My name's John and I've been a private school teacher for six years now. I'm thirty-eight years old and the world has changed in good ways and in bad. It is sometimes rather hard to see the silver lining in life and to wonder if our generation is going to be able to be better than our mistakes.

     I'm waiting for my class this morning and I decide to get a bit of reading done. In a world today technology is the number one factor, so I read my newspapers online. The first article is one of the biggest things in my mind that haunts me. A school shoot out, a teacher dead among other students dead as well. Others wounded and the eye witness admitted that the shooter student had told him to stay off campus during the school meeting with parents, students and the teachers. He had just shrugged it off like it was nothing but in a day like today there had to be more to accusations. If he'd went forward there'd be no shooter in circulation. Plan 'blueprints' were found in the locker of the student as well as two other 9mm pistols.

     As I shut the laptop off, because my students are arriving, I watch them carefully. There wasn't much of a dress code or rules in the private school as others but it wasn't letting ruffians in. One of the students I had spotted came in with this giant, probably fake gold, circle pendant with a five and a zero in the middle of it attached to this necklace. His jeans were filled with chains for no reason and he had his cellphone hooked to his pocket as well as a iPod touch with the earphones in his ears. I waved him over and told him he'll get the iPod and cellphone back after a week or so, it was common place to keep any items they bring in for so long. I've known schools to keep items until the end of the school year but ours again wasn't that strict, it was for the kids. It is why I took it over a public school job. I also seized his necklace which the language that the teenager, who wasn't older than fourteen years old. He had threatened to kill me and I had to send him to detention for it.
     There was a kid, young girl, in the back with glasses that had been the nerd of my class, according to the other students. She wasn't really nerdy though and she was a rather beautiful young girl. She just was always the A+ student and they called her the teacher's pet, she always brought in an apple as a gesture to me as well. A great student overall, she would get bullied due to her kindness about school. She loved it while others hated it. I'd make a point to always keep the other kids away from her if they were rude but it wasn't always possible.
     Another of my students was a friend of the one I sent to detention and he was glaring daggers at me. I could just hear his thoughts of 'you fucking bastard', and other profanity he had withheld to not get sent to detention as well. He was tapping his middle finger down on the table like drumsticks but I knew very well while he chose that one finger to use as the drum sticks and point it out towards me while he did it. I acted like I hadn't seen it that time, I already was twenty minutes late from starting due to the other student.

     I was scanning the iPod touch, it was an invasion of privacy but I couldn't help it. This child was acting like some gangster and had the mouth for it too. I noted the songs on it, playing a couple of the songs that held such profanity it degraded women, talked about the first to kill was the biggest 'man' and many other things. I'm not a 'hip' teacher, really I'm not, but I do know old rappers and the soul poured out into it. My favorite old rapper has to be well renown for many things, including his acting career. Will Smith. It seems in a world like today the only thing that sells is Drugs, Sex and Violence. Some know that it isn't it, my favorite line from Will Smith speaks the same thing in his own way. Talking about lost is when all you do is are in it for the buisness, hiding behind freedom of speech. Of course, you are free to do it. Did you really have to? Did you think about the 'seeds' you have ruined?
     Now don't get me wrong, media isn't the problem either. It is always a fifty/fifty thing and no matter how much it comes down to the kids and society. So this message to you all isn't that. I'm not Jack Thompson, I don't contribute media to violence. It is just so much that mean nothing and nowadays it is the thing most listen to. A music channel that once held such great shows or music now should simply be reality television. The best science fiction channel has things such as wrestling and original movies that are only good for one laugh. When did the media go down the drain?

     So I ask what's the silver lining? In a world full of things such a murderers, rapists, pedophiles and abusers. Where the abusee is the one sent to jail because someone has to be and the abuser had drove off. Where you have to be scared of your children on the internet as there are 'teenagers' who are in reality forty or older seeking to confuse the hormonal ones into meeting them, in reality it comes to them being pedophiles. The good of the generation and the older generation because in reality, not much changes over centuries, not people anyways. It just is history repeating itself at times. My silver lining is at home.

     I get into my house and the first thing I'm greeted with is a two year old girl that grabs my leg in a hug. Excited to see her father at home. Further in the house, as she still clings to me as if she hadn't seen me in days, I greet my beautiful wife with a kiss and a gag from my two twin teenagers. Boy and girl. The girl is listening to new generation's good music. Her favorite being Bright Eyes. My son? He is writing just like I use to do when I was a kid but not just simple stories, every single story he has a huge meaning behind it. Stories that move his fellow students even, who don't like to read. They aren't A+ students but they are very intelligent either way and I'm proud of them. Both of the twins know how to work a computer more than myself. Son is the football player while my daughter is the cheerleader. My son is the chess player while my daughter is the book club founder.

     Thats my silver lining. Where there is bad in a generation, violence, and darkened hopes. Quoting Will Smith, "But for me, I try to see the bright side. Sometimes it'd be like the goodness be tryin' to hide. Then try to flee, but it can't it's deep inside. Sweetie, you be the light for the others, make 'em believe in God.", It's the love and kids that will be our hope of a great world. When we die we'll be leaving them in a new world.
     "It's your world now. My race is run. I'm moving on. Like the setting sun. No sad goodbyes. No tears allowed. You'll be alright. It's your world now." Another great quote from the great group called The Eagles.
     Maybe thats not your silver lining maybe writing like this brings your mind to ease and gives such a flare to you that you love it to the point it is like heaven. Maybe it is your family that keeps you at an eased mind. Maybe the computer with codes is your fancy? Whatever it is, theres always good in the world, always light in the darkness. Just find that light and if it doesn't have batteries. Go buy some! Find that light and use it no matter what.