Complaint and Complement

I’m tired, frustrated, and honestly furious. I’m simultaneously overwhelmed with ineptitude and arrogance. My patience is dry. My humor is sapped. My eyes are on fire and my skin looks like shit.

My students are likewise tired, frustrated, and honestly furious… With me. They’re unimpressed by my arrogance and put off by my ineptitude. They hate my jokes and my homework more, so they accept neither… Not seeming to understand that class gets less interesting the less work you, as a student, do. 

I should hate my job.

I should feel like less of a professional, less of an academic, less of a person because of how sparingly my success happens to emerge in the day-to-day inanity. And insanity.

I’m not a foreigner in the land of failure. I’ve been bad at things my entire life. I’ve quit sports, clubs, relationships, jobs, schools. If im wonderful at anything it’s being a wimp who walks away when things are too challenging.

But instead of being that wimp, I’m empowered by my inedequacy. It’s a challenge, which by definition means it requires some measure of special skill to overcome.

And we all know I’m not especially skilled at anything aside from fucking up. The good news is that a huge portion of the job of a teacher is addressing, coaching, clarifying, and coping with the challenges of my students.

So if I can’t be good enough for them, I’ll just have to figure out how to be good enough because of them. 

TOOL OUT.