A Not So Happy Spring

On my trip into the city a few days ago there was no Internet at the Internet café, no money in the bank, and no mail for me at the post office and I thought well this is just typical.

Everything was spiraling downward and I felt the anger and frustration boiling up again. I was so upset at the students in my school…so upset about the amount of disrespect…so upset at the system in general, so upset with myself for not having better language skills…

It had to stop. I HAD to step back and realize I can’t understand where they’re coming from just as much as they can’t understand me. I HAD to step back and realize that I needed to start developing some patience…NOW.

Knowledge and understanding are extremely different.

Standing in front of a room full of confused high school kids yelling, "Why am I even here?" isn’t going to make anything better. It only makes the anger escalate.

And throwing kids out of class might make me look like tough shit but it makes me feel awful.

It was a bad week, and there will be worse in the future.

But at least I now have a little more strength and a little more courage and I’m not going to give up.