Why do people that I live with prefer masturbation to sex with me within 6 months?
Why do people that I choose as long term partners feel that I am simply too much to deal with?
Why do people that I fall in love with appreciate how physically affectionate I am in the first few months and then complain that I am too clingy?
Why am I apprently such a drain on people’s resources that they simply cannot abide my presense?
Why do I date?
Why do I keep wanting a relationship?
Why fucking bother.
So, uhm. A girl that I have known since birth is getting married.
Hm. I don’t want to think about how I feel about that.
I’m not going to go into depth about school because I am still pissed off at my district. My kids are great and I am really starting to find my groove.
In totally vain news: I stepped on the scale today and it said 154.5. I am now within my doctors recommended range for me. Doing WW a couple years ago I got down to 157, but I never managed to get to 155. The only thing I’m doing right now is moving a lot more than usual (I am now teaching and running around campus all day) and I am not eating as much or as often because I have serious time contraints and stress.
I’m mostly happy and feeling relatively stable today. *breathe*
I have been having some seriously gnarly bad dreams for the past two nights. I wake up sad enough to cry. I feel vulnerable and fragile and extremely broken. I feel incompetent and lonely and overwhelmed.
I really hate feeling like this.
I want this day to be over. I am exhausted. This weekend was a mixed bag of good and bad–though mostly good. I am *exhausted* and I just want to fall down. I don’t have class until 7 though. 🙁 I’m being a stupid baby and feeling sad that Puppy makes plans to have dinner with other people but never manages to come home when I can be there. (It’s cause we have the crappiest schedules ever. I have class Mondays and Wednesdays and he has class or group meeting Tuesday and Thursday.)
This weekend was psycho busy. We played a bit and had fun together. I mostly avoided the people I don’t like. The psycho ex was not a problem at all. Though she did set up camp and watch us play on Friday. That was slightly creepy.
I feel utterly without energy. I don’t have the energy to input grades or contact parents or… I don’t fucking care.
Ok. Yeah. End of me whining for today now.
So! Today I was observed by my university supervisor and she ripped my ego into tiny little pieces. I don’t like this woman at all. Then I went and talked to the VP and to one of the advisors (this cool old guy who has worked for schools for almost 40 years–very smart mouth and all) and they went over her criticism and helped me to see them in ways that do not just amount to “You suck and you shouldn’t ruin children’s lives by being a teacher.” Thank god they are both so supportive and wonderful.
Then I had back to school night. It went great! I didn’t have a huge turn-out, only the parents of six kids out of thirty… However, the ones that showed up are obviously the ones who are really into their kids and care a lot about what is going on at the school. They were all very thrilled as I went through my policies and class requirements and they have all vowed to ask their kids at least once a week what book they are reading. {insert little happy hearts here} I was nervous, but it was totally smooth and awesome. I got to meet the parents of two of my biggest talkers and that was a lot of fun. Both sets of parents were delighted that I actually like their sassy, smart-mouth, exhuberent boys. Of course I like them! They are so much fun. Of course they require a lot of reminding about what task they should be working on… but that’s no big deal. 🙂
All in all it was awesome. Now I need to finish my lesson plan for tomorrow (make the handout) and pack for Folsom Fringe. Dear God I am tired and the very long and busy con weekend is just about to start…. AHHHHHHHHHH (Thank God Monday is going to be a total slide day for me in class.)
| You are a Social Liberal (70% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (78% permissive) You are best described as a: You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness. loc: (74, 105)
|
I have been asleep for the past three hours. I am sick. I have a fairly high fever and my throat hurts a lot.
I am so glad that I don’t have to teach tomorrow.
The next hippy-bitch who tells me that I should relish my period because it connects me with the flow of life?
Yeah. I’m going to break your fucking nose you god damn moron.
Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
I hate my body today. And I hate that my uterus is trying to climb through my gut.
I didn’t get around to navel gazing on what I thought I wanted to bring up. That is probably good, it meant I was more ok with the topic wandering around a lot.
Some things looked at:
Relationships within my family
How I handle verbal boundaries with friends
My birthday
The touching thing that has been happening lately and the resultant near agoraphobia
Follow up on the moving thing with Puppy
That was a lot to cover in 55 minutes and I feel a little overwhelmed by it. I still feel like she and I are getting up to speed with one another and that means we are doing a lot of very surface-level discussion of things.
In mulling over the touching thing after therapy by myself a couple of things occured to me. At this point in time I am no longer comfortable with allowing anyone to treat my body as if it is something they have a right to touch. This is manifesting in a few ways. The vast majority of my friends are people whom I have given explicit permission to and I am not upset with my friends. However, the fact that my friends touch me so casually and so constantly means that people who do not have permission to touch me feel that it is simply an ok thing to do. I have been trying and trying and trying to figure out how to deal with this. My reaction of just not going out where there might be people who don’t have permission isn’t really working out. It means I am missing chances to see my friends and that is hurting me.
