On being a teacher.

So, teaching is described as the most stressful, but satisfying career in the world (If Oprah can be quoted as a source).

I have to say, I agree. But... Not today. Today I feel only the stress.

What makes a young, single woman decide to spend her waking hours parenting a whole bunch of other people's teenage daughters in a boarding house? Seriously! Just think about the hormone levels! Every broken nail, every laddered pair of stockings, everything is a Drama-with-a-capital-D!

At the same time, I spend my mornings trying to get the intricacies of the English language into the heads of a variety of equally hormonal other teenagers from ages 12 to 17. Usually fun, but on a Friday after lunch... Not so much.

I think Lawrence expressed it best:

Last Lesson of the Afternoon.

When will the bell ring, and end this weariness?
How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart
My pack of unruly hounds: I cannot start
Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt,
I can haul them and urge them no more.
No more can I endure to bear the brunt
Of the books that lie out on the desks: a full three score
Of several insults of blotted pages and scrawl
Of slovenly work that they have offered me.
I am sick, and tired more than any thrall
Upon the woodstacks working weariedly.


And shall I take
The last dear fuel and heap it on my soul
Till I rouse my will like a fire to consume
Their dross of indifference, and burn the scroll
Of their insults in punishment? - I will not!
I will not waste myself to embers for them,
Not all for them shall the fires of my life be hot,
For myself a heap of ashes of weariness, till sleep
Shall have raked the embers clear: I will keep
Some of my strength for myself, for if I should sell
It all for them, I should hate them -
- I will sit and wait for the bell.

D. H. Lawrence