When the Borg lightened up on the view of education in the 1990s, I went to college and eventually majored in Spanish. I taught high school Spanish for three years. Now I'm getting my M.Ed and I'm teaching ESL at the university I attend.
spanteach
JoinedPosts by spanteach
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102
How do you make a living?
by paulnotsaul insince most of us believed it was right around the corner, how many of you went to any secondary schools or training?
what do you do now to survive?
are you working or unemployed?
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77
The J Dub Culture of Skirt-Wearing
by mummatron inthis is something that has always bothered me.
as a born-in jw i was raised as a little girl wearing skirts and dresses which is clearly quite normal in terms of gender-appropriate clothing.
however, the older i grew, the more i realised that all jw women and girls wore skirts to meetings and when out in fs, but would wear trousers in their everyday life.
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spanteach
I left in 2005 and it was about 3 or 4 years before I would even consider wearing a skirt since as JWs we were obligated to wear them a minimum of three times a week . But now I have a few cute dresses and skirts in my wardrobe that I wear when I want to, not because someone said I must. Usually, though, I'm much happier in pants.
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68
Jw upbringing and retarded social growth.
by AK - Jeff ini was raised a jw, by an inactive jw mom.
looking back, and reflection on my childhood, causes me to wonder.. i honestly did not miss the holidays, for example.
i never had them, so nothing was taken away in that regard.
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spanteach
I never personally had an issue with not celebrating holiday, not saluting the flag, etc. because I believed what we were taught and like a good little Witness, I preached about it to other kids, including having a recess Bible study with a classmate when I was 9 . I even think that I would not have had a problem with refraining from worldly associations if my father had also not cut me off from youths within the congregation that he deemed to be bad associations.
We seemed to move a lot when I was a kid. We were within the territory of the same congregation for 10 years, but I attended five different schools in that time span. Looking back now, it helped me to adjust very easily to new situations. And like undercover mentioned, I too, from a very early age, learned ways of amusing myself. To this day, I prefer my own company to anyone else's (okay, that part sounded weird lol). I travel alone all the time and have no problem with it.
But when I was in my next-to-last year of high school, we were going to move again. I didn't want to, explaining to my parents that I wanted to graduate from the high school I was currently attending. My father's response to that was "why do you care? They're worldly, you have nothing in common with them." I therefore have no emotional connection with any of my school memories. I had NO joy in attending school because school was all I did. I was not allowed to make lasting friendships with "the world" and was not allowed to get involved in any of the extracurricular activities because that would have meant spending unnecessary time with worldly people. School, home, meetings was my life. I'm amazed I stayed in for as long as I did, having only left three years ago. Again, I think I would have been okay with all of it if I hadn't had ALL "bad association" taken, namely anyone that my father didn't approve of.
I've really tried not to be bitter about this because I feel that my parents were only doing the best job they knew how to do based on the Society's guidelines. Their own (worldly) parents were not model parents either, so they really had no good examples to follow. Though I said I try not to be bitter, I still feel angry about the way I was raised when I really sit and think about it. I wish my parents, especially my father, had had the tenacity to say to themselves "WE will decide how our family is raised." But because they believe that this is God's organization, what they say goes.
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34
Dreams yet to be realized.....
by wings inthis topic was inspired by oompa and his sail boat.
on the other hand i am stuck in this room with my mother, and have a long night ahead of me and need some entertainment.
for you younger posters, i would love to hear from you because you have time to make your dreams real.. for the older ones, i would like to know how you reconciled dreams lost, dreams still out there, and what you are left with.. wings (of the middle aged posters).
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spanteach
Are you going alone?
I am, yes. I've been very busy on Itunes the past few days, getting my music ready for the road. I've got a really great variety, I think, for all the different moods I'll go through and all the different parts of the country I'll visit (ie Elvis in Memphis, John Denver in the Rocky Mountains, Beach Boys in California, Alanis Morrissette if I'm feeling angry, Wicked soundtrack and Roxette if I'm in a great mood and just feel like singing.)
