..who proceeded to tell me that teaching is going to be the most soul crushing, degrading, life ruining job on the planet. He told me that the pay rises stop after X amount of years of work, and that it’s nearly impossible for “someone like me” to get a full time job anywhere, lest the faculty need to deal with “a young blonde thing” causing students to “be lewd and disrespectful”. He went to further tell me that today alone he had three students tell him to fuck off, he sent one into the office for behaviour that caused suspension and was spat on while going to his car. He even went as far to tell me that he’s only ever had the disappointment of teaching underachievers and “drop out brats”.  

All I have to say is this; Don’t go into a field if you’re not prepared to take the bad with the good. Fact is, teaching high school pretty much guarantees you’ll have to deal with levels of assholery and shitheadedness from a pretty wide range of kids. I’m well aware of the levels of disrespect, blatant rudeness and bad behaviour that I’m going to be dealing with (I mean, I WAS that asshole kid a few years ago, I remember what it’s like to hate school)

Despite all of these horrible things, I still love what I do. Seeing a kid learn something he’d never realised or known or watching them achieve something that they’ve been told they’d never do makes it all worth it. For a lot of these kids, school is the only emotional outlet they have for problems they may be experiencing in their lives, whether the response they give is good or bad. As a teacher, aren’t we SUPPOSED to give a shit about these kids, and love them DESPITE the good and bad? Fact is, they are still kids and even though they know better, they’re not in full control of their emotions and reactions to situations (cognitive development 101 mate, you learnt it in your first year of university)

I think most of the time kids aren’t the problem. It’s assholes like you who hate your job and make their lives miserable that are. If you’re in it for the monetary perks, you’re barking up the wrong fucking tree, because that’s the last thing on any good teachers mind. Possibly, maybe, if you took even the slightest interest in their wellbeing and education, maybe they’d allow you the chance to gain a tiny shred of respect (all though I doubt it, you were a right fucking rude bastard to me today) It’s not my life or my degree that needs “serious re-evaulation” as you put it… It’s definitely yours. 

see yaaaaaaa. 

I’m sorry if my skin was cold

like granite, still unworn

from the harshest of storms and

the darkest spits and sprays of the ocean

catching your sweater and fraying your fibres

causing the smallest holes

you left unnoticed 

into irreparable gashes that

weep like

a mourning mother. 

I’m sorry that I

am not really all that sorry at all. 

and I sit and wonder what it would be like to be able to wake up one morning and be gone. Vanish completely from the life I’ve always known and start up somewhere new, like Sweden or Laos or Peru. If I could get on a plane without saying goodbye and vanish from plain sight, without a whisper or note or a see you again soon. Maybe I could learn a new language, become a gaffer and live a quiet life in a small town. I could be mediocre.. and content with that, too. I could shut my eyes and ears to the world and live in silence and ignore any signs of this happening again until I die from smoking too much or eating too little or being too unwell. 

Maybe I should just sleep more, and dream less.