Live and Learn New Mexico!

GED Prep Classes Okay! It’s time to quit obsessing about capitalism, credit card companies, and test publishers and get on with my own business, Live and Learn New Mexico! August approaches and I need to start at least one GED prep class when the school semester starts. I will do that at A New Awakening, a counseling service in Rio Rancho. I worked with one of the counselors, Erick Pacheco, before and we had started up a good partnership to provide GED prep classes when leadership at UNM-Los Alamos told me to drop them. I won't elaborate on that but I should thank UNM-Los Alamos for inspiring me to start my own nonprofit.  Bringing Route 66 Back However, as I try to concentrate on starting up a GED class, all of the stuff I’ve been learning about New Mexico this year is swimming in my head. Yesterday I attended a workshop offered by the Rt. 66 Road Ahead Initiative and learned there’s a lot going on all over this state and the other seven states the route meanders thr...

I am still thinking about my credit score woes and how capitalism/materialism just isn’t working for me, and the American dream.  After all, isn’t it a dream that is supposed to be held by all Americans? We know that not all Americans, myself included, want to compete and win. We don’t want to start from scratch, with little money in our pockets, and claw our way to the top, building a small family business into an empire. I've talked about this before but it isn't out of my system.  That is what I understand the American dream to be – you achieve it if you are good at capitalism. Correct me if I’m wrong. (The American dream also seems to apply more to people coming into our country from other countries. For them, many aspects of the dream do still apply. I would argue, however, that it isn’t an American dream but a dream of someone from whatever country they are from – Mary from Ireland’s dream of her be...

I’ve been moving from Bosque Farms to Cedar Crest for over a month now and I’m tired of it. I haven’t been able to settle into my daily work routine, mainly because I still don’t have internet service at the new place, for some ridiculous reason. However, I love the new place and believe I may have finally found my home. Cedar Crest, too, seems to be a great place to try out my new job as local coordinator for Academic Year in America (AYA). As I drove back and forth, back and forth through Albuquerque from one house to the other, I usually chose to drive along Coal Avenue, which turns into Zuni, which empties out on Central a little past Wyoming. It’s an interesting drive. I like to see the unusual businesses, like Diamond Publishing, a business that seems to take up a whole building that could be a small strip mall yet only ever has one car parked in front. I googled it and only found a phone number. I wonder what I would discover if I just called one day. Maybe th...