University: Sink or Swim

I am so overwhelmed at the moment. Just when I thought I could get a grip on university and its requirements and the whole teaching gig, I cannot. It has taken its toll on me simply because it has scared my interests away, and now they lie elsewhere and it has become strikingly more difficult to get them back.

As a pre-service teacher, I am experiencing the backstage scenes of teaching, the curriculum and the repetition in it all. Students think they have it bad when teachers repeat everything, but to teachers it is habitual and required. I am losing taste in all of this because I feel that I can be more, that I am capable of more than wasting my life away repeating things to people who have their minds on other things. I can be more than eating an apple during a lunchbreak at a dull coloured desk listening to the coughs of colleagues. I can be more than a nine to five job – five in the morning, that is.

It is just too demanding, especially for a person with such broad interests as mine. If I had things my way I would live in a secluded house on a secluded hill and write for a living, painting and drawing in my spare time. Nothing else would be of any importance. And I would thrive that way. My passions have not been spreading out to students too well, I think, and that is why I am feeling less passionate. Though, it is hard to feel passionate when you have a curriculum laying out your entire year in principles and expectations.

Days where I think teaching is not for me, I wonder what is, and I wonder what suffices. And then it all comes down to money. If I had a copious amount of money then I would own that secluded house on that secluded hill and I would not have to worry about anything at all, and I could output my dreams onto canvas and paper with no deadlines and no hesitations. I would have my headspace and my peace whilst keeping all that I desire. But life does not work like that.

Life requires you to communicate with people you would rather not breathe near. Life requires you to be things you are not comfortable in being otherwise life packs its belongings and rolls on without you. Though we cherish deceased heroes, we do not talk about them all the time. They are just as forgotten as the past season until it comes up again and I loathe that. This makes me feel that all of this is worthless. What is the point of me going out of my comfort zone only to be even more uncomfortable?

And then I remember the excited look in some pupils’ eyes. I remember my dedication pouring out of me and into others, and I feel empowered again. Though I might not be classified a hero for the world, I know I might be the hero of some. Time will tell, and though it is difficult I must pursue. Whenever I hear a person demean a university student I will offer them one of my unit guides and watch as their faces drop. Because it is only in experiencing something when we learn about it.

I will sink and I will swim and I will sink and swim again. But that is the life I have chosen and that is the life that will bring me closer to that secluded house on that secluded hill.