Sunday Morning

These are minimally photoshopped pictures of me this morning:

Me

Me more.

More me.

Today my head is a pinball machine, my attention the ball. It's all sound and fury, but if I don't let it run like this I'll be fighting a panic attack. I've started lots of things this morning, but the only thing I've finished is folding my laundry. I'm terrified of going back to school tomorrow. My kids are supposed to be ready to start the editing process on their personal narratives and only one in ten of them is going to have written it.

About 70% of my kids are going to fail this trimester. I can't help but feel like I've failed them. And I feel bad about it because I feel like I've done about the best I can and it's not good enough. I've never realized my inadequacies as a teacher like I do now. I don't think I'm very good at it.

I don't have enough patience, and I don't understand why they can't do the things I can do easily and have always been able to do easily. I don't have a high opinion of my capabilities. I haven't since high school. So the fact that I can do most of these things without trying, when I think I'm no great shakes, makes me feel like there's something really wrong with these kids.

I just don't know how to get them to do what is expected of them. Either they just don't want to, or I've failed. It's hard for me to believe that the whole lot of them but for a few are ok with failing and don't care about the future, so it's easier to believe it's my fault. I don't feel like there's any objective way of determining the truth of the situation, so I'm kind of stuck feeling awful.

One thing I'm more certain of than ever. I don't think it does much good to have compulsory education. I can't force anyone to learn anything, so for many of my students school is like training prison. It's just a place they're confined to before they get started on the real thing. I've already had about 10% of my students get started on it because of drugs in this trimester alone. From what I can tell, about 25% more just haven't got caught yet.

Here I Am

I've been meaning to put this up for a while now, just to let people know I'm alive. I am still alive. Mostly. I'm kind of having a rough time right now, and I thought it might make me feel better if I pointed my continued existence out to the world.

I know I've got email from some of you and haven't replied. Sorry about that. I've been pretty wrapped up in school, and probably enjoying my anonymity of being new in town too much. It's coming back to bite me. Anyway, here are some pictures with some descriptions.

This is the front of my building. It's old. I think the art deco entry is the newest thing about it. I kind of like that it's old.



This is looking down 2nd Ave toward the church office building, taken from just above my building.

This is the rear of the building. I'm on the bottom.

I was told by the landlord that the garages were built for the width of model T's. They seem wider in the old films than anything I can imagine fitting comfortably in these stalls. I'm glad I drive a small car.

This is the view of the capitol from the garage area behind the building. There's about a twenty foot drop here to the parking structure for the apartments in the foreground.


This is the living room with the shelves I made, the futon I bought at the DI for $20 and the camp chair I've replaced with an uncomfortable but expensive looking micro-fibre office chair, also from the DI. The chair is in front of my computer.

This is a composite of the kitchen. The sink and counter are parallel in real life, not angled toward eachother on the wall.

Oh well. That's it for this post. Maybe on the next one I'll post pictures of myself. I've got different facial hair than I've had before. Some of my kids say I look like an Irish Biker. My kids are weird.