Everyone has to start somewhere, right? Such a mantra is something I find myself repeating over and over for my own mental sanity. The stresses of a classroom teacher are immense, and the stress levels they encounter must be outrageous. While these are real and true emotions and feelings, there is little doubt in my mind that there is something far worse; being an Early Childhood Education student, completely lost to the world of classroom management and dealing with children, in charge of the safety, well-being, and entertainment of 30 students in the after-school system. Now add in that you’ve been in college since, oh, about 6:45 a.m., with solid classes until 1:30. These are the simple thrills of a college freshman.
My days of leisure are long gone with the winter intercession, and have quickly been replaced with the afternoons spent going 50 miles per hour, almost very literally, flying through the Staten Island streets in some hope that I could make it into Brooklyn in 15 minutes- a typical 25 minute drive with loving regards to the construction on the Verrazano bridge. The feeling of my stomach knotting as I habitually curse the driver I have the great misfortune of driving behind is beyond words, and still the best is yet to come. Adrenaline begins to seep in slowly at first, and increase until a fit of complete inner rage at the traffic light system erupts. I have always been taught to caution myself when approaching a changing green light, but today, that idea quickly flies out of my passenger side window that’s letting in the twenty-degree freezing wind that cools the bullets of sweat forcing their way through the layers of my forehead. I try not to let the horrors of parking on a block where the mass construction of the new middle school clamors throughout our daytime hours penetrate my already aggrivated condition, but my hardest is not good enough because I am now 2 short blocks away from my ultimate destination. I am only seconds away from cracking, when I realize that it’s Wednesday, and alternate side opens up a spot directly in front of the school. As I pull my keys from my exhausted and considerably gas-drained Sentra, I take note of the time. 1:59. Which means that I have one minute to cross the street and enter my school, ready to prepare for my day of now entertaining 30 plus children, who’ve been in school just as long as I have, and would rather be anywhere else in the world then stuck with me for the next three hours and fifteen minutes.
I casually greet my bosses, but instantaneously comprehend the energy in the room in the amount of time it takes me to turn my head. The looks that I receive could kill, and should they be any stronger I would have a series of burn holes through my body. “What?” I asked quizzically, not comprehending the reasons for the grilling looks and snickers I receive. “Why are you so dressed up? Where are you going? Trying to impress someone maybe?” hinting a sly remark at the growing relationship between a co-worker and myself. I laugh, thinking this is a joke, but I quickly see that they are as serious as they ever were. As I stand there, mouth open, dumbfounded by the audacity of the intrusion of my social and private life, I try to make a mental note. It is by some miracle that I made it to work on time, and the amount of sweat that my body has exerted between 1:30 and now is immeasurable. My once curly locks are now pinned to my head in an insanely, unattractive mass, resembling that of a savage. The lack of sleep from the search for my friend’s mix CD certainly contributed to the exasperation on my face, and I am not completely aware of this, but by instinct, I just know that my right eye began to twitch. My mouth gaping open, (although I knew this was the most unprofessional stance and expression I could have assumed, it seemed appropriate considering the lack of appropriateness observed in the first 2 minutes of my being at work) I pull my binder out, clock myself in, and stagger out of the office, all the while, and rightfully so, controlling my right eye from twitching, and trying desperately to convince myself “I love my job…I love my job…I love my job…”
My days of leisure are long gone with the winter intercession, and have quickly been replaced with the afternoons spent going 50 miles per hour, almost very literally, flying through the Staten Island streets in some hope that I could make it into Brooklyn in 15 minutes- a typical 25 minute drive with loving regards to the construction on the Verrazano bridge. The feeling of my stomach knotting as I habitually curse the driver I have the great misfortune of driving behind is beyond words, and still the best is yet to come. Adrenaline begins to seep in slowly at first, and increase until a fit of complete inner rage at the traffic light system erupts. I have always been taught to caution myself when approaching a changing green light, but today, that idea quickly flies out of my passenger side window that’s letting in the twenty-degree freezing wind that cools the bullets of sweat forcing their way through the layers of my forehead. I try not to let the horrors of parking on a block where the mass construction of the new middle school clamors throughout our daytime hours penetrate my already aggrivated condition, but my hardest is not good enough because I am now 2 short blocks away from my ultimate destination. I am only seconds away from cracking, when I realize that it’s Wednesday, and alternate side opens up a spot directly in front of the school. As I pull my keys from my exhausted and considerably gas-drained Sentra, I take note of the time. 1:59. Which means that I have one minute to cross the street and enter my school, ready to prepare for my day of now entertaining 30 plus children, who’ve been in school just as long as I have, and would rather be anywhere else in the world then stuck with me for the next three hours and fifteen minutes.
I casually greet my bosses, but instantaneously comprehend the energy in the room in the amount of time it takes me to turn my head. The looks that I receive could kill, and should they be any stronger I would have a series of burn holes through my body. “What?” I asked quizzically, not comprehending the reasons for the grilling looks and snickers I receive. “Why are you so dressed up? Where are you going? Trying to impress someone maybe?” hinting a sly remark at the growing relationship between a co-worker and myself. I laugh, thinking this is a joke, but I quickly see that they are as serious as they ever were. As I stand there, mouth open, dumbfounded by the audacity of the intrusion of my social and private life, I try to make a mental note. It is by some miracle that I made it to work on time, and the amount of sweat that my body has exerted between 1:30 and now is immeasurable. My once curly locks are now pinned to my head in an insanely, unattractive mass, resembling that of a savage. The lack of sleep from the search for my friend’s mix CD certainly contributed to the exasperation on my face, and I am not completely aware of this, but by instinct, I just know that my right eye began to twitch. My mouth gaping open, (although I knew this was the most unprofessional stance and expression I could have assumed, it seemed appropriate considering the lack of appropriateness observed in the first 2 minutes of my being at work) I pull my binder out, clock myself in, and stagger out of the office, all the while, and rightfully so, controlling my right eye from twitching, and trying desperately to convince myself “I love my job…I love my job…I love my job…”
