats true, I dont know...thats just what I heard from a couple of different people. I know my class scored lower than the other class, but someone has to score lower and I was not familiar with the testing that we had to go through so my students werent as well prepared as I wanted.

Plah, I don't care anymore, kiddo. I never did care about YOU much, but I did grow fond of Marcie for a while. Her response to me on the article that started all this simply drove a point home to me, that I don't have the ENERGY to care about Marcie anymore. She's back in that uber-sensitive, uber-defensive mode, requiring major asskissing to be spoken to in any way that disagrees with her concept of the world and the 'way things should be.'

For one, you sure do a lot of 'not caring' You have said this before in the past as well as saying you were done with her blog. Just beause she gets defensive about something......well...so what if she does? lol, you got so defensive, you wrote your own blog and totally went off on a few of her comments. Rice and beans...and something else about having children got contorted into her advocating abortion? lol, Dear lord. From that, we have people accusing of us of not being environmentalists, that we consume a bunch of energy and such...without facts to back it up...and if its true....so what? Hey I have an idea, lets take a few select comments from what they implied or inteded and use them against that person! YEAH!

I've never been very good at that sort of thing, I'm far too direct to be of any use to her at all, and I'm not going to coddle her with the kid-glove treatment if she can't handle MY form of communication.

We never said we don't want your advice. However, we don't want your advice if it comes across as "this is the way, the truth and the light, all ye who follow me shall be tormented for eternity" advice. I mean, I dont know what or where you have worked, but everything that we write about, you have some sort of professional advice. Just because you have experience or whatever in a particular situation, that doesn't make it right or correct all the time. Your form of communication is blunt (which can be ok), and if someone disagrees, you go off. On more than one occasion, you have written blogs about "certain" people where you just go off on a tangent. Your form is insulting if you don't see eye to eye and think you are right and you dig up the past, refusing to let go. Heck, you even brought up my bike and its 30k cost when that is far from the truth, I replied showing how you were wrong and you then promptly deleted it (most likely after reading it) with the statement that I was told not to reply, never mind the fact that you were entirely wrong in every aspect of the bike cost argument. You even resort to name calling and personal insults (something which I believe and hope to the best of my memory I have and still refuse to do), to get your point across.

She's exhausting. You both are. The only difference is that I used to care about her. I've never given a rats ass about you.

this reminds me of how some people wear a pair of socks for a couple of days hard work. At the end of the day, they take em off and smell em...and almost pass out, yelling how nasty it is.........but then they go back and sniff em again. For someone who doesnt care and doesn't give a rats ass....you sure do a lot of not caring and a lot of not giving a rats ass. Doesn't matter....I havent told you not to come back and I never once said so or will in the future (that I forsee anyways) and have yet to blacklist anyone.

I've learned from experience that neither of you are worth the trouble anymore, and yes, that lesson comes from my accumulated experiences with the both of you, or as you like to call it, 'the past.'

And yes, that is what you consistantly and constantly use for reference.
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