You'd think that I would have been warned not to attend a workshop called "leadership training", that I would have stopped and taken a bit of time to wonder why I would ever sacrifice four hours of my day to learn about "myself and others". I hate workshops, I hate the concept of leadership, and yet did I head to this source of inner logic? No, of course not, that would have been an intelligent action. My empty pockets spoke to me and said "fuck logic, go to the leadership training, help, and get paid!" I hate empty pockets. They force me to mow lawns, shovel until my hands are no longer stringy masses, and attend leadership training conferences. One of these days I'm going to ignore the damn pockets and realize that I can overcome my materialism and become a monkey trainer for the rest of my life. I like monkeys. They don't teach me leadership skills, and they don't speak.
One of the most interesting factors of leadership trainings are the areas themselves, namely, churches. Since my town has no space other than houses of worship, I get to sit my Jewish ass in front of a big cross and think about how many people have been killed because of that one poor guy. I have to admit that as I glanced along the walls, I was struck by the messages of faith. Did you know that we're all disciples? Why, I wasn't aware. I'm a horrible person, and yet I'm a disciple. Christ, I should come to church more often. But then I saw it, the most beautiful of them all...
Shit, I didn't know I was going to have to come to a leadership training and face my deep fear of religion. Christ. What have I done for Jesus? I'm a horrible Jew, I haven't done a damn thing for Jesus today!
And then the internal conflict began, as soon as I walked into the bloody parish house I wanted to take the cross and embed it in my pancreas, no wonder why Christians are all damned to hell from birth. As I was sitting there, thinking about Jesus and wondering whether I should beat myself about my own head with my father's shin-bone, a sudden life-changing activity came my way... instead of leaving, I got to draw a picture of what it was to be a leader. (Thinking of my biology test the next day, I drew the Sodium-Potassium Pump of Life, which I now believe can be applied to anything going on in the universe, while others drew teachers and directions and different life-altering drawings.) I'm glad I got to do that activity. I know so much more about being a leader. Thank you, Jesus.
Much to my delight, we also got to complete a full something contract (can you see how much I was listening?) This involved voting on whether we all wanted to have honesty, confidence or other unique adjectives one at a bloody time...
"I think we should put down creativity."
"That's a very good idea, Jane, does everyone think we should all have creativity? Let's have a show of thumbs!"
"Well, maybe we should call it individuality."
"Or maybe we can have both! They're different you know!"
"That's a really good idea..."
I had arrived in leadership hell. I wanted to leave, to ignore the money I would receive for doing virtually nothing for four hours, but I couldn't. This is a perfect example of the the hold this town has on my soul, a hell-mouth, as Buffy might say. When people started to talk about making the school "happier" with smiling kids I was tempted to begin an interpretive dance with a large shoe shoved between my bicuspids. Yes, let's try to change the nervous systems of our student body. Swell. When they can make the next artificial nervous system I will be impressed, making kids smile as they are shoved facts by memorization would be a miracle. No, not a miracle, a miracle would involve ending world poverty or acknowledging the situation in Chechnya, making children smile is... well, not worth the hassle. They'll be crying the next minute anyway, we're talking about the endocrine system here. Damn. Now I'm not being positive. Three lashings for me.