The Greatest Day Ever...

Today it finally happened! The Poughkeepsie Journal published an Opinion piece that I wrote about a special education teacher and football coach who was terminated from the Poughkeepsie City School District for allegedly helping students cheat on the Regents exam. Overall, it was a freakishly good day for this reason and a few others.

Today I woke up to lukewarm, winter weather (35 degrees is lukewarm compared to the ravages of winter that we have been currently experiencing all winter. The snow that made travel very treacherous on Tuesday afternoon had been cleared away, and I made it to work at least fifteen minutes early without any problems. (I have never been fifteen minutes early in two years. On Wednesdays I teach a class in Albany, NY for Living Resources, Inc. and whenever I am forced to miss class it costs me dearly because I lose out on a substantial amount of income.

My creative writing class was watching a movie today that I would follow-up with a Creative Writing assignment the following week. Normally, I have an extremely difficult time with setting up technology and need some extra assistance. But today I managed to figure out everything by myself and had enough extra time to maneuver the many different plugs and organize the five remote controls.

During my lunch hour, I was called into a meeting with some supervisors at Living Resources, Inc. who informed me they are going to offer a substantial promotion based on the good work that I have been doing for the company. (It is my second promotion in two years.) It looks like I may now be teaching classes and performing other responsibilities at the College of Saint Rose.

After returning to class, I began receiving several emails that the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce had selected me to be part of the 2015 Forty Under 40 nominees! It is an honor to be included among 39 incredible people in our community who have made such a profound difference. A few minutes later, I was informed that my engagement at a Connecticut Library has been cancelled this Saturday so I may spend the weekend with my beautiful girlfriend, Alison in Long Island.

If this day were not euphoric enough, I drove home from Albany and was able to make it to my Metro North Train a half-hour early where I met with an associate of the Pfizer company at a nice restaurant for an informal job interview. We talked about moving forward and what I could possibly offer to the company in the future. After an adulthood filled with low-paying jobs such as dishwashing and twelve-hour night shifts, it feels incredible to possibly have an opportunity to move forward in my career and possibly build a life.

I used to always be cynical about days like today when they occurred once in a blue moon. Like that Married with Children episode where Al Bundy is suddenly blessed with good fortune, it is easy to fear the future because it could be saddled with brutal breaks and terrible misfortune. The universe does not dole out euphoria without a catch and there is no such thing as a free lunch. But today things seem different on what is possibly one of the best days of my life. There is nothing wrong with feeling like one deserves something because they have had to suffer in the past and understand that there will be other similar days to follow as we make our own luck by becoming successful!