The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
Or, welcome to another edition of "Let's Try This Bullshit Again For The Nth Time."
I'm sure I'm shouting into the void at this point, this journal has been inactive for so long. That's fine. I talk to myself all the time; this should prove more coherent than the word vomit that comes out of my mouth daily.
Whilst I sort out my writing (goals? ambitions? thingies?) future, I'll use this as a weekly log of where I'm at and where my head's at and what's going on in my life. Not because the minutiae of my life is SO INCREDIBLY FASCINATING, but because 1) I need to start somewhere; 2) a journal is relatively low stakes; 3) giving myself a place to keep myself accountable is probably a good idea, given my history.
Sooooooooooo, where to start?
Welp, I suppose I can start with the fact that I recently did a deep dive of this journal, and Y I K E S THE CRINGE. I believe The Youths® call it "cheugy" now. And as a millennial (an Elder Millennial, at that), this state of "cheugy" is my default setting.
Which, fair.
But yeah. I wasn't super stoked by some of the verbage I used to throw around so casually in the aughts. It was absolutely Of That Period, to coin a phrase, but that's not an excuse I'm willing to accept. As much as I want to delete the entries and start from scratch (SO MUCH HOLY HELL), I think it's better that they serve as a reminder that you live and you learn and you grow up.
Also fascinating to contemplate the changes in my writing style (not in the fact that I overshare, of course, but definitely in how I overshare).
This is truly a time capsule.
What else?
Still teaching. It's very different, post-pandemic. I'm very different, post-pandemic. I joked a lot last year that the pandemic broke me, but that's not really a joke. It truly did fundamentally change me. Still working out in what ways, exactly. But I'm definitely a lot less willing to accept nonsense. I used to just take a lot of shit and not complain. Possibly, as I'm getting older, this is the natural result, but it feels like the pandemic helped accelerate that tendency. I'm a lot more willing to say No now, and just No. I might have felt compelled even three years ago to explain why No; now, I've come to understand that No is a complete sentence. That's been nice.
I don't know that I'll stay teaching. The state of the profession is in such a way that a lot of things would have to change very quickly in order for me to feel like I could stay and put in the full 30 years. I'm currently at year 15 (although only 13 count as far as MDCPS is concerned; my substitute teaching years don't count because that's the moment that MDCPS stopped counting substitute experience towards your years, the bastards), and the idea of 15 more is truly painful. Possibly I might survive in a different county, either further north in Central FL, or in another state entirely. Or perhaps teaching history again, something that's completely removed from what I'm doing now (although I still love what I do). Or possibly I would still decide it's not worth it. I don't think a change of scenery is a cure-all, necessarily, I just know it could help get me through it, since I'd be learning how things work (maybe in a different county) with different needs and desires and a different population.
The problem, of course, is that I have the same problem as I did when I had my crisis of faith after I left my first full-time position at a school: I have no idea what else I would do, because teaching is all I ever wanted to do. Writing is probably not going to be so lucrative that I can afford to stop working a normal day-to day. Just from an objectively realistic point of view. So I can't hang my hat on that. I'm considering my options, since there's no real rush for me to figure it out right now. Nothing's really standing out so far. The first thing everyone says is creating curriculum, in some form or fashion, but curriculum is the thing I hate the most in my job because I fundamentally disagree with how it's planned and executed, and I wouldn't be doing anything new with curriculum if I went to work in that sector because that's not what people want.
So we'll see how this potential new journey shakes out, I guess is what I'm saying.
All right, good talk.
See y'all next week. And Happy Valentine's Day, if you're into observing the holiday.
I'm sure I'm shouting into the void at this point, this journal has been inactive for so long. That's fine. I talk to myself all the time; this should prove more coherent than the word vomit that comes out of my mouth daily.
Whilst I sort out my writing (goals? ambitions? thingies?) future, I'll use this as a weekly log of where I'm at and where my head's at and what's going on in my life. Not because the minutiae of my life is SO INCREDIBLY FASCINATING, but because 1) I need to start somewhere; 2) a journal is relatively low stakes; 3) giving myself a place to keep myself accountable is probably a good idea, given my history.
Sooooooooooo, where to start?
Welp, I suppose I can start with the fact that I recently did a deep dive of this journal, and Y I K E S THE CRINGE. I believe The Youths® call it "cheugy" now. And as a millennial (an Elder Millennial, at that), this state of "cheugy" is my default setting.
Which, fair.
But yeah. I wasn't super stoked by some of the verbage I used to throw around so casually in the aughts. It was absolutely Of That Period, to coin a phrase, but that's not an excuse I'm willing to accept. As much as I want to delete the entries and start from scratch (SO MUCH HOLY HELL), I think it's better that they serve as a reminder that you live and you learn and you grow up.
Also fascinating to contemplate the changes in my writing style (not in the fact that I overshare, of course, but definitely in how I overshare).
This is truly a time capsule.
What else?
Still teaching. It's very different, post-pandemic. I'm very different, post-pandemic. I joked a lot last year that the pandemic broke me, but that's not really a joke. It truly did fundamentally change me. Still working out in what ways, exactly. But I'm definitely a lot less willing to accept nonsense. I used to just take a lot of shit and not complain. Possibly, as I'm getting older, this is the natural result, but it feels like the pandemic helped accelerate that tendency. I'm a lot more willing to say No now, and just No. I might have felt compelled even three years ago to explain why No; now, I've come to understand that No is a complete sentence. That's been nice.
I don't know that I'll stay teaching. The state of the profession is in such a way that a lot of things would have to change very quickly in order for me to feel like I could stay and put in the full 30 years. I'm currently at year 15 (although only 13 count as far as MDCPS is concerned; my substitute teaching years don't count because that's the moment that MDCPS stopped counting substitute experience towards your years, the bastards), and the idea of 15 more is truly painful. Possibly I might survive in a different county, either further north in Central FL, or in another state entirely. Or perhaps teaching history again, something that's completely removed from what I'm doing now (although I still love what I do). Or possibly I would still decide it's not worth it. I don't think a change of scenery is a cure-all, necessarily, I just know it could help get me through it, since I'd be learning how things work (maybe in a different county) with different needs and desires and a different population.
The problem, of course, is that I have the same problem as I did when I had my crisis of faith after I left my first full-time position at a school: I have no idea what else I would do, because teaching is all I ever wanted to do. Writing is probably not going to be so lucrative that I can afford to stop working a normal day-to day. Just from an objectively realistic point of view. So I can't hang my hat on that. I'm considering my options, since there's no real rush for me to figure it out right now. Nothing's really standing out so far. The first thing everyone says is creating curriculum, in some form or fashion, but curriculum is the thing I hate the most in my job because I fundamentally disagree with how it's planned and executed, and I wouldn't be doing anything new with curriculum if I went to work in that sector because that's not what people want.
So we'll see how this potential new journey shakes out, I guess is what I'm saying.
All right, good talk.
See y'all next week. And Happy Valentine's Day, if you're into observing the holiday.