Have you ever been to that point of exhaustion where it seems as if the air is vibrating? Yesterday I came home to collapse on the sofa. Harold says I need to get a chez Lounge if I am going to make a habit of such things. Maybe he's right, after all, a chez is the perfect fainting receptacle. Anyway, I am able to type this entry because I decided to play hooky today from an art teachers conference in midtown I was suppose to attend. To be honest, I know it would have been a good thing to go, but then again my week has been uber-busy and if I showed up to the conference I would have had no days off this week. Tomorrow, Sunday, I have an all day class at Brooklyn College, which I really can't miss. On Monday, my work week will begin again. This past week was parent teacher conferences, which meant a long day and late night on Thursday. The battle with Brooklyn College rages on. I wish I could write more about it, but for legal reasons I can't right now.

 

Despite my so called "day off" today, I will be at home working on my thesis and making lesson plans. There really isn't a true day off for me. Because of this grueling schedule, I find myself in that place of feeling particularly home sick for Amsterdam. Maybe I'm also getting a little stir crazy here, in New York. It's had for me to stay in one place for any real length of time. That was one of the good things about Amsterdam, it's location and culture afforded me the opportunity to travel around a lot while I lived there. In this way, I rarely felt trapped. Back in New York, I feel like I've been sucked in by the rat race. It kind of sucks. Then again, I am saying this after a particularly rough and long week. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the two fights that broke out in my art class. These two boys went at it in the hallway before class on Thursday. I was surprised that they were back in class on Friday. No suspension, nothing! All was going fine for the class, then all of a sudden, one walks over to the other and the next thing I know they are at each other's throats. Security was on it pretty fast, but it's still quite upsetting. I mean, there's nothing I can do. These are big high school boys. I'm not jumping in there to break it up and possibly get smacked by accident! Afterwards, kids in class were telling me how it's all connected to these gangs. I hate all this gang bullshit happening in the schools. Happening anywhere for that matter. Gangs in the USA keep the minority groups down. It totally plays into the white supremacist hands. The police don't care, just let them kill themselves. The two boys in my class are really, deep down, good boys and not half bad at art. These kids have so much going on in their lives, I won't even pretend to understand it all. As a teacher, I feel powerless to help anyone.