Who more foolish than I?

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer. That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

O Me! O Life!

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman reminds me of Santa Claus* sometimes. I guess all old people with gigantic white beards tend to look the same. I told my Dad that he looked like Sam Beam once. He seemed really confused after that.

This week, we'll have TAKS testing. I get to monitor the kids for exams during three of the days. I am hoping that it'll be a good time for me to not assign homework and hopefully get some grading done in the evening. I had an unpleasant situation in the afternoon, but I think I handled it pretty well. I didn't shrink from the confrontation, which I was proud of. I think I tend to try to take too much of a conciliatory tone when dealing with unpleasant situations, and I think that people take that for weakness. Also, my ability to apologize. I will admit if I made a mistake. I have that ability, and I'm glad to have it. It is frustrating though, when people take that as a sign that I'm wrong and they're right. I'm usually a "everyone's a little wrong and everyone's a little right" kind of person anyway. Unless it comes to feelings, in which case I'm a "you might be right but it still hurts my feelings so let's fix it" kind of gal. I can get my feelings hurt easily.

Teaching has actually been good for me, in regards to that. During the first few months of the first semester of school, I would get honestly upset. I wanted to be the perfect teacher, and if I couldn't make everyone happy than I felt that I, in some way, was a failure. It took a lot of people convincing me otherwise to get that out of my head.. and I think that I've toughened up a lot in regards to it. I'm not saying that I like the negative circumstances that occasionally arise from my job, but it doesn't hurt me as a person anymore. 

But it does make me feel stressed. I think that there are a lot of things going on right now. The final six weeks is huge, and while I do have the weight of contract-renewal out of the way (phew), I still have grades, finals, TALENT SHOWS, student's parents, MY parents, my personal life, everything is kind of squeezing me until I feel like a battered tube of toothpaste. A tube of toothpaste that's been squeezed from the middle, too, not neatly rolled up from the bottom.

Poetic, huh? If I didn't have the summer to look forward to, I don't know what I would do. I like TEACHING. Some of the kids are absolutely fantastic, and I enjoy having the knowledge that they've benefited in some manner from being in my class. I guess that sounds conceited. I like the fact that I'm actually DOING SOMETHING, though, something that will change a person's life forever. Working in retail was horrible for me, because what was I doing with my time and energy? Helping people buy things they didn't need so that some store owners could get more money that they didn't necessarily deserve. I felt this way in Korea, too. Working isn't fun in most cases, but when I feel like I'm actually accomplishing something... well, then it's worth it.

But don't get me wrong, I am totally counting the days until the end of school. 21 full days of school, 3 half days of school, 1 holiday and then 1 in-service day. Plus they'll be taking TAKS and EOCs and then AP exams for the next few weeks, so it's going to be absolute madness. 

I get to go see the Decemberists on Friday. I'm pretty thrilled. I like knowing what I'm going to do each week, even if it's simply the knowledge that I won't be doing anything. And not doing anything can be fairly positive, as it means that I won't spend money and that's usually a good thing. But this weekend, I'll be doing things! And stuff! And... other things! 

It'll be madness.


*Haaaah, I put Santa Clause.