summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2007-01-08 11:40 am
summercomfort) wrote2007-01-08 11:40 am
LJ, I've been neglecting you...
... but since most other folks have been neglecting you as well, I feel slightly better.
But really, that's no excuse for the half-assed posts I've been doing lately. But now I'm not sure how to do posts for real....
Well, it's been a long coupla days, what with Alexis showing up, and then now my cousin is here. Not that it hasn't been a fun coupla days, but when I sat down at 8 tonight to grade stuff for school tonight, it was just like, too much. (Especially since I was grading for Chinese school until 2:30 last night and all this morning.)
And I guess that's the thing about teaching. IT NEVER ENDS. Lesson planning, and then teaching, and then making the modifications, and thinking about the kids all the time... perfection is impossible. In a way, it feels like programming or something where there is always something else you can make better. But on the other hand, there is also this MARCH OF DOOM, this schedule where every day you get one shot at it, and then it'll be next year when you hope to teach the same material, except better. And in a way, every day is a deadline that involves the education and lives of 70-150 kids. I guess in a way it's only natural for someone who grew up in a household where no one had a job and yet seemed to be working all the time.
But on the other hand, I wonder if it's what I really want. I mean, it's challenging, and I definitely get some nice highs off of it -- when a lesson runs successfully, when the kids are visibly learning, when I make a difference... But on the other hand, it feels dreadfully hard to maintain, so I get some pretty dreadful lows with it, too. Every day I seem to bounce between absolute excitement and energy and gung-ho-ness and absolute wibbliness where I would basically sit in a (metaphorical) corner, feeling dead and dreading of another day. Days seem longer when you're at work at 7:15 and don't really stop until midnight. And having all this emotional fluctuation just seems to extend the day.
I worry about the sustainability of this. Whether it's really healthy for me at all. Whether I should be doing something else that I'm good at/enjoy. Or would this happen regardless of the work I do? Maybe I'm just adjusting to being an adult, but it doesn't feel like it.
Another possibility is that everything is harder because of STEP. I'm not very good a switching modes between one thing and another, and to have to hold both school and STEP in my head is kinda weird. On the other hand, one of the ex-History-STEPpies from a few years ago came and talked to us about how it never gets easier because we're all secretly masochistic and *want* every day to be a challenge.
I think right now I'm more undecided than I was when I applied to college, or even when I graduated. And yet the wheels are turning. I'll be graduated from STEP in 6 months, and there's a 50% chance I will have a job set up by then. (and a 90% chance I'll have a job by August.) And yet I haven't even really figured out what this teacher thing *is*. Some people are decidedly happy or unhappy about their jobs. Some jobs are easily classified as a 9-5 bum job, or a career thing, but what manner of creature do I have before me?
But really, that's no excuse for the half-assed posts I've been doing lately. But now I'm not sure how to do posts for real....
Well, it's been a long coupla days, what with Alexis showing up, and then now my cousin is here. Not that it hasn't been a fun coupla days, but when I sat down at 8 tonight to grade stuff for school tonight, it was just like, too much. (Especially since I was grading for Chinese school until 2:30 last night and all this morning.)
And I guess that's the thing about teaching. IT NEVER ENDS. Lesson planning, and then teaching, and then making the modifications, and thinking about the kids all the time... perfection is impossible. In a way, it feels like programming or something where there is always something else you can make better. But on the other hand, there is also this MARCH OF DOOM, this schedule where every day you get one shot at it, and then it'll be next year when you hope to teach the same material, except better. And in a way, every day is a deadline that involves the education and lives of 70-150 kids. I guess in a way it's only natural for someone who grew up in a household where no one had a job and yet seemed to be working all the time.
But on the other hand, I wonder if it's what I really want. I mean, it's challenging, and I definitely get some nice highs off of it -- when a lesson runs successfully, when the kids are visibly learning, when I make a difference... But on the other hand, it feels dreadfully hard to maintain, so I get some pretty dreadful lows with it, too. Every day I seem to bounce between absolute excitement and energy and gung-ho-ness and absolute wibbliness where I would basically sit in a (metaphorical) corner, feeling dead and dreading of another day. Days seem longer when you're at work at 7:15 and don't really stop until midnight. And having all this emotional fluctuation just seems to extend the day.
I worry about the sustainability of this. Whether it's really healthy for me at all. Whether I should be doing something else that I'm good at/enjoy. Or would this happen regardless of the work I do? Maybe I'm just adjusting to being an adult, but it doesn't feel like it.
Another possibility is that everything is harder because of STEP. I'm not very good a switching modes between one thing and another, and to have to hold both school and STEP in my head is kinda weird. On the other hand, one of the ex-History-STEPpies from a few years ago came and talked to us about how it never gets easier because we're all secretly masochistic and *want* every day to be a challenge.
I think right now I'm more undecided than I was when I applied to college, or even when I graduated. And yet the wheels are turning. I'll be graduated from STEP in 6 months, and there's a 50% chance I will have a job set up by then. (and a 90% chance I'll have a job by August.) And yet I haven't even really figured out what this teacher thing *is*. Some people are decidedly happy or unhappy about their jobs. Some jobs are easily classified as a 9-5 bum job, or a career thing, but what manner of creature do I have before me?
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Having a horrific day today :(
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