It's a bittersweet symphony...

I want to start this web log post by saying I do love my job.

1. I love my students. They are amazingly unique children with buried potential within, like a diamond beneath the hard, dark outer shell of coal. Autism is the world's most fascinating disorder, creating a human being living within their own secret world. If Autism is ever cured, the world will be missing a great subgenre of people.
2. I am really starting to like Rosedale. I have more than two work friends now. My students are not the standout weirdos anymore. I joined this afterschool book club and we are reading this book on teaching in the inner city called Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom by Lisa Delpit. I am getting along with everybody this year, because ever since this one meeting I have come to understand that it is stupid to be disgruntled towards people that you work with. The toxic teachers, I just stay away from them, because then I don't have to dislike them. I say "Hi" more often this year than last too.

But my job is also stressful.

Endless amounts of paperwork and meetings.

I found out this week I have to go through a due process hearing because of Headbanger's suspension. It is more stressful than it needs to be probably, but it is stressful.

I never feel like I am doing enough for my students. I want to pull out all that potential and let it shine in front of the world. I just don't know how.

It's remembering to embrace the joyful parts and overlook the stressful that is the difficult weekly struggle...