Thanks, Rodney Harrison Sheets.

For non-funny reasons which I don't want to jump into right neh, I've decided I hate teaching. I kind of knew it the first time in college when I had to sit down and plan a semester's worth of lessons. It became very clear when I was in the vortex of student teaching. And, I made peace with it after a (very successful) semester of (paid!) teaching this past spring. A semester of good kids and good lessons and grand moral support from everyone, allowing me to rest after riding out an initial sea of panic - to stop and say, "Whoa! Man, this job sucks." Sorry, world! The thing is that I'm good at teaching - I'm natural at it and the youth of this world generally like me. I like being funny in front of them. But it's not my gig. It does not make me happy. Not that kind of teaching, anyways. So, I quit. And what was a horrible realization after 4.5 years of money, time, and effort, has now become a peaceful, important decision. I look at my future, happy that it no longer is doomed to be filled with crooked writing on the chalkboard, or giving presentations for 6 hours every day, or alcoholism and early onset wrinkles.

In the mean time as I'm making a new path, I'm subbing! It has been good so far. Except for the hour we were all held hostage because there was a shootout in a nearby neighborhood and my job (supposed to be over at 2:30p) was to guard the door and tell 25 Seniors to cool their shit and sit the cuss down, only to get to release them an hour later. I'm still exhausted by the end of the day but my soul isn't drained! I don't have to come home, cry while I jog, try to choke down my anxiety so I can choke down some dinner, cry in the shower, then spend 4 hours planning for the next day! It's glorious. I get to go have some fun and then leave it all in that building.

Anyways, the point of this is that I wasn't meant to be a teacher. My grandma was. When I got to see her last weekend, I found this letter in her school scrapbook. She taught at a Catholic grade school, back in the day when you were allowed to slap the kids a little. Who wouldn't want to teach back then? Especially when the students write letters for you, such as this: