Friday Night

This has been an(other) emotionally draining week for me. Basketball ended and I feel like a big part of the joy I had in my life is gone now. Our last game went to double overtime and we lost by a free throw. All my girls cried and were angry with me and each other, and I didn't know what to say. I held it together until M. (who I teach, coach, and often see around my neighborhood) told me she is moving away next week. After that I let all the girls clear out of the locker room and I sobbed with my head in my hands.

S. Guerra and her mother came in to speak with me on Tuesday or Wednesday. I can't remember if I have written about Guerra before or if I have just thought about writing about her, but she certainly causes me a lot of trouble. I don't think I have ever seen a person who has as much hate and anger in their eyes as S. has in hers. During the beginning of the year I tried to break that wall down, but she just got out of control so often that my patience wore thin and I gave up on her. Well, the meeting this week broke into to a shouting/swearing match between S. and her mother, and I now understand that poor girl much better than I had before. I should have said that I hadn't seen that kind of hate or anger in anyone else's eyes until I saw the way the mother looked at the girl. I think in most cases parents really do live with the monsters they create themselves, and this experience was living proof of that for me. I had to call security to get the mother out of that room so that I could actually talk to that girl like civilized people talk to each other.

Much of this week was devoted to fund raising and getting huge amounts of paperwork together so that I could take the basketball team to see an NBA development league game tomorrow night. That has been a stressful ordeal, but I think I finally managed to pull everything together, so I am proud to announce that I will be spending my Saturday night watching the Rio Grande Valley Vipers face off against the Colorado 14ers :-)

I am at a weird split in how I feel about my classes right now. I have completely given up on one class, and am out of ideas on how to get it back together. However, the rest of my classes are really going quite well and I am starting to enjoy my job. My kids are great. They regularly and sincerely tell me they love me, which is a weird sentiment coming from a middle schooler to one of their teachers, but I appreciate and reciprocate it. To tell the truth, I could see myself teaching for a while after this...I am starting to look into what I need to do to get certified so that I can teach in almost any state. I could really see myself finishing off my two years in Texas and then moving back to Colorado and spending a few years teaching there. I am just starting to realize that teaching is something that I am naturally inclined to do: I feel passionate about my students, I get to have a lot of fun at work, and I get the summers off. The only question I am struggling with is whether I should teach math or English. Teaching math has many advantages, but English is still my first love.

Now, if I could just find a man I feel that my life would be pretty set.