I have travelled through a wormhole, but now I am back

Hello blog! Long time, no see, or, it's been a while since I rapped at ya. My foray into teaching was a tad bit more time consuming than I originally thought. Silly me, envisioning myself waltzing out of work at 3:10 everyday, fancy free, only to pursue my interests and have some much deserved alone/contemplative time. Working in education is absolutely nothing like I imagined it to be and it’s (without exaggeration) the hardest job I’ve ever had. In order to put it in perspective, let's take a walk though the jobs I’ve held over the course of 14 illustrious working years:

grocery store bagger

general retail worker at the following locations: Natural Wonders, Robinson-May department store, plant store in Hyde Park

tutor (for $5 an hour!-in 1995)

film studies center helper

camp counselor

library assistant (maps collection, very rad)

sleep study participant

americorps volunteer

ESL teacher

typist/personal assistant/conversational partner for crazy lady

bookkeeper/personal assistant for sane lady

research assistant

house cleaner (for 2 weeks)

technician

The list is basically in chronological order, and went from hard to easy (with the exception of house cleaner, which was dehumanizing), but now I’m back to hard again! Why is this happening? Part of the difficulty of this career change has been in commuting, which I hate, and in the tedious and asinine education classes, which I have to attend for three hours, at night, twice a week, for two years. Let me tell you, No Child Left Behind is working! (if the goal was to drive all sane and educated people out of the field of teaching). I have to take more coursework for my teaching certificate, which is not even a degree, than I did for my masters. I’m swimming in a tank of insanity, and about the only thing keeping me afloat is the fact that these classes, though tedious, have absolutely no standards for the actual work.

What about the actual job, you say? Well, the jury’s still out on that one. I think I was slightly handicapped going into this job by the fact that I literally did not have a one day break in between my old job and my new job--so this semester started off sub par. Nonetheless, some truly awful things happen at high schools across the nation that I was certainly never aware of.

My personal highlight reel might include:

An awful parent-teacher conference during which my moral compass and basic integrity were questioned, thus leading me to a mild breakdown in the middle of the school day.

A student singing a song of hatred devoted to me as we walked outside to do a lab that I spent many, many precious hours preparing for.

Students telling me that I was the reason they do not understand the material. As opposed to, say, the fact that they do no work.

Many classroom explosions and acts of defiance.

The horribly designed teacher bathrooms that open directly from the campus into the toilet stall, which I was using one day when another teacher walked in on me, thus exposing my serene toilet time to the entire school campus (like some sort of nightmare!).

Crying in front of all administrators and every teacher within three classrooms of me (on multiple occasions).

Having to literally walk out of the classroom in order to avoid crying in front of a class (my tear ducts have been exercised more than ever lately, and I’m happy to say they’re in good health!).

But, along with the bad, there is some good:

I adopted an awesome turtle, Stumpy, from the school. He will apparently live between 30-150 years.

I’ve learned a lot about astronomy, which I enjoy immensely. I even had reason to purchase Farscape and Contact for classroom use! (for my “fun” lesson on wormholes!)

I “made” a comet, which was pretty awesome.

I finally learned the difference between a meteorite, meteoroid, and meteor.

I finally understand moles!

My faith in humanity, though tested, still remains remarkably strong! There are some future sociopaths in my classes, but then there are some kids who show a deep well of compassion and humanity. They are sort of like lighthouses, though—they can show wonderful aspects of adulthood followed by a rapid return to the uncompassionate child they’re growing out of. Adolescence is so intense (and ugly)!

Sometimes they say truly amazing things, like “If I farted into a bag and then threw it at the sun, would the sun explode?”, or spend 10 minutes (granted, not stopped by me) suggesting films suitable for classroom viewing, like “half baked”, “transformers”, “the core”.

Seeing a Zac Efron folder being used in real life.

Having students (maybe?) understand something new.

And finally, the winter break, which has been pretty awesome. I haven’t had a break where I didn’t have to worry about work for a long time, and let me tell you that it feels SO different and good to know that I do not even have an obligation to check my e-mail. I can already tell that this summer is going to be off da hook!