I was not ready for this week. The weekend, both days, from morning till night, pummelled my emotions and pulled my heart into pieces. I think I cried non-stop from about midnight Friday until 6:30 a.m. Monday. I didn't really sleep at all.

So the news that I was to do an on-call on Monday was not welcome. An on-call, for those of you not in the know, is a way for schools to save money on substitute teachers. Instead of hiring a sub for the day, a secretary assigns supervision duty to teachers during half of their preparation periods. I was scheduled for gym. Gym!!!! I haven't set foot in a fucking gym since I completed my own highschool requirements twelve fucking years ago. Not to mention the fact that my instructions read something like, "the shirts and soccer ball are in the cupboard. Try to make fair teams." (The next teacher was instructed to "go find the class." No, really.)

So we went outside and I watched a bunch of cheerful boys play soccer. It wasn't particularly onerous, but I didn't have a sweet clue what I was watching, let alone what I would do if someone was hurt. When my replacement found me, I returned to the gym office to find that my 1L waterbottle had been thrown out. I was given a new 500mL bottle in exchange. It was just the icing on the goddamn cake, you know? After standing in a cold field for 50 minutes, worrying about possible concussions and trying to figure out when I would be able to mark or plan, my giganto I-need-this-to-talk-through-three-classes size bottle was trashed.

Later that day I kicked a student out of the room. He refused to move. The Veep was called, who escorted him out.

Yesterday my fourth period class was setting things on fire. I didn't realize it until the next class complained of a burning smell. Of course, at that point my options were limited. This is the problems of sitting so far away from the source of trouble.

At least my hell-bound homeroom actually likes me now. Sometimes it's hard to remember that I'm not a bad person or a bad teacher; I have two classes of students who generally think I'm an okay person - and even half of my jail-bound/jail-bait class is personable.

My mother has been prompting me to make a distinction between gnats and sorrows. Gnats are the kind of problems that sting you in a thousand tiny ways until they are crushed. Sorrows are life-long, the kind of problems you wrestle with everyday and forever. Based on this, I've decided that my day-to-day issues with teaching (and depression and anxiety and utter dependence on the Boy and alienation from my house) are gnats. They will go away. One day I'll be driving down the road and my heart will be a song of joy because I won't be teaching highschool the next day, week, month, or year. However, wondering if I wasted two years of my life training for a job that's slowly destroying me...that's a sorrow.

So, you know. Perspective is everything. It still sucks to be me, but at least the sucking will end someday.

Last night's Buffy: I blew off all of my work to see it. I spent an hour and a half in cross-town rush hour traffic to see it. I dined on hummus and vendor dogs on the steps of Vic castle to see it. I violated the rules of etiquette, inviting myself and the Boy over to Stacy's, to see it. I suffered countless anxiety attacks about marking and lesson prep to see it.

It was worth it. Oh. Wow.

"I think I'm stuck." - dead guy on root