But I Won’t Hesitate No More…*

I have to admit this school year is kicking my butt. The constant planning is hard on my brain…this is planning with no existing curriculum…just a pile of standards. It takes a ton of time. And on top of that, there are the running weekly adjustments to make shit work. And then we try to plan low-maintenance days into the curriculum, days when we should be able to get some grading done or sit and check in with kids who really need it, or at least not be at 130%, and instead it turns into high-maintenance checks. Mostly they want me to check every one of their answers, and I’m trying to train them to check their own work. To have faith in their own ability. That’s a lot harder to teach. To teach a kid that not every answer has to be pre-approved by the teacher. Oh my. It’s exhausting. Seven-hundred hands in the air. Ugh. And maybe only one of them was legit.

I really need to sit next to a few of my kids and walk them through every research step, because they can’t even match up the words on the paper to the words on the screen. Like Find the Atomic Number…where is that? Where it says Atomic Number on the screen. Ironically, our English-learning department wants us to give them high-level text. I’m like…Um…you realize I could write this at a kindergarten level and it would be high-level for them? Sigh. I hate the system some days. Makes me want to be a barrista. Or a bagger at the grocery store. A job where I don’t have to take it home. Where I don’t feel like I’m failing on a daily basis.

Then an after-school meeting and the gym (I really needed the gym). I was so glad to get to read my book. I want to just sit down and keep reading it until I’m done, but that’s not an option at the moment. I honestly don’t have time to read unless I’m eating dinner (yes, I read while I eat) or at the gym. And then I graded. And then it was almost bedtime. I had to be up early this morning.

So I’m sitting here right now feeling UGHHGHG because I didn’t do anything yesterday (really) but work. I worked hard. But I only worked. It’s funny because then the next day there’s usually backlash and I don’t work at all (well, at least AFTER work hours…I don’t really have the option to blow off the day itself). So maybe it does balance. Except then I feel behind in grading or missing good feelings from making art, depending on what I didn’t get to that day. This job is incredibly awful for having a balanced life.

I guess if all I did when I came home was deal with the dogs, eat some dinner, and go to bed, everything would be fine. Silly me trying to be an artist in the face of that.

So I had to revise my door at school. There was a small contingent of whiny brats (sorry, I’m pissed that they didn’t have the balls to talk to me or my students…my students would have explained their thinking, which has nothing to do with the election and everything to do with bullying language) who went to the principal…these were adults, mind you, not kids. And now I have kids asking me why I changed it.

I told them the principal made me. Actually, that makes me laugh. And it’s still Trump’s face, so whatever.

I have no damn art photos for today, because I didn’t even touch it. But I did have dogs everywhere. And cats.

Ugh. I need a break. From shit. I NEED TO DRAW DAMMIT.

But right now, I need to go to school. And try to deal. Honestly, this adulting crap is getting old. Ha ha. Old. Because I’m old, right? Yeah. I know. Pandora is playing all this poppy perky-ass music and my brain wants like booming Led Zeppelin or slamming Linkin Park. Whatevs. This is what is known in my household as A Mood. It will wander off eventually if I stop feeding it shit.

*Jason Mraz, I’m Yours