Today's weigh-in: 195.0

Well, holy crap. Still not sure what's finally assisting the success, but I'll take it, whatever it is.

On another topic, I'm going to have to call my dad and thank him for the job he and my mother did raising my brother and me. I'm now realizing what a nice, normal, non-screwed up childhood I had, as I read The Commercial Appeal's coverage of a murder trial in the Memphis area. This girl, Noura Jackson, is on trial for the stabbing death of her mother. This woman was stabbed over 50 times. The reason I've been following this gruesome story is because a bunch of my former students are all mixed up in it. This girl attended the school where I teach, thankfully before my time, but she would have been in the same grade as the first freshman class I taught. By all accounts she was quite the party animal and had numerous discipline problems, so I'm really glad I never had to deal with her. But a bunch of the girls I did teach were her friends, for worse, clearly. And they were all with her in the weeks, days, even hours before and after her mother was killed, so now they are all being called to testify. And it isn't just my girls--it is the older brothers, cousins, and even boyfriends of some of the girls who are being called to the stand. A disturbing lifestyle is unfolding, one of sex, alcohol, pot, cocaine, mushrooms, and prescription drugs. Obviously, a number of my girls are guilty of participating in this lifestyle.

I'm left wondering, what is the difference in my childhood, compared to theirs, that created such a different experience for me? I know there had to be plenty of kids when I was in high school who drank, but I would be hard-pressed to point them out. Since I grew up in Southern California there had to be plenty of skaters and surfers who were stoned all the time, but again, I didn't know many of them and didn't hang around with them. I can only think of one friend who ever got into a "hard" drug, meth, and thankfully that was for a short period of time. Out of my graduating class of about 800 students I know of ONE who was pregnant when we graduated, so if they were all having sex they were awfully quiet about it. And I never did any of that. So why am I so different from these kids now?

Is it the money? My parents didn't have a lot of money, but we got by OK. Maybe these parents give their kids too many things. My parents' policy was, "Well, I didn't have it growing up, so you must not need it." Do parents not say "no" to their kids anymore? Is it the strict religious education? All these kids, boys and girls, all attended Catholic schools at one point. Are the Catholics doing something wrong? I was raised Lutheran, which we always joking said was "Catholic-light: all the ritual, none of the guilt." Is the culture of guiltiness causing these kids to go ahead and make themselves guilty? Is it the single-sex school environment? I do know our girls tend to act like complete fools when they're around boys, because they haven't learned to socialize with them. From an educational perspective it's great, but from a social development perspective I wonder. Is it TV? They all watch Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill and Gossip Girls, which show lifestyles like this all the time. But hey, I watched Beverly Hills: 90210 and the first few seasons of The Real World, but I didn't try to live like that.

I wish I knew what it was so that I could help fix it. And I want to know what mistakes are being made by these parents so that I don't make them someday if I choose to have children.

What a scary, f*&^ed-up world we live in.