Andrea and I have been mulling for some time whether to buy a house, buy a car, or start a business. Of course, we would very much love to do all three but we can only do it one at a time. Because of our rental costs, we’re leaning towards investing in a house right now. Investing in real estate is one of the more solid kinds of investment. More often than not, the value of a real estate investment increases with time. If we would start a business, investing in a real estate property is still a good thing. Cardea Commercial Real Estate Advisors specializes in helping investors find the replacement property based on a particular situation. Despite our plans of starting our own business, Andrea and I have agreed on focusing on our own house first. A lot near where we work is for sale right now and it seems to be perfect for us. Unfortunately, we’re going to be needing bigger funds since it’s bigger than what we’re targeting. Oh well, another option will always come up. Right now, all we have are plans though Andrea and I can’t wait to be able to put them into action.

Lately, I’ve been going home stressed and drained of all energy. Even my little baby’s smile and usual antics are sometimes are not enough to give me a surge of power to stay awake. With all the conflicts in school, all the emotional and psychological problems I had to face, I have little or no strength left at the end of the day.

Imagine! In the last 4 days, I’ve been a witness and an accomplice to several meetings with parents, students, and the center director. Because of all my students’ cases, I had to bear with emotions running high, tears falling off from both the children and parents’ eyes, and heart wrenching confessions. In fact, I’ve spent more time in the director’s office in the past 4 days, than I ever did in the last 5 years. And on top of everything, I still have to remain cool and objective so that I can come up with logical, sensible and believable explanations for the rest of the class who were not involved in any of the incidents.

I’m beat.

Before becoming a teacher, I trained and worked for a few months with a big pharmaceutical company. I underwent a very rigorous application process and an equally rigorous Sales Training before I was officially hired as one of their representatives. Some people might think that a career in sales is quite easy but it’s actually one of the most challenging jobs out there. That’s why it’s also important to have people well-trained in sales to market your product. One has to have good knowledge of the product and a lot of self-confidence. We were taught how to carry ourselves well without coming off as pompous and arrogant. Though we were trained by the company itself, some companies prefer to get the services of a sales training company. AS-SA is one such company, it is one of UK’s most respected sales training companies. If ever I’d get into sales again, it would surely be a privilege to be trained by them. I’m pretty sure the skills I learned during my stay with that pharmaceutical company are now helping my with my job as a teacher. Talking to parents can be more difficult than talking to customers and I’m glad that I learned a lot in how to handle such situations.

Is it really possible for teenage, adolescent individuals to get a good grip of what real romantic love means? I mean, with all the hormones raging in the body, misconceptions brought about by sheer impressionability, or simply the lack of experience on the matter, wouldn’t it be close to impossible to know exactly what it is?

I know it sounds like I’m talking from an adult’s (not to mention a teacher’s) point of view, but I’m no stranger to the situation. I used to be a teenager too.

I could still recall my high school days and my take on the matter of romance. You see, I used to be infatuated with a girl too. I also thought I was seriously in love with her for the longest time until I just realized that I really wasn’t. Of course, I think it really helped a lot too that we never became more than friends… but even if we did, I’m sure it wouldn’t have lasted. I mean, I was never in love with her as much as I am now with andrea. And I’m glad I saved myself from a lot of pain by not going through a relationship that was doomed to end anyway.

But this is just me. This is my story. I can’t speak for those who have different tales or those still living their own tales now. Perhaps, it really is possible or maybe it’s not. I’m not so sure. But with all the couples I know who dated back in high school, none have ended up marrying their high school sweethearts. At least that’s the statistics I know. So for my high school students who are living a romance now, think again.

One of the golden rules in the school where I teach is don’t kill the ants. In our school, we bring home our trash and we don’t kill ants. This ant rule entered my mind when I saw an AntWorks Illuminated Ant Farm, a space-age blue gel ant farm that would surely be a unique gift idea for small kids who love animals and insects. I’m pretty sure a lot of kids from our school would be thrilled to have it. Maybe when Mateo gets older, we can get him one.

Counting this morning, my advisees and I have a little over 5 days to prepare until the eliminations of the science expo. They’ve been rushing to finish all their models this week so that they can already have a dry run presentation before the weekend.

You see, I emphasized how important the project defense is to them and how much it would affect the judges’ decisions. They seem to understand because they all of a sudden started panicking and getting frantic about getting their models done. I, on the other hand, am also starting to feel the pressure because I haven’t seen any finished product yet. I mean, I still need time to consider their items before I can start suggesting improvements or revisions. (It’s no easy task handling 9 groups you know.)

But I have faith in my kids. I know that they’ll be able to push through and I am confident that they’ll be able to do well when it is their turn to strut their stuff.

Andrea and I have resorted to getting a personal loan on more than one occasion. On most of these instances, it was because we found ourselves short of money right after getting our paycheck. Personal Loans have saved our skins more than once. Often, emergencies would come up and we have no choice but to get a cash advance, borrow from people close to us, or worse, use our credit cards. There are a lot of different kinds of loans now, I was surprised to find out that there are even Bad Credit Car Loans for those who are in bad credit. There are so many financial services available to everyone these days, a relief for those who just might need that emergency extra cash.

It’s been quite a while since I last played football, I mean really played football. I realized this after playing goalie at a shootout practice in the varsity training this afternoon.

You see, because I had to wait for all my students to go home before doing so myself, I was left with no choice but to keep a close eye on them. It just so happened that the only ones left were the varsity players, so I kept a close watch on the soccer field.

When it turned out that they had no keeper, I knew I had to play the role. It was then that I realized that I was rusty. My reaction time wasn’t at all what it used to be. My arms and feet were not moving as fast as I’d want them to. Not to mention, my toes and fingers were also having a difficult time getting re-acquainted with the impact of the ball as my students fired away at the goal. But all in all, I still think I did a pretty decent job. Maybe not as good as I’d done before, but pretty decent nonetheless.