Teaching, travelling and living. Not a bad way to see the
world eh? In the meantime however, one has to put up with sudden pangs of
horror. “Oh Christ, I’m actually a teacher and therefore expected…” Whilst row
upon row of young eyes bear into me, judging every facet of my existence, I’m
there trembling and silently screaming “why!”
Such interior monologues often arise when sitting in a
workshop given by your employer, or the first moments of walking into a
classroom. It hits like a gut punch where all you can see in that starry eyed
daze are the school days of past and a fresh faced young you swearing to
yourself to never self-flagellate in such a masochistic way. “Never be a
teacher”, you sit there reminding yourself. Well now you are, the promise is
broken, so let the torture commence.
So you use your little cardboard swimmer named Ben and an island in desperate attempts
to control the rowdy bunch. You threaten with worksheets, with warnings, with
calls home to parents. You entice with sweets, fake money, novelty certificates
and trips to the computer room. You have become that person. The kind of person
who wears bowties, gets prescription glasses and cries themselves to sleep
almost every night. The kind of person who believes in corporal punishment and
harks back joyfully to the days of the cane. The kind of person who seeks
solace in the staff room surrounded by other egotists and power mad dictators.
The kind of person who lives to write in diaries like this, bordering on a
daily obsession, Notes on a Scandal almost. The kind of person who becomes a
sociopath, a psychopath and more.
All in the
name of travelling. All in the name of finance. All in the name of folly
and youth.