For a while I think I need to revoke all standing permission. In no way is this a criticism of anyone who has standing permission or an implication that you do/have done anything wrong. For whatever reason, at this point in time I need to have a lot more control over access to my body than I have had for a while. I really need to have everyone try to be conscious enough to ask me specifically and verbally if it is ok to touch me right now. I’m going to do my level best to be gentle in reminding people if they forget, because it isn’t a normal part of most peoples’ interactions with me. I don’t know how long this will last. I just can’t deal with constantly feeling out of control anymore. I can’t handle the fact that my feeling at this point in time is that I am better off not going to anyones’ event because I will have to be defensive of my body and potentially hostile. And by defensive of my body, I do mean my shoulder, my head, my arm… I’m not just talking about the sexual parts of my body.
I explained to her that at this point when someone touches me without permission (someone I don’t really know, I’m not referencing friends) my response is to get rather hostile. I told her how very upset it makes me that I get hostile because it is surely over the top. She said it is perfectly ok and she is really happy that I am defending the boundary for myself, however I need to do it. This was my first almost-crying moment with her. I have been feeling so very bad lately that I get so upset about something that other people seem to shrug off. Having so many people tell me to just get over it has made it even worse. I talked to Puppy about it last night too and he said he agrees with her. I am going to make a hugely judgmental statement now and say: Thank god that for once it isn’t me that is broken in an exchange. The people who are telling me that I am wrong for having boundaries are not perfectly ok. It’s stupid and awful that I need other people to tell me this. It isn’t that I think that it is wrong for other people to not have boundaries for themselves, but they are wrong in telling me to get over what I need for myself. [attempt to be funny]I had suspected this.[/attempt to be funny]
I really like this therapist. I think this is going to work out.
I will write the school update though. Cause yeah… I just will. 🙂
I had a gnarly situation this week with a student that lead to considerable angst. For the first several days in class he announced loudly that he wasn’t going to read and he didn’t care what I said about it. I tried calling his mom after class on Monday but she wasn’t home and he took a message. I called back on Tuesday… she hadn’t gotten the message. Turns out his mom is a wacko and before I could explain to her why I was calling she started yelling at him and I listened to a screaming match between them. I felt awful. He wasn’t actually in trouble with me. I was calling to ask him mom if she could please check with him in the evenings to see if he had reading homework and ask him to please do it. That was all I wanted to get across.
Wednesday and Thursday in class was a nightmare. The kid was willfully defiant and rude and just plain awful to me. He made a huge point out of letting everyone in the room know that he hated me and he wasn’t going to do the work. Friday started out even worse. He asked me a question in a nasty tone of voice and I let my temper get the better of me and I wasn’t very helpful in response. I had sent in a referal to the student/family center (our counseling center) the day before because I didn’t want to give him a referal for detention and just as he called me a bitch for not being helpful with his question in came a TA with a pass for him to leave class to talk to the student/family center. I gratefully handed him the pass and sent him out of class. Multiple students told me that he didn’t have the right to treat me that way and that he was not adequately provoked for that kind of behavior.
He came back into class with about 15 minutes left obviously with a huge chip still on his shoulder. The class was working silently on writing so I pulled him out of class. The first words out of my mouth were an apology. I told him at length why I called his mom, what my intentions were, and why I now know that it was a horrible idea and I feel really bad. He was visibly shocked. We talked for a few minutes about the mistakes I have made with him and I apologized again. He apologized for his behavior and explained why he was lashing out at me (his mom really is pretty crazy) and we agreed to start over with one another on Monday. I gave him permission to stay in at break any time something comes up that he is upset about. He was really surprised that when I do something that is messed up he can call me on it. I think things will be ok now. He really is a nice kid and I had been looking forward to working with him.
In other news:
My unit plan for short stories is basically done and I have figured out almost everything that I am doing for every other unit other than poetry. Poetry isn’t my thing and I am having a bitch of a time figuring out that unit. I also took over the senior class Friday. AHH!! For the next three weeks I am doing exactly what my master teacher wants done because I don’t want to change approaches with the kids mid-way through a book. That wouldn’t be fair. Then I take over and have them on my own for 12 weeks. 🙂 That is… if my school doesn’t add on another English class… and it looks like they will. oy. All of the senior Enligh classes have 34-37 kids in them and the teaching contract says 33 kids. This is a problem.
I started writers workshop this week and I am really blown away by how personal a lot of the writing was! I thought it was weird that I volunteered so much personal information with people I didn’t know well. Yeah right! I’m apparently normal. It is really cool to get to know the kids and I think this year is going to be so much fun!
