The Mid-April Review

So I am sitting at a coffee shop, preparing to write a draft of my final lesson plan for the TEFL program.
This week was difficult at work, I have been losing all my prep time to do testing. Its not necessarily that I can't do some easy prep work while monitoring but I can't run around the school, I can't do anything that makes a lot of noise, I have to prepare before hand what I am doing... so its easier to just plan the classes at home or in-between other things and read a good book while I am monitoring. The book I chose to read is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  I am only about half way through, but I love it so far. I have a feeling the book is about to get a little uglier, but I really enjoy the ins and outs of the chautauqua. Another issue at work this week has been the preparation to leave. It seems like the majority of the staff is leaving (most likely), however people have different time frames. I am leaving first, which feels good to me, because I'm getting out of the daily pressure. The pressure builds and builds until everyone is crabby with secrets. On Thursday we dismissed the students early and talked about our game plan. It seems like a good plan, but like all things still has some kinks to be worked out. I am most worried about some of the students who have abandonment issues, or histories of self harm. Its not that we are their family, but we often operate as a surrogate, a safe place, and these kids are resilient, but we try to create a safe space where they can practice that healthily... this might be like pulling the rug out from underneath them.
I am not sure that I have felt all that successful at work lately.  I have 4 classes that are mine to create... the improv/theater class is going ok, but I am worried they won't have enough time for their projects. The world history class  has had good days and bad...but I have gotten into this terrible habit of just giving them a boring timeline of text and sharing important events from over thee years. No pictures, no videos, basic discussion...  US History is fine, we are headed into civil rights stuff next week. We have been covering WW II and the kids are sick of it. RYW (my advisory writing class) in some ways has gone the best. We have had a bunch of good writing topics, and its felt really positive and chill for the most part.
The school is packed right now, we have 50+ students if they all show up and the rooms are so full there isn't chairs for everyone. I don't mind standing for an hour, but that leads to me lecturing more than I want to.
 A couple of fun things we did this week (to celebrate the good?)
RYW:  "What is a chair?" discussion.  This is maybe one of my favorite critical thinking thought experiments ever, and as the trimester has gone on I realized I was missing some of these types of activities. It was Friday and I didn't have a plan, other than a free work day (they have essays due on the movie 42).  But the students voted for a thought experiment so... 
World History: Wednesday we looked at maps of the world with interesting topics, like which countries have McDonalds? Which countries has England invaded? etc... and the students also filled in their own maps.  Friday we played some geography games, geoguessr, sheppardsoftware, globetrotter xl. The students really enjoyed them.
World History: "Y2K"  I asked the students to visualize and write a hypothetical about what their day would be like if Y2K had happened. What would life be like?  Now we think of it as a joke, but a lot of people spent millions at the time to update computer systems. 
People class: this week we talked about LGBT timeline, homophobia and heterosexism, and the concept of marriage. Good discussions and a lot of minds blown.
US History: I am not sure to what extent students understood the comparisons we were making, and I don't want them to hate the US, but just to realize we aren't better or worse... just a global power desperate to keep it.   But we discussed internment, war crimes and the ways the US benefited from WWII and the Cold War. One of my students said we were fighting the bad guys, and I asked him what made them bad and us good?   Just calling the propaganda into question lead to a lot of insight in the class.
Another issue this week is that one of my coworkers had a grandparent pass away and was having a lot of difficulties with her family. We try to keep shit separate as we can, but since we give so much to the place it also tends to mean we cant keep our own chaos from affecting the other staff or the program. My coworker will be out for the next few days for the funeral, which means we will be covering all of her classes. Its these little things that get us further behind on all the little shit we aren't keeping up with. For example I can't monitor testing when I have to cover her class.

I sent my passport off in the mail. I have tickets. I have done my taxes. I am looking into insurance and other financial matters. I am packing up my shit and cleaning my room. I am trying to organize things like addresses and passwords. I am excited and terrified and anxious and totally overwhelmed with waiting.

I really want my TEFL program to hurry up and get done... I like working with the students and get the most from the hands on experience, but we don't get enough time in the classroom -teaching. Much of it is observing our classmates, which is fine, but I observe my coworkers daily, so I have seen a lot of teaching techniques.

Mike listening to You and the Sound

Notice my short hair (natural blond highlights starting to kick in), notice my shaved face.
Victoria said I looked really young this week, to which I replied "I am so old" a statement that felt true a the time. I reflected on it on the way to observation, how I am quite young -as in, I don't know how to properly quit a job, don't know professional skills like writing emails, or scheduling meetings with people in other buildings, feel nervous about such things. I am young as in, I am hopeful, I am optimistic and have faith that things will work out. I don't know hardship, not really, I am innocent. I am old, as in worn out, overwhelmed with too much worry, so much burden holding on to others bullshit, their emotions, their drama, their expectations fears and paranoia. I am too involved and not involved enough because I am too old to be involved. I am rational and meticulous about too many things, and not the right things, but the things of habit. I am comfortable screwing up, and don't care "too much" because why do I need to impress?   I am too young, because I am easily influenced, I am easily won over, I have a hard time saying NO, I have a hard time standing for myself legitimately, I have a desire to impress, I have a desire to be seen, recognized, praised. I am too old because I have lived lifetimes of this, took on the burden of ghosts and spirits, of thought experiments and dreams, I am weighed down with the mass of stars, I am picky to a fault because I have experienced.


That's what I was initially thinking.  Then I thought about how I was a germaphobe because in so many of my past lives I died of disease. So anti-violence, because I died a bystander casualty of combat, seek justice and recognition for the underdog because I died a misunderstood death. 
All these things also happened in my short time here, but its just as easy to point to human history and claim it... and really isn't it true. What is a human?


A dream:

I don't really understand the dream, partially because it felt like snippets of memories, a piece of a coversation, a piece of an intimate encounter, a piece of a look someone would give, and then jump ahead to an outcome in which everyone was up to date on what had happened...
 It was like a free love community or something, a drama, a plot device on the show The Real World.
At the beginning I was with my female love, I felt called to her, I felt understood and nourished, and she felt the same.  I remember a particularly odd realization, that she had shaved some (non-genital) part of her body that normally doesn't get shaved. I don't quite know what part, or what that meant, it was just a funny realization. Moments later I was with a male lover, it wasn't the same emotional connection, but it was nonetheless valid, understood, he too had a female love, we were companions who shared things including our bodies.  There were thus three couples,  but in a larger community, a community made up over various arrangements, a community in which those others had the right to know and judge and discuss, because there was trust enough that no one would be cruel.
My female love was absent for most of the dream, but she was present in our thoughts and conversations.  Alexis was there, she was commenting on different relationships, she was friendly. She said something to the other people at the table like "it would be nice to just be on good terms with everyone, everyone be friends again." to which I responded that we could make that happen.  She wasn't responsive. I got the impression that there was still a great deal of distance between us.
Someone was in a wheel chair, we weren't making enough room for them, we weren't thinking of their needs. We were thinking of our own desires. There were expectations unspoken, and it seemed like we were all running around trying to fix things, but never really addressing the situation at hand.

-Perhaps this is how I live my life, jumping from thing to thing, understanding the outcomes and context, but not addressing the reality, because that would be too painful, to exposing. I am a fixer, a caretaker, a comfort to those in need, but in my life right now... its only when I can jump in, make a tweak and then run again... maintaining the opportunity to fulfill my own fantasies, instead of addressing the reality around me. All of us pretending to be happy with our intimacies scattered.

Well its getting late... I should probably do some homework.