Monday, February 08, 2010

Wherefore art Thou, March?

Have I mentioned how glad I'll be when February is over? I've been "alone" at work since the beginning of January*, and pulled off a monthly Book Closing on my own after having been in the States over the weekend for Kat's wedding. I was even pushing 40 hours without sleep... but, it was definitely worth it - I wouldn't have missed her wedding for the world. Let's just say life has taken it's toll on me in the past weeks.

And the fact that I work for a bi-polar German Spawn of Satan doesn't help.

And the fact that I had a sort of crisis last year around this time doesn't help.

And the fact that I spent the weekend crying because of a stupid book doesn't help. But for some reason, I can't stop reading it.

Do you know what would be nice? If I could just take a break from life... maybe a few months or so, or more... I feel like I'm in a glass fish bowl, trapped in murky water, unable to see clearly and unable to get out. I know there's something better, more beautiful, out there somewhere, but I'm so busy struggling to swim and stay alive, and the water is so cloudy, that I'm unable to see beyond the smudgy glass edges. It's not just physical barriers we're talking about... I also feel limited on an intellectual level, which sucks, because there are certain things I almost NEED to understand. Alas... someone ought to pick me up, shake me off, and set me down somewhere peaceful, warm and dry outside of this Universe.


*Germans have an average of six weeks of vacation per year... and my colleague decided to take five weeks off to go to Australia. Though I'm happy for her, it's forced me to live in survival mode for the past month, which has not been pretty.

3 comments:

Ellie said...

I say that a lot - I just need a break from life...

Emiliediehl09 said...

What book were you reading?

Karen said...

We are very swamped at work too. I do Special Ed. and each student has a certain amount of minutes of instruction that I need to provide. We have structured the general ed. classes in such a way that it is nearly physically impossible to meet the minutes for each student. Our solution is that for now, I get 20 minutes for lunch/planning per day.

My principal is very supportive, so she contacted our district's central office (bureaucrats mainly) to seek their advice and get us some extra help. Stimulus money was granted to the Special Ed department, so they hired more bureaucrats (Obama hires).

These Obama hires have been following my Special Ed. team around for about 9 weeks now, "observing". They decided that we needed more training. So now, we have training after school, but not just our department, they want all of the regular Ed. teachers that we work with at these trainings too!

After one training session our trainers (handlers?)told our group that we were a little rude. We told them that we felt like we had been dumped in the ocean and we are flailing about trying to catch a hold of something solid for support. They came rushing off of an Ocean liner, not to rescue us, but maybe to help us improve our strokes and become more efficient.
Although their teaching may be good, it isn't offered at the correct time.

Anyway, your talk about feeling like you were in drowning in murky water reminded me of this. It is frustrating isn't it? Somewhere, down the line, it will make a great story as we see how we made it out of mess. So, for now, we keep on swimming, swimming swimming, keep on swimming.