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34
Dreams yet to be realized.....
by wings inthis topic was inspired by oompa and his sail boat.
on the other hand i am stuck in this room with my mother, and have a long night ahead of me and need some entertainment.
for you younger posters, i would love to hear from you because you have time to make your dreams real.. for the older ones, i would like to know how you reconciled dreams lost, dreams still out there, and what you are left with.. wings (of the middle aged posters).
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spanteach
wings, the more appropriate question, is where am I NOT going? I live in South Carolina and I'm making a big loop around the country, all the way to California. I'm very excited.
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34
Dreams yet to be realized.....
by wings inthis topic was inspired by oompa and his sail boat.
on the other hand i am stuck in this room with my mother, and have a long night ahead of me and need some entertainment.
for you younger posters, i would love to hear from you because you have time to make your dreams real.. for the older ones, i would like to know how you reconciled dreams lost, dreams still out there, and what you are left with.. wings (of the middle aged posters).
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spanteach
I want to see the world...literally. I've been to a handful of cities in Europe and I've been to Mexico, but I still have so much to see. Asia, Africa, South America. Um...haven't decided on Australia yet. This summer will be my great American cross-country road trip. So yeah, I am gradually realizing my biggest dream.
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106
So what caused you to have doubts in the first place?
by nicolaou ini had no doubts at all about the 'truth' untill a friend of mine in the cong' began falling away.
in trying to help him i had to ask questions and do research and that of course cracked the doors of my mind open for the first time in over thirty years.. years ago, when jwd allowed members to have signatures, i used the following quote from voltaire as mine.
i still love it.. doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous..
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spanteach
There were two instances that were going on in my early 20s that made me start to think I no longer wanted to be part of this faith.
The first one was between my father and I. He attempted to forbid me to have anything to do with my sister because she was "an apostate." I don't think he understood how much it really hurt her and negatively affected her. I saw it, because I disobeyed him and continued to speak to her anyway. It just seemed incredibly unfair to abandon your children just because they don't take the same view as you do on things.
The other instance was when I became good friends with someone I met in pioneer school. I felt like there were members of her congregation who were ostracizing me because I didn't think exactly like they did. That hurt so much it made me cry. I remember thinking that growing up, all the kids in school thought I was weird for my beliefs. I didn't mind because I felt like I had a safe haven within the congregation. But now to have that taken away from me?? It made me feel so alone and upset.
I stopped going to meetings a couple of years after that. But I went back because I was not ready to deal with the consequences of fully leaving, namely the cutting off from friends and family. Three years ago, I was ready. I left and I haven't set foot in a KH since. I'm still on my own, but at least it's on MY terms and I don't have any lemmings in my life to make me feel inadequate because I don't think like all the other clones.
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Blondie's Comments You Will Not Hear at the 4-13-08 WT Study (Imitate)
by blondie injesus said to imitate him not god.
in the us the only increase comes from immigrants.. q (6) what can we do if we cannot move to where the need for kingdom proclaimers is greater?
imitate jesus' attitude toward people.
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spanteach
That's so infuriating, Blondie. It's like saying "sorry, you're a lowly woman. You may marry one of our fine brothers and pioneer together, but that's the best you can hope for. Thanks for applying."
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Pro sports is idolatry
by Robert7 inhere's another good one... heard this in yesterday's talk.
idolatry is everywhere in the world today.
soviets have the bear, u.s. has the eagle, etc.
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spanteach
babygirl, that whole "posters of celebs = idolatry" was the reason my parents never allowed me to decorate my room with posters of musicians I liked. Part of me feels that it was a really stupid rule to have enforced on a young person. But another part of me is a teensy bit grateful as that prevented me from turning into one of those mindless fan-girl types. But still, the point of view is ridiculous.
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Did you secretly not want studies and rv's?
by new light ini remember going out in circus because it was what we did.
the idea of having to conduct a study or being responsible for a return visit and, therefore, eternal state of existence, caused knots in the stomach and massive dread.
actually having to commit to field circus long term with no hope of escape to save someone's life was a real downer.
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spanteach
All-these-kids those were the BEST field circus days. Getting out at maybe one or two doors at most. Excellent and you went in at noon feeling nice and full. Lisa, I mastered the light one-knuckle knock. I still knocked, technically, but if the householder was in the back of the house, there was no way they could hear the light "klunk" on the door.