enigma48's Journal: Ghosts in the closet

Unless you've just come by for the first time, you probably know I'm aiming to be a teacher. And that I'm more invested in this goal ("Oooo, teaching!") than my programming stint. ("Hey, got nothing better to do and the degree says I can do it")

By no means was today a harsh day but I had someone comment on my poor work ethic (jokingly of course). It was about a VERY minor assignment I'd neglected for University Teaching: Theory and Practice. UTTP is a grad level course that covers a lot of good teaching practices for TAs/new professors. For the record: I'm only a lowly 4th year student, I have to audit UTTP - aka "pay money but get no credit and optionally do no work". Anyway, the 'assignment' was optional, trivial (but I wanted to do it) and I rushed it before class.

In my defence, I could bring up a number of things - my grandmother recently died, I just began a new job which has been leaving me *completely* exhausted (ie: get home at 6pm, can't keep eyes open past 9pm), I had an assignment due (plus a midterm in two days), etc.

In reality, I was never close to my grandma (I'd seen her maybe a few times over the past 10 years) and she's been suffering through Altzheimers for several years, the new job was only three days ago and I didn't start my assignment until VERY recently. I had 2 weeks to do this 1-2 hour piddly little assignment for my UTTP class - a class teaching me how to BE A GOOD TEACHER/ROLE MODEL - and I rushed through it before class.

I hate the fact that my mind immediately generates all these (relatively) good excuses for why I suck. I admit its useful... but doesn't make for an honest person if I use them.

So this must be an odd number day... nope, even. Hmm. I guess I need to flip my rule: on an even numbered day, I'm scared as hell to be a teacher with all my flaws and weaknesses. The odd days I just want to be a teacher *really* badly and feel great about the choice.

I doubt my classmate with her sarcastic "well aren't you the horrible student" (or something like that; the comment probably set my anxiety level way up and I'm distorting the words a little) meant to scar me emotionally ;). On the upside, I gave her and another grad student a ride home tonight and she is volunteering to bake cookies for me, err, the class. (what do you mean the world doesn't revolve around me?)

I guess this marks the day I've decided to go a little more personal in my journal. I have no big problem with exposing my soul to the world - this is, or was, the way I made friends earlier in my life. The only reason I've been a little cautious about this is because of a fear this might come back to haunt me - maybe a boss would find out, maybe one of my students (a small loss of professionalism), etc.

But yah know what? I'm exhausted tonight and when I get tired, the inhibitions come down quite a bit. Anxiety is hardly an issue - being coherent and typing is hard 'nuff as is.

On a side note, I've never seen the weather forecast as follows:

Afternoon: 100% chance of rain
Night: 100% chance of rain
Overnight: 100% chance, heavy rain
Morning: 100% chance of rain

Thought I was in Vancouver or something.

Other side note: I just grabbed SlashCode and I think I may starting up a Teachers/technolgy slash site soon. Gives me an excuse to run a third computer in the house, maybe put up my own mailserver, etc. Toys. Think I'll have to read up on the whole DeMilitarized Zone concept and change a few things on my Smoothwall firewall... but it's not like I'm being a good student anyway so I have time.

PPPPPPPS: I am aiming to be in Ottawa around the 24th-27th. Anyone want to provide me with an itinerary, leaving a gap for me to spend some time at the University of Ottawa? (Teachers College there sounds good)