"Educating"

              Getting rejected from. Grad School once makes you sad, getting rejected twice makes you contemplate your sanity. It has been less than a year since I graduated from college, but already I am going insane imagining how useless my existence could be. Could it be that after believing it for 23 years, it turns out I’m not one of those special people? Am I not one of those self-absorbed, seemingly perfect individuals that shit gold nuggets and walk on water? You could have had me fooled. I truly thought I was prepping myself for a life of luxury.
              I guess I can admit I’m a pretty shitty teacher. I could tell it wasn’t my calling about five hours in. Yes, like five hours into subbing my first day of high school. I got stopped for a hall pass twice, and managed to send two obnoxious brats to the office after they kept tossing a giant plastic ball over my head and giggling like maniacal, possessed clowns. The hall pass thing I get, but is it really my fault I look 18 years old? I use to think it helped my child-genius image. I’ll tell you one thing, not even Doogie Howser could handle the hellions that walk high school halls today. They’re all like “oh my god did you SEE those pictures on facebook? She is SUCH a slut. Oh my god I know how does she even have friends! oh, we’re her friends? Lets stop. Lets just like totally stop talking to her and tell everyone about that time she farted at my fifth grade slumber party!” 
            Cruelty, rejection, embarrassment. I thought being a student was bad enough, they don’t tell you in college that being a teacher is the same living hell you thought you had just escaped, except with more attitude and less allies. Along with subbing, I tutor at the school part time, and if there’s one thing that will make you feel like the lowest, most insignificant species on the food chain, it’s tutoring. It’s actually a part of my job to hunt kids down and MAKE them come to my room to work with me. Like, they don’t have an option. They don’t WANT to be tutored. But too fucking bad because I have to search for them all throughout the school while they hide in the bathrooms or library, where I have to go all drll sergeant and threaten them with principal visits and detentions until they follow me. And when they finally do come with me, and start doing work, they negotiate with me, try to make deals like “If I work good for 20 minutes can I go back to study hall and play Angry Birds for 45 minutes?” Uhhh NO. Tell you what, you can play Angry Birds until your eyes bleed as soon as you don’t have three F’s and I don’t have five schoolboard members breathing down my back to get your ungrateful, spoiled ass passing grades, okaaaaay?! When did school get so messed up?
              But I guess it’s not all bad. I mean we teach kids valuable things everyday that they will carry with them the rest of their lives. Just last week I taught a 17 year old boy that the Underground Railroad was not a 19th century illegal subway system set up to bring slaves to a land called Freedom. Yes, moments like that really make you feel like your making a difference in the lives of tomorrow ‘s elite. Pray for the apocalypse.