the glass may be half-full, the bottle looks pretty damn empty

It's been difficult these past few days, a week of sleepless nights, frequent night caps and probably a ridiculously amount of over-meditation on my part on everything that has happened. Thanks to everybody who contacted me to check up; I'm not dead... just feeling down. I've never been one to fish for sympathy; Monday's entry was only to keep y'all from worrying.

To sum things up, my life has changed for the worst in that:

• 1. I was not allowed to finish my student teaching internship. Under advice from my advisor (who's a great guy, no joke), I made the decision to withdraw due to "personal reasons".
  
  
• 2. Because I was not allowed to finish my student teaching internship, I will NOT be graduating this year as I had planned as the completion of the internship is a mandatory requirement. I was only 5 weeks away from completing it.
  
  
• 3. Because I am not graduating, I can no longer seek a job as an elementary school teacher like I wanted for next year, and the soonest possible time I may re-apply to do my internship is JANUARY (about 7 months from now, at which I have the privilege of paying my tuition for the quarter... again!). I've had to contact / call school districts that I had scheduled interviews with and withdraw my application. That makes a great impression! (/sarcasm)

To say my plans have been FUBAR'd would be a gross understatement, and while the AngryAsianMan in me longs to rage and rant, I just can't seem to find the strength to do it. I laugh to think that I am in the same identical position as I was at this time last year... poor, unsure of my future, and wondering where the hell my life is going off to again.

While I won't go into the exact details of what happened here (ask me in person or e-mail), let's just say that in the end, I can only blame myself. Being a lowly student teacher / intern, I should have given more serious thought to the environment I was working in, and who I was working under. In an internship, you're learning the ropes and you're bound to make mistakes; that's a given (especially an imperfect person like myself). However, a good internship experience is hopefully where the people above you expect those mistakes and they help you correct them; they believe in your potential enough to work with you to improve your weakness, be patient with you as you grow, and trust you that can do that. I made the error of assuming I had that. I trusted when I should have not; I overstayed when I should have left long ago.

It hurts to know that if I had been a bit more wiser and more observant much earlier in the quarter, I could have switched my student teaching internship... not an uncommon thing. Several of my classmates did so. The timing of my circumstances was not so fortunate, however. That I was so blind helps to enhance my personal feelings of dumbass-ness.

And so I have the next 7 months to contemplate how I have failed... how I have failed myself, how I have failed my fellow students at SU, how I have failed the MIT program at SU that I'm fond of... not to mention the students I taught. The Chinese part of me really loathes that word... failure. It's so sadly stereotypical, I know.

Now I have to find some way to keep busy until January... hopefully, a decent paying job working with kids that will build my "credibility" as teacher. I'm doing cartwheels over the thought of browsing the classifieds and CraigsList for the upteenth time in my life.


.:.


Though I was officially cut off Monday, I was allowed to say good-bye to my class today, and it took more strength than I thought it would not to outwardly show them how sad I was. Call me an unemotional lump of bovine excrement... I just couldn't bear to shed tears in front of them as they presented to me poems and pictures they had made for me and gave me crushing hugs.

Of course, I had cards for them too (similar to ones I had made in Japan), which I spent making this past week, along with a copies of a booklet we made together as a class.

I've known them only since January, and yet, I feel so attached. Still, I know they'll be fine without me. They're counting down the days to summer just like me.

.:.


As I was typing this a small fly flew by me toward desk lamp. I smashed it one hand, but I felt a twinge of regret afterwards, and not just because I had to wash my hand.

Poor bastard... he may be the one who's dead, but I'm the one who feels crushed. Hollowed out. Defeated.



What a fine time to re-acquaint myself with Jinro Chamisul soju... and renew my general mistrust of humanity (I should have been more proud of my 6 outta 100).
posted by G at 3:34 AM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33