Patricia Farley:  

Life After college graduation (Eastern Illinois Univ), I headed out to southern California, sort of following the rainbow, looking for the pot of gold I guess. I lived there for 19 years. 18 of those years was with one company, then I lost my job during really hard times out there, and was unemployed for a year, with no hopes of ever working again. Times were very bleak, for sure. That followed right after a really bad divorce, too. Then I got a job offer in Fort Worth, TX, doing what I did before. It was a horrible move, and life here hasn't been no picnic since this is a pretty harsh climate compared to CA. The worse experience was being near death during the big 5/5/95 hailstorm. My 2 biggest mistakes in my life were 1) getting a degree in Accounting followed by an MBA from Cal Poly Pomona(made me overpriced and still cannot use the MBA), and getting married to Mr. Wrong. I have no kids, I guess thankfully? This is the 3rd state I have lived in. I do not plan to retire and stay here. So I am open to finding the perfect place to live after I retire. Maybe someone out there can help me with that decision? For hobbies, I am into photography, my pet cat, and all sorts of clubs and organizations. I do all sorts of fun things, like being involved in local politics and trying to be an activist to change the world starting with the local level. Hasn't worked yet, because I'm fighting a big system here. My other fun organizations is from having attended free citizen's police and fire academies here. It is basically the same training that police and fire fighters get. And then I get to do volunteer work. But I only do that for fun. My parents are both dead now. I am an only child, so without kids or a husband, it makes me all alone in this world. Maybe someone out there can change that for me some day? I guess I'm open to getting re-married some day or at least being in a relationship. I'm alone, but I am not lonely since I keep myself so darn busy all the time. If you want, please write to me and I will write back. I promise to! School In grade school I wanted to eventually go to MIT and major in space science. I was meant to be college-bound some day according to my teachers, but my father freaked out when he got wind that I enrolled in the college prep program in high school. So he took me down to the dean before I started high school and got that changed, because "no daughter of his was going to go to college. College was a waste of money on a girl who was only going to get married and waste all that $10,000 a year money spent on her." So he forced me to take the Office Occupations program in high school. The only thing good I got out of high school was learning to type, and I guess 2 years of bookkeeping. I won several bookkeeping contests, and that lead me to someday become an accountant. See next bio for those details. Learning shorthand and office business machines was the biggest waste of time. I could have better spent that time taking 4 years of math and a humanity like a language, since it would have better prepared me for college. Heed my advice you 8th graders out there! My craziest memory was when I got in trouble over something and went to hide in the tunnel at Addison Trail High School. I think the police, school officials, or my parents found me hiding there. It was in the evening after school. It might have had something to do with Al Schmidt, who I think I was dating at the time. The teacher who inspired me the most was Mr. Zank--an English teacher at Addison Trail. I even had a crush on him too. I was extremely disappointed that he ended up dating and marrying a student who was just a year older than me. Probably my biggest crush on a boy in school proper is pretty well-known. God, if I mention him by name and he reads this, he will get mad, like he did before I think. Oh well, grow up, Gary--you were cute, probably the cutest boy in school. I had a crush on you since 5th or 6th grade. Even when I...Expand for more