I have "taught" at my new school for two days now. Actually I just shadowed the long term sub that I am replacing and took copious notes. So far I am still in the honeymoon phase and I am hopped up on hypomanic teaching endorphins. That's right-- I get a hit from teaching. Sick and wrong, I know. Ha.
Now I am sort of back in the closet bipolar-wise. Not really in and not really out. One of those no reason to disclose particularly and I have no desire to hide. Still, you don't really start off a new job by saying, "Thanks for hiring me. By the way I am living with a mental illness." It's just not done. It's like saying, "Thanks for hiring me. By the way I only change my socks every three months." After you've been there a while and people know you and love you, the sock thing might be seen as an endearing quirk. Something in the realm of eccentricity. Now it is just rather horribly off-putting and potentially quite smelly. So. I am using my obsessive organizy powers for good instead of evil-- figuring out how we are going to do dinners etc. And here is the thing: it really isn't all that different. In the past, there was the potential that I would make dinner during the day while the kids were at school. There was the possibility that I would clean the kitchen or do the laundry or rewrite the constitution in Old French. Or possibly Sanskrit. But in reality, I wouldn't do any of these things until after I picked up the kids. And it was never with any forethought. I guess the difference is in the past I had a chance to take a break earlier in the day-- only if I could convince the daughter to nap or I had her glued to the television set for the duration. Here is my rosy-eyed optimistic view: that I will have more time now that I am working full time. And I will not bring my work home. And I will have some idea of what is for dinner before I arrive at home in the afternoon. Because here is the thing: I will still be home by 4:30 or so. And I like to cook. If I convince the daughter that it is fun mother/daughter time it will even give her brothers a bit of a break. Do you like this wonderful fantasy that I have created? Anyway, I feel that I have made the right decision. Which is good. Handed off the reins today for a person who will teach my Saturday class. It is a good thing; my students really wanted to continue. And she will be good. Anyway, must dash... K Arg... lost a post that I mostly wrote. Gave my first talk for NAMI. At a treatment program for men in a substance abuse treatment plan. Mostly it went well. I wasn't as prepared as I wanted to be mostly because I was so worried about the job stuff that being worried about the presentation wasn't really a thing.
So on Wednesday I had my last day of teaching at the college-- turned in my keys and everything. (Still need to tie up a few more loose ends with the other parts of the Adult Basic Ed job. Then I had lunch with a friend -- who dropped me off to give the talk. Then my phone died and I had to send text-messages from my google voice number using my computer to figure out how to get home. Somehow that part of the planning didn't really happen. But eventually I did arrive at home. Went back to teaching k12 today after thirteen years away from it. Now I am floating on the end of a day-long hypomanic uptick. Hopefully I will be able to chill and get to sleep and all. I don't want to spend a lot of time writing. I prepared by purchasing a working wardrobe (different to go from teaching twice a week to teaching five days a week). I bought a chromebook to do work stuff on from home-- partly because that's what my students may be moving to in the future, but mostly because my mac is super old and really slow and I'm afraid that it is going to die. Now that I've caught you up on my consumer habits... I still have some loose ends to tie up at my old job. Now excuse me because I want to bead and not fix this post. |
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |