Drowning

Is how I've been feeling with my new job. I literally have no life now but school. I haven't worked this hard in a really really long time. Maybe since pulling all nighters in college, but that was more due to procrastinating and beer I think than just sheer work load.

I've actually lost about 10 pounds or so since starting this new job. Could be the constant time on my feet moving around rather than being at a desk. Could be the lack of sleep. Could be the stress and pressure to bring students from a remarkably far place to knowing and more importantly (and I'm discovering more difficult) retaining something about American History. Or it could be a combination of all of those things.

One thing is for sure: I feel needed and despite the challenges and exhaustion that part feels good. In my sales work, the biggest thing I've always struggled with is the feeling sometimes that it just doesn't matter. I could stop working for a week and not that much would change. The feeling of being needed at work directly relates to our sense of self-worth or value. I now have 170 students dependent on me every day and I have more work (that is not just self generated) than I could ever possibly have time to finish in any given day or even week.

Working in business and doing sales or marketing I would have days where I just struggled to not feel parasitic. Such a big part of the job and justifying your existence relies in this idea that what you are doing is different and important. That your business actually has some impact in the world, let alone promotes social values. So you have to convince people they have a need they might not know about because, for the majority of cases, if businesses just relied on people who have a problem and are not already addressing it (looking for a solution), that would go broke. While I think salespeople do play an important role in our society, occasionally actually helping people and delivering good information at the same time, other times I can see why the profession is not very respected. But the problem is it sometimes doesn't matter whether you are good or bad in that job, people still treat you the same shitty way.

The teaching industry of course has it's whole host of problems too, but everybody reacts similarly to when I tell them about what I am doing: with admiration and respect. My only hope is that, as everyone keeps telling me, this will get easier and I won't have to take work home with my every night. On top of my normal work, I am studying to get ready for a World History certification am I supposed to have (even though I'm not teaching that course currently) and a teaching certification through an alternative certification program working at nights and on weekends.

Feel like I might crash without the sight of Thanksgiving (1 week off!) and Xmas (2 whole weeks off -yeh!) off in the distance.