This weekend my goal is to get all of the assignments and rubrics done for this unit so that I can make all of my overheads and copies on Tuesday when I will have extra time on campus. Then I won’t have to be so worried about arriving as early in the mornings. 🙂
Ok, the problem with filters is, I want to write about school. That means school filter. I want to write about my upcoming therapy appointment today. That means therapy filter. I want to talk about some of my insecurity filter stuff.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH Fine. I will either write three posts or none at all. Guess we’ll see.
Oh! New icons. Much awesome stuff. Much love to Noah for letting me have these in the first place. 🙂 (Though I have now paid for my own thankyouverymuch)
“Miss A, do you think you could turn down the spaz a bit?”
“S–that would be like me asking you to be less S-like. I’m a spaz. That’s just how it is.”
*sigh* “I suppose I will have to learn to deal with that.”
I love my students.
Well… I finished my lesson for tomorrow and read the book for the other class and all that mess…
So now I am sitting here twiddling my thumbs. It is 8:30 on a Thursday night and I feel like I want someone to pay attention to me. Puppy is still at work and will be for a while longer (TA duties). I am noticing that teaching means putting a great deal of time and focus outside of me and onto other people. When I finished the reading tonight I stopped and considered the fact that other than eating, the need for sleep, and bathing I haven’t paid attention to myself in the last 48-ish hours. That is a long time for me to not have any personal thoughts! I tried hitting a social event last night for a bit but I was so wrapped up in what I needed to accomplish in planning that I got snappy and impatient immediately and just came home. It’s a weird feeling. I want attention, and yet I know that I have no energy to give to anyone at this point so I’m not seriously thinking about doing anything with anyone else. I feel totally selfish and self-absorbed. I hate that I feel bad for that. I need to be asleep in about an hour and a half and I haven’t noticed myself in more than two days and I feel guilty for wanting to focus on me for what time I have until I sleep? I really am weird.
Or maybe I’m not. Do other people feel guilty when they want to only pay attention to themself? (I’m sure my self-absorbtion of the moment is also related to my speedy reading of Siddhartha tonight.)
I think I should put on a cheesy kids movie, make myself some comfort food that I won’t feel guilty about, and crawl into bed.
I can’t even bring myself to seriously look at what has happened on lj since this weekend. My brain considered it and discarded it out of laziness. I do love you all; I’m just fried.
Wow this week has been brutal!
I haven’t read lj really. I tried skimming… but my brain is fried and there is a novel I have to read tonight because I take over teaching the class tomorrow.
I may still end up teaching another section. Oy. I want them to decide already.
My class is going fairly well. I have next week planned entirely and I am putting finishing touches on the following two weeks. YAY!
I love my Puppy. He has been stepping up in a number of ways that really impress me. I feel very lucky to have him even though having him means I have an evil commute.
I had dinner with a cool guy from school on Tuesday. That was a highlight of the week. 🙂
Still running a defecit on sleep and sex. DAMNIT!!!
I have managed to wear out my eyes. I have been reading pretty much non-stop for the last 6 hours. Now I can’t seem to focus.
I have the year outline done and I am set for Monday. I’m going to call it a day and give my eyes a break.
Thank you to all the people who wished me a happy birthday. Thank you to the people who gave me attention.
My legs don’t hurt! 🙂
Still feeling odd.
My mom just called to wish me a happy birthday. 2 1/2 minutes into the conversation she said, “I’m getting on the freeway now so I have to go. Bye.” And hung up.
Why does she even bother?
Yes. I really am a morning person. I woke up (without the alarm) at 6:20. I could have gotten ready for work in that time, but I need to try and encourage my body to get up a little earlier. By the end of next week I won’t need an alarm again.
I have already sent numerous emails that are work related and now I am going to start grading. When I finish: curriculum! I have a whole year to plan. My goal is to have the rough sketch for the entire year done by 10 so that I can be done before I go hiking with friends today. 🙂 Yes. I am a nerd. And an over-achiever. What is your point?!
Tomorrow I get to put together my next two unit plans. Short stories for the next three weeks and The Crucible for the six weeks after that.
I am going to be babbling about school a LOT. Do you actually want to hear this? I will be merciful and let people opt-in at this point. 😉 Standard disclaimer: If you don’t OPT IN you won’t be added. I’m kind that way.
A teacher friend sent me this. It makes the rounds in education pretty frequently. I like it.
———————————————————————————————-
The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz, the creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip. You don’t have to actually answer the questions. Just read straight through, and you’ll get the point.
1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winner for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.
How did you do?
The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.
Here’s another quiz. See how you do on this one:
1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
Easier?
The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones who care.
“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It’s already
tomorrow in Australia.” (Charles Schultz)
