[Miscellany]

The dread has been boiling up inside of me for the past week. I don't think I can face going back to school, really. I'm with saru, and thinking of faking my own death just so I don't have to go back. Everytime I try to analyse my feelings about it, I end up getting frustrated with myself and pushing the thoughts aside instead. This isn't the same old feeling I get whenever the holidays end though. This feeling is far worse. This is the worst I've ever had it. I can't explain how bad I feel.

I have to admit something to myself: I'm bored. I don't know it all. It's not like I have these amazing skills that aren't being utilized because I'm already so fantastic. I'm not. I'm not a wiz in the art room. But I'm just bored of the day to day drudgery of grade in, big mess, grade out, start again. It gets monotomous. I'm bored because all those other skills I have; like dealing with individual students' problems, attempting to solve the learning difficulties of students, fostering the enjoyment of reading/writing, thinking creatively in the class room - just aren't being used anymore. I feel unimportant and sort of useless.

On the other hand, there are many plusses to the job. I'm doing something I think is amazing and that kids enjoy. I get to build relationships with all the children - not just one grade. I am learning new and interesting things. I don't deal with the stress and horror of parental involvement. I love being involved in something so creative - but the pain of it is. I'm not being the creative one here and I need to face that whatever I do in my life, it needs to be something where I can use my mind creatively - even if it's not with paints and bloody raku gold. So, meanwhile in the hurricane of creativity going on around me I find myself inside the vortex of nothingness..inside I just feel empty. I feel like such an idiot for feeling like this. Obviously I will see it out until the end of the year. I'm not sure if old art teacher will come back or not. I think it might be a dumb move to keep chopping and changing jobs all the time as well. It *would* be in my best interest to just stick to it for another year and build myself a position that I can actually put on my resume. One year at something just doesn't cut it in the teaching world, or any world really...I guess I don't know what I want. All I know is this feeling of dread.

The other thing I'm dreading is S's birthday dinner tonight. It will be the first time in over two years that E and M will be in the same room. That would be the friendship that disintegrated 2 years ago when M didn't go to E's engagement, citing another engagement as the reason which was followed closely by E cutting M off at the neck and bringing up shit from 1992 to add fuel to the fire. And, yes, that would be the argument that I graciously said that I would stay out of so that I could still continue being friends with both (since I have known M since I was 8), except that E told me that I couldn't be her bridesmaid if I was M's bridesmaid as well - which then caused me to crack it like broken wrist at E for involving me in an issue that had nothing to do with me. I am Switzerland, goddamnit. Switzerland! Sometimes I wish I was a boy. Do they *ever* have these dumb arguments?

So, yeah..dread.

posted by M at 5:39 pm 14 comments