basta

I know that there are many good things in my life. I know that the good things are the important ones: my health and that of my family; my marriage is strong; we have enough money to buy ourselves food, clothing, and shelter. I have clean water that appears in my kitchen without my having to travel a distance to carry it. I could go on, but you get my point. But although I am truly grateful that I have a job, this particular one is starting to get to me.

Even when I only consider my job, there are many good things about it-- summers off and my salary being the two best. Day to day, though.... I used to say that it was hard anticipating going back, like after a vacation or the weekend, but that it was never as bad as I thought it was going to be once I was there. This year, though.... I know it's still the beginning, but....

I don't know. I don't want to get into all of it, but it is just getting to be too much and it is not improving as the weeks march on. The addition of 2 kids would have been a lot under any circumstances, but these new ones are so intense. There is just no time to think or plan ahead. I feel like I am just babysitting and not teaching. And because of the nature of my room-- self-contained classroom in a high school-- kids are in my room all day, every day. Except for 40 minutes or so when they are at lunch, I am responsible for them. Every other teacher in the building has a planning period built into their schedule; I only get one if I can plan for the kids to be occupied by someone other than me. every other teacher also has a "duty period" (lunch duty, hall monitor)-- which means another period that they are not planning for. How I would love to sit in the hall and make sure kids sign a log if they use the restroom everyday in exchange for not having to plan for or be responsible for students that one period. I realize that every other teacher has about 100 students whereas I have 6 total, but the numbers lie. Each of my students is like having some multiple of "regular" students with the attention and amount of paperwork to be done.

I can't keep on with it like this. Something has to change; whether it's the work conditions or my attitude or the job itself, I don't know. I do know that after I came home and ranted for a while, my husband asked me, "So, do you think you want to finish out the school year or start looking for another job right away?"

No need to go on any more now. I'm sure I'll feel just as angsty on Monday after I get back from work. I can continue then. Isn't it great to have something to look forward to?