:with love and squalor

Teachers of Tumblr:

The second year is way better than the first year… right?

the kindergarten TFA teacher at my school just got her class list

she texted it to me and it’s like 3/4 of my class last year… i’m so jealous of her.  i should have looped!  my little babies aren’t mine anymore!  this is weird.  :( i want them back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  she doesn’t even have the one kid who instilled my secret fear of looping.  dang.  i’m really excited about being able to help her and making sure she takes good care of my kids’ needs though, especially one who really needs special attention and a fast-tracked IEP now that he’s not in pre-k anymore.

ew

i’m sick :( i have a stupid cold.  no surprise, really, since pat was sick a few days ago.  i should’ve seen it coming but after like the first 6 months of teaching pre-k i stopped getting sick entirely, because my immune system had gone into, like, agonizing death and slow rebirth.  but it’s been a few months since being constantly exposed to little kid germs, so it makes sense, i guess that i’m sick.  better now than in a few weeks when i’d have to take off work.  pat brought me over some soup and cough drops and i feel a little better, but i can’t sleep.

on that note, abeni made me realize that essentially next week is my last full week off (and isn’t even really because i have TFA PD on saturday the 18th).  so this is my last weekend.  and then next week and then i’m really due back to work.

sometimes i wish i believed in god… any kind of god… so i knew what to do when i felt like i needed some kind of magical influx of strength and fortitude.  but i don’t, so i guess i’ll just search for it where i always do, inside my stupid self.

retailers who are putting out BACK-2-SCHOOL stuff in july

please stop.  just stop.  please, please, please, just gtfo.  just stop.  because honestly, just don’t.  i just can’t.  JUST STOP, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.  LEAVE ME ALONE.

The spectre of work haunts me ALWAYS.

something cool that once happened to me

is that a few weeks ago i was finally mowing my lawn after months of not mowing it and found, inexplicably, an unopened 6-pack of natty boh hiding in the shade of the sugar magnolia tree.  i have no idea where this beer came from (i’m not really the type to absentmindedly do anything, especially leave alcohol i paid for somewhere stupid like, um, outside).  the better thing that happened is that i’m currently drinking the beers and they are not—i repeat, NOT—skunked!  and people say there is no god.

anyways, an uncool thing that once happened to me is that today i was in a really bad mood because i realized summer is basically over.  i know it’s only the first week in july… okay, the second week in july, i guess, but two weeks ago i got a Lakeshore catalogue that was all BACK TO SCHOOL~~~!!!!!!! and i cried.  and then a man at rite aid told me while i was buying a kiddie pool that i should buy more “summer seasonal” stuff because he was about to change it over to school supplies and i cried some more.

at the end of the year, i was all, okay, my job is okay, and my kids are GREAT, and i can do this.  but now that august is virtually upon me, because, let’s face, i’ll probably essentially waste july as i did june, i feel the doom setting in.  august will be, like, the longest sunday evening dread fest EVER.  i don’t know if i can do it.  especially with the anxiety of not knowing if i’m gonna have my wonderful para anymore, things look sort of grim.  especially with the school being reconfigured, turned over to the state, and us getting a direct instruction curriculum next year, i’m basically terrified.  and miserable.

but did i waste june?  i mean, i’ve done a lot of stuff this summer that was really fun and i spent really fun days with my friends and done a lot of relaxing and sleeping in and a little travel and i’m hoping to do some more travel and more sleeping in and more hanging out.  i’m so conditioned to feel guilty if i’m not DOING THINGS ALL THE TIME that all this free time has made me even more neurotic and irritable than ever.  my partner even said that he thought i might have been happier while i was working—which is something i never thought i’d ever believe.  but maybe it’s true.

and then i listen to myself and realize i’m complaining about having the awesome leisure of doing nothing for two months while still being employed and knowing i’m going to start getting paid in a few more weeks and i sound like a privileged idiot and i feel even more guilty, like, oh, summer is awesome but it’s not ~*~awesome enough~*~ for me?

i should just enjoy my lawn beer and relax, right?