Lost My Faculties: A teacher's blog

About the miserable joy of teaching other people's children.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

On Depression

I once read a book about depression titled The Beast. It is an accurate representation - at least for me, anyway- of what it's like to have depression. Things will be going along fine, and then BOOM. The beast moves in for a while.
Last night, for example, I started crying while watching ABC's Nightline with Ted Koppel. There was this piece on the poverty and starvation in Niger. I couldn't change the channel, but I couldn't stop crying, either. I've been in a funk ever since. Didn't want to get out of bed this morning. Didn't want to do anything. Still don't.
Sometimes the world seems like such a cruel place.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

What's wrong with me?

So I'm having back-to-school dreams already - waking up with my heart racing. Dreading the whole rigamorole of updating the curriculum map, writing the course description (that no one ever reads anyway) and figuring out how to motivate 14 year olds.

Meanwhile, I'm home with my two young kids. I'm going NUTS. I love them, and feel guilty for getting frustrated but I'm tired of being ignored, chastized or contradicted by kids who still ask for help wiping themselves.

Hmm. I'm noticing some similarities between teaching 9th grade and parenting small children that I hadn't seen before.

Saturday, July 23, 2005

In the Beginning...

So here I am.
I've been contemplating this whole blog thing for months now, and now I'm actually doing something about it.
This will be my online journal about teaching and the typical (as well as atypical) experiences of working with teenagers. Some of it probably won't be pretty - but I'm hoping that even I'll find inspiration by writing about it.