More boo-hoo's from the peanut gallery of one.
This is actually from yesterday night (October 1), but it's just now being posted. My apologies. Mumble-mumble.
Mellow greetings, everyone. I fell off the face of the earth for a while, but I've since climbed back up the cliff. My heart is still beating properly, but I don't know about any other part of me. I was kind of procrastinating waiting until I had formed a solid opinion about my new (but not necessarily better) school schedule. I've since realized that I won't be able to decide how I really feel about this schedule for quite a while. We're talking probably until the end of December, man.
I have good days and bad days, leading to not-so-bad weeks and gawd-my-head-hurts weeks. I don't really think I'm sufficiently prepared for this kind of work schedule (so not good at planning ahead--but I'm learning. Boy, am I). I've gotta do what I can, though. I don't want to give up this year and not think I didn't do my best. I don't want disappoint Uekiyo-sensei, either. (He's a great guy, and a great teacher. I have wanted him to be my JTE since forever. I'm not so gung-ho about throwing myself into work anymore, though. Don't want to spread myself too thin. I feel like I'm a not-so thick layer of cream cheese on a Ritz cracker already.)
But on the other hand, I don't want to stress overmuch about planning and planning and planning for activities. Not so good at focusing all the time on one thing. It's not so much actually working out the activities when I'm given some kind of direction ("Let's practice asking for help..." Blah, blah. Something like that.) It's the times where I'm given free reign that most frighten me. I hate not having some kind of area to start in. I can fill in the picture when there are a few lines drawn, but I'm no good with a blank canvas. I mean, is there something you want the kids to practice? Do they need review for a certain grammar structure? Do they need to practice certain phrases? What? Those times are the ones where I'm the most anxious.
When Uekiyo-sensei (at my "new" school) first told me that I'd have to make up activities for the 3年生 every Friday, to be honest, the very thought of all that pressure and responsibility literally sickened me. Just recalling it makes my stomach recoil. I've since calmed down a bit, but I still suffer from minor anxiety attacks. I don't even show my emotions on the outside: it's my innards that take the brunt of the abuse because I rarely formulate my thoughts well enough to express what about the situation makes me want to retch. See? I can't even do it properly now.
I'm still a little overwhelmed by all this responsibility I have at Toyohama JHS. I had so much daydreaming time at Yutaka that it's not even funny. My teacher there never thinks ahead unless someone's coming to watch the class. And that's not very often. Maybe thrice in a school year. Oh. There are once-a-months days where teachers have an "open class" at Yutaka, but those never seemed to fall on days that I was visiting last year, so I never heard about them until a few months ago. My teacher at Yutaka is the worst when it comes to thinking ahead. And now that I'm only at Yutaka regularly just once a week (Wednesdays), she always pulls her "I've got the first class covered. Can you think of some kind of game for the other two classes?" stunt. What the hell? You know that I come on Wednesdays. Why don't you look ahead in the book you've been teaching out of for ten or fifteen years, and suggest an activity, you goof?
But isn't that the pot calling the kettle black. I can tell that Mrs. Sakimori is trying this semester (she's finally implemented a point/reward system--an incarnation of an idea I suggested a year ago, but which she probably heard again somewhere at a conference). Even still, I don't feel inclined to help her unless she asks for assistance. (There goes my beat-up, tilted halo. ^_^;;) I got shot down too many times already for stuff I wanted to do when I was fresh and new, but now I'm used to the rare occasional fake team teaching done for the big wigs. I don't try so hard to work with her any more, or suggest ideas. But thanks to Uekiyo-sensei, I can probably do like he said and use the ideas/worksheets we do at Toyohama at Yutaka. But since Mrs. Sakimori never knows where the hell they'll be in the book this time next week, it's usually too late to even suggest something. I need to (and I'm going to, if I keep up the guts) tell her that I need some advance notice if she wants something really useful for the kids. Give me a week's notice, not two hours'. Phooey.
Dang. It's only nine o'clock (...and now it's closer to ten), but I'm sooo sleepy. Must be because of the tough time I had falling asleep last night, and the crap-happy early start to my Monday. I'm not good at having my mind and body fall straight to sleep when I want it to. And if I've got something on my mind, I will even drown out the music playing from my computer. Regardless, I should hit the sack earlier than usual for a Monday night. I should be a good girl and protect my fragile, human body.
I have lots more complaining to do (about competing with Vanessa's "ghost" at Toyohama, about being targeted for verbal abuse by a [probably] self-proclaimed "do-gooder" who doubles as my cooking teacher, about the Autumn Festival last Saturday...the list goes on and on), but I'll leave it here. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I want to work on this assignment for class on Friday before I go to bed tonight. o.O I know, Lilly. I know. I said that I don't want to have to do work at home. I don't want to. I don't like it. But there's not enough free time in the freaking day for me. Shame on the daylight!
I'd better start up a schedule where I "do work" for a couple of hours on certain nights of the week, and chill the freak out those nights I have places to be. See? This is why I don't want to go back to school once I return to American Life. I'm not even getting graded on this stuff, and I want it to be "right". There's that whole disappointment factor, too. But I can only work so hard at home. I'm sure as hell not going to lose sleep over not finishing something before bedtime, though. I draw the line at that. I guess that makes me like Zoro, who manages to catch a wink whenever he can.
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
haibarasan) wrote,
listless
