Don't think about them, they won't be thinking about you

On Labor

somehow i know i will think about these children over my break
about how much i can plan to make the next three weeks easier on myself

but there is so much to do...

retesting, grading, testing, retesting, grade recovery

only 2 out of 5 of those things ever existed in my high school

not that my high school was great, but i think they held us to higher expectation than the high school i teach at

i'm still a little pissed off at the system i've been thrown into.

there's just something overall wrong with it, here are some of the specifics

retesting....???!??!! what the F is that? i don't even remember being able to take a test over in elementary school, let alone high school (and they wonder why these kids drop out of college).

grade recovery....so when you fail you don't really fail, now you get to do your work after school...or really what you are doing is getting on your teacher's nerves (and they wonder why these kids drop out of college).

deficiency notices... why should i have to give a grade report every week, then by a certain date have to tail your a$$ that you failing...read your damn grade report....it tells you that you are failing (and they wonder why these kids drop out of college).

On survival

its logical to run from those things that put your life in the gravest danger, but what about the things that slowly eat you from your insides and consume the very last bit of who you really are. There are things in life that we encounter that won't kill us, and some would argue that these are the things that make us better people or at least stronger. i have to say that i agree that you will become stronger in one regard, but at what sacrifice? there is also another opposing point of view that life is short and that we should enjoy every second as if it were our last. Am I enjoying part of my day? yes. Am I enjoying most of my day? no...on average I am operating at somewhere near 30% happy, a very very unhappy statistic. when we are contemplating whether to enjoy or grow, what are the decision variables? does it matter whether we are risk averse, risk neutral, or risk inclined? would time make me change my mind? would experience give me a different point of view? would the people in my life make it easier to choose the harder road? some might say that all of these things play a role, but i have to say when it comes down to the wire, most people do not think of the struggles in their lives as decisions, even if they are. or maybe not most people, but i don't. i'm starting to see life as a bunch of "happenings". i am here by happenstance, a chain of events brought me here. it all started with seeing a tall fellow student at a harvard party....it quickly turned into a facebook message right around this time of year and by christmas it was some sort of courtship game...and now 3 years later, i am here sitting on my bed writing about surviving with 59 tenth grade inner city kids (really it started 23 years ago, but who can remember anything from then.)
its very odd to me, i am usually a very happy person, known for my jovial behavior and my charismatic smile. but now i would say that i am known by the people in my new life by my tears and my "hanging by a string, about to quit" face. my principal started a sentence the other day with, "i don't want you to leave the profession..." no one has never told me that they though i would quit before i started this. i'm writing all this to just put my thoughts out there. i feel less like quitting than a month ago, but no more like staying.

thanksgiving is here (almost)
i have survived another month, but if i am still less like myself have i really survived.
i have survived another month, but if i am less like myself am i more like real true me.

I have survived, but is this sustainable. How can people spend their entire careers doing this. Rumi said it, I need to find it. He may have been talking about eros, but i think that philios brought me here and i need some of the same stuff to sustain it.

"Passion makes the old medicine new:
Passion lops off the bough of weariness.
Passion is the elixir that renews:
how can there be weariness
when passion is present?
Oh, don't sigh heavily from fatigue:
seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!"
- Rumi