december 6, 2001. I think I'm happy. Which is kind of weird, really. I haven't been happy, really happy for days, and to my emotional memory that's like never having ever been happy. And what's totally fucked up is that this was the worst day I've ever had on practicum, even last year. My dreaded fourth period class went so badly that my teacher is not about to leave me alone with them anymore and even my homeroom angels were so unruly last period that several of them guiltily confessed to my teacher. She thinks that I'm losing control. She may be right. I think I'm happy because I don't think it can get any worse than this. What kills me is that everything was A-OK just this morning. First thing in the morning I asked her for reassurance and I got it, but now all my achievements have vanished in a puff of smoke. I've been crying a lot. In the staff bathroom at lunch, and again when I got home: big horrible wailing sobs. My pathetic fallacy was right on schedule, too: after my first crying fit I discovered that my clothes were full of blood, bringing mingled shame & relief (I was ill this morning and I had the baby-thought again). I feel so utterly useless and full of the worst kind of failure. I'm beginning to seriously wonder if I should be a teacher, because I'm not sure that I'm any good at it. I used to be sure. 3 weeks ago I was angry every day because I wasn't getting the kind of positive feedback I thought I deserved - after all, hadn't my last practicum teacher told me that I was a really good teacher, and that I had to potential to be great? Hadn't I had a semester of hard work and 7 weekends with a special needs girl and didn't those prove that I kicked pedagogical ass? Now I just wonder if this misery I feel every day has a point. I'm tired of telling kids to put toys away, to stop talking, to pay attention, to take the assignment seriously. I hear myself making all of the typical threats: I'll send you out, I'll move your seating, I'll change your group - and I wonder who's issuing them. Certainly not me; I would never do anything that tiresome. Who am I these days? I see this capering idiot, this bitch full of empty threats and ineffective reactions that struggles her way through the curriculum and earns the contempt of her peers and her students. This is not who I want to be. Leave alone the emerging spectre of flunking practicum, leave alone comments I hear like "how could you expect a student teacher to deal with it?" - I don't want to be this person. I'm so afraid that I've made a huge mistake and disrupted my life & the Boy's to chase a dream that I'm not good enough to catch. I'm so afraid that Stacy is wrong when she tells me she knows I'll be a good teacher. I'm so afraid that I'll give up & hate myself for the rest of my life, and I'm afraid that I won't give up and hate my job for the rest of my life. Well. That did it. I'm not happy anymore. this time 3 years ago: decadent & bitter & sexy