early fall morning glories...

Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
Sap check'd with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnow'd, and bareness everywhere:
Then, were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

~Shakespeare Sonnet V

I especially love the last two lines. :)

aak.

I got the job referred to in the previous post. I'm overwhelmed. Instead of any further information or commentary about the job, I will bring you more Star Wars humor.

i might have a different job.

So back to the school that I interviewed for on 9/2. Either they hired someone who didn't work out or... I guess they must have hired someone who didn't work out. Cuz today they called me and I have to go in tomorrow to teach a sample lesson.

Yow. There are a lot of good points about this school - history and English are taught together, by reading novels. That's perfect. Class sizes are small. Good. It's "second chance" kids who've already dropped out, been to jail, had children, whatever. Good and bad.

But this is what I sucked at, what I didn't want to do again.

R's voice in my head: "It's only a feeling." (that I'm going to suck again). All the other teachers who told me, "hang in there, it gets better," "I sucked until my third, fourth, fifth year."

I don't know... I guess I'll just try it and if it sucks again I'll just quit. I have a backup plan this time (subbing, tutoring). At least it won't be an exam-oriented school. Maybe that will make a huge difference. I think.

OK, gotta go work on that lesson plan.

rough day at work...

I might have been hired. It's vague.

Another possible job, where I might have already been hired. The principal is from The Gambia and perhaps because of this a lot of things are laid-back and somewhat vague. Whether I've been hired is one of them.

The job is at an alternative school like the one where I taught and worked in Madison, WI. 200-some students, very heavy social justice orientation, family atmosphere. Low-income students, students from group homes, street kids.

I would be hired as the special ed teacher and perhaps (it's vague - hand-waving was involved) teach some classes as well.

The special ed part sounds great. Most special ed departments are these mentally cramped places, where people are consumed with fear and self-defense - defending the school against lawsuits - because special ed law is so extensive and complicated, that you practically have to be a lawyer to understand and obey it all.

This sounds like it'd be a lot more laid-back.

It seems that at this school special ed is very loosely structured and construed to mean any student in trouble academically, not just those with official labels. I would move around from one class to the next working with students who needed help. (At least, that's what it sounds like - they are changing special ed around, it seems, so it's vague).

I like that. A LOT.

Unless the principal doesn't really know. It might not be legal to do it his way. We'll see what the case manager says - s/he is the one who will really know.

Teaching classes, I don't know, it's so vague, and it sounds like I'd just do whatever came up, and I'm afraid it will be all my old nightmares.

I'm excited but very scared. Is this my dream job? Or more failure? Scared, scared, scared.

But excited. I think.

Live in the gray. Live in the gray.

This is like, the school of gray. So if I'm gonna be there, I'd better get used to it.

Still... at the same time... a glimmer of hope.

fear to fearlessness

Last night I saw a new friend at meditation - one of the people I met on retreat. Some good friendships are coming out of that and I am really happy about that.

This friend talked about how he was trying to be fully present in all his relationships, not hold back at all, not even the smallest part of himself. We particularly talked about it in relation to family.

He's so earnest - he's only 24 - and I felt the need to protect him, to tell him to protect himself - that he was going to get hurt, that this was unsafe, that bad things would happen to him. He seemed so fearless and yet so vulnerable.

I thought more about it today, thinking surely I could quote him some teachings about being sensible, about self-defense - essentially, that I could justify how I behave toward my mother - I keep 98% of my true self out of our interactions, which I know hurts her, but I feel that I need to protect myself from her somehow.

Instead of finding teachings to defend myself I found only the revelation that everything in the teachings supports what he is doing. I wrote him the following email just now:

"Thanks for the conversation last night - it was good to spend time with you and catch up a little. I'm really glad that we met.

I especially wanted to thank you for the insight about not holding back. Again it triggered a lot of alarms in me and I wanted to ask (maybe I did ask) "is that really safe?" I felt the need to protect myself more than that.

This morning on my walk (I try to walk the dog an hour in the mornings - one of the best parts of my day!) I was thinking about it again and again thought, surely that's not what the teachings are talking about - surely that's unsafe. But I started to think about teachers and teachings and I realized - that's exactly what the teachings mean.

Pema talks about "fully enlightened" meaning "absolutely fearless." It doesn't mean that nothing bad will happen to you - it's the confidence that you can face it and be able to relate with it directly, be present with it, and not be undone.

There's also the teaching about "hope and fear," that they are two sides of the same coin - as long as you have one you have the other - and that the opposite of these is "fearlessness and confidence."

They also talk about "the path of the brave ones," and about how running away from the present moment is always about "not wanting to see something, not wanting to feel something." The opposite, of course, is being present, being willing to see, willing to feel. And that's - as far as I can tell - the whole point.

So thank you for kind of cracking open a hard place inside me. I'm grateful, though resisting the challenge at the moment. I'm not ready to come out of that shell yet, but I see it for what it is now, and that's the first step.

I really have to get you [the Pema Chödrön CD] "From Fear to Fearlessness." I believe it really speaks to where you are right now.

your friend
v

[end quote]

Dangit. Do I have to follow the teaching in this regard? Can't I just not do this part? Can't I stay closed off?

Dangit.

possibilities...

Sudden job interview today - got the call yesterday. It's at a school for kids who need a second chance - "at-risk students and high school dropouts who are ages 16-21 and who have been under-served and /or disconnected from traditional education."

This reminds me of my time at Shabazz in Madison, although those kids were probably from a higher class/economic status, on average, than the students I'd be teaching here. I loved the opportunity to work more closely with individual students and to help identify their specific obstacles, try to help them solve their particular issues, try to connect them with the content we were studying. That's the type of work I'm hoping to do with a special ed degree.

The position is history - purely history - which is unusual in itself, and of course, something I'd love.

Can I do this? I don't know. It depends a lot on class size. Traditional class size - no. If they are smaller groups, I might manage it. Especially if it's some kind of alternative teaching style.

Although.... I've failed so much. Failed to create lesson plans, above all... Failed to grade and input grades... But I have more emotional tools now, thanks to my time in the psych program... But I'm still procrastinating and not doing what I'm supposed to do, when it comes to schoolwork.

Anyway it's interesting and I will go and see what it's like.

Have heard through the grapevine that there's pretty much zero chance of me getting my friend's soon-to-be-vacated position. Ah well. I was terrified of it anyway.

Marriage is MUCH improved. Very, very good conversation and connection in therapy on Sunday. Normality is somewhat restored after a while of thinking we might split up at any moment. We are still taking it as it comes, one day at a time, but those days are going well so far.

So, you know. Options. Choices. Life.