Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2021 20:05:23 GMT
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - i love  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 'Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.' Maybe George Bernard Shaw had a point with that one. I've never been much of a doer. As a child, I was too nervous to ride rollercoasters, or even to hold my hands out on the swingset. As a teenager, as my peers started to fumble in the backseat of cars, feeling out their carnal teenage impulses, I joined my mom's book clubs and tried to bring the subject back to the book as my middle aged "friends" steeped themselves in box wine. I have a list as long as my arm of things I keep meaning to get round to these days, with number one, written in big bold letters, being to finish my novel. Maybe one day. It's hard to feel motivated in this job. That sounds ungrateful, and I know people think teachers have an easy ride. But when I'm not teaching a noisy, uninterested room full of teens, I'm planning lessons for them, I'm marking papers, I'm fielding loaded questions from pushy parents. I adore my job and there are some students that make it the most rich, most fulfilling career in the world. Then there are... others. One particular group of boys has made my life very difficult in the last few months, going out of their way to make me feel as uncomfortable as possible. They are clever enough to skirt around outright sexual harassment, and yet, every time our encounters leave me feeling... I don't know, dirty? It sounds ridiculous, but it's so lewd. I'm an English teacher, trust me, I understand subtext. Sometimes I think I'm imagining it. I don't know what it is to be desired, not like that. I was never considered much of a looker growing up, never losing my puppy fat, my eyes made bug-like by thick lensed glasses. I never got asked to a dance or leered over in my gym kit, and I'm glad, really, I am. I don't know what to do under the heat of that kind of attention, it makes my skin feel like it's on fire, or like those dreams where you're giving a presentation and midway through you realize you are completely naked. You know when you were young and you imagined teachers having sex and you'd all retch? Maybe I never shook that refusal to associate teachers with sexiness, even when the teacher is me. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - i loathe  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - my ex, adam haynes  "I don't know where things went wrong with Gracie. One moment she was blushing every time I spoke to her in the teachers lounge, the next she was bawling as I proposed, then suddenly I'm reading a letter from her, breaking things off, the envelope heavy with her engagement ring. She was like Spring to me, so alive with promise and hope. Gracie is really one of the good ones, she got into teaching because she wants to help people, she really roots for the underdog. I think we all get into teaching for noble causes and end up being jaded, but not Grace, she just keeps going and going and going with just the most obnoxious kids. I can't decide if she's strong or stupid. Gracie and I met at work, obviously. She was quiet as a mouse, floating around the school in floral dresses, basically doing a Miss Honey cosplay every day. I'm a pretty level headed guy but she made me dizzy from the first time we spoke, her sweetness shone through in a way that was hard to take as genuine. I can tell you now that it almost definitely is. I can't say I'm 100% sure, because I can't reconcile her ending things with the woman I knew and loved. She said we were too different, that she didn't see me for her truest self, but what the fuck does that mean? I loved her, not just for how she looked but for everything. I would have done anything to make her smile, anything. I don't know what happened, I really don't. It's not over, not like this." |
lex amelie zilber resident |