Letter to Santa
Dear Santa Claus,
Hi, it's Greg O'Neill.
I have been good this year. Well, it depends upon you ask. If you ask my cooperating teacher from Monmouth, I've been a disaster. She actually wrote in to plans for a substitute teacher not to let me go retrieve the children from the playground even if I asked to. This was because I brought the students from my homeroom in early one day, and did not realize I was still on detail for the playground from 8:22 to 8:25. She made me feel terrible about it. I think I paid my penance. Right?
First off, give me the gift of me building myself back up, put myself back together as an educator after that experience. Getting the job at Lewistown was a major help. But I was broken after that.
Secondly, now for the less taciturn I-wants.
I want a District 12 themed Christmas album to be made. The Hunger Games turned out spectactular soundtracks between 2012 and 2015. I'll grant Mockingjay Part 1's soundtrack was dissonant from the mood of the film. Much of 2014's 7th best film was a quiet, pensive piece about Katniss Everdeen desperately trying to keep her family safe in District 13, and even more desperately trying to get Peeta Mellark, the more or less acknowledged rightful love of her life, back from the clutches of the Capitol. The soundtrack had chart-friendly club hits by Lorde, I think Ariana Grande, and a Kanye West remix of Lorde. But man, was the first film's soundtrack golden! The Decemberists. Neko Case. The Carolina Chocolate Drops. The Civil Wars. The Secret Sisters. The Low Anthem. Glenn Hanssard. Birdy. The Punch Brothers. Even Taylor Swift was good! Imagine if there was a blue-grass, appalacian Christmas album with just the slightest hint of sadness to it, because it's an outlying district ignored by the Capitol...save for on the day of the reaping when they come to choose two lambs to come to the slaughter in the arena, and reduce their potential deaths on camera to entertainment. We root for the underdog. And with Donald Trump as the incoming president of the United States, the most glaring metaphor for Capitol decadence is about to actually enter the White House.
I want to find Chicago P.D. on DVD.
I want to find my copy of The Hunger Games Catching Fire on blu-ray combo pack.
I want to find a plug that works for my computer speakers so that they will actually work.
I want to pass my edTPA. I know I should be working on that right now, yeah, yeah, but it's been so busy of a four and a half months that I haven't had really a moment to stop and breathe since early August.
I want to get out to see Loving, LaLaLand, Passengers, Moana, Rogue One a Star Wars Story, and perhaps if there's time, Why Him, Hidden Figures, Nocturnal Animals, and Allied.
I want to get a new Steve Winwood album. I haven't got one for over a year. Though I did download his daughter Lily Winwood's cover of Higher Love with him singing back up vocals.
I want to do something fun with Sara. We haven't been on a trip together in ages. Is there a play that we both really want to see that I can get tickets for?
I want to get my phone charged, but I don't feel like walking out in the freezing rain ice mix to get it from my car. I might literally break my hip.
I also want to get season 4 of Chicago Fire on DVD, so I can see my friend Darci Nalepa appear as a psychologist or doctor or whatever she is in the finale. I want to get Steve Jobs on DVD, the one with Michael Fassbender. Since there's no Season 4 of The Newsroom. Speaking of Michael Fassbender, I would like to find X Men Apocalypse!
Would it at all be possible for me to get a new album by Billy Joel, Toto, or Chicago? They have been used pretty heavily in rotation on Greatest Hits. Like Steve Winwood, I need to find some replenishment here soon. Much as they have huge catalogues. I've used them so much.
Oh yeah, one last thing.... since Trump's president, not that I was hoping that this would happen, but there may be grist for the mill to have another season of The Newsroom, and maybe some continuation of The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins, Aaron Sorkin, I'm talking to you.
Thank you. I will go back to doing the work I'm really supposed to be doing now.
Your friend,
Gregory O'Neill