back in the new blog groove

*sigh* so I'm finally blog ready again; something finally broke loose of the logjam in my noggin. Now, I know I've been mentioning this religion-ish entry for a bit of a while now (annoyingly so), and I will get to it, it's just that every time I start to piece it together in my head, I realize it needs to stew a bit longer.

As for today (or tonight, really...well, at this point tonights) I have to go on a bit of a 'work rant'. In an attempt to set the stage, let me briefly set up my work situation: I am a middle school teacher (and clearly a masochist) in a school serving a low-income population ripe with drug activity and absentee parenting. Not to say this school population doesn't have its bright spots. In fact, there are a lot of really great kids at my school. A lot of great kids with big, big hearts.

Now I have all the cliche teacher complaints too: they don't listen, they don't work, they don't get my jokes, they don't offer to wash my car for extra credit. My real problem is when I, or my fellow teachers, talk to the parents.

For every one parent we have that cares and tries to be involved, we have five that feed us bullshit, defend bad behaviors, or just flat out ignore us; It's like a bad parenting hydra. But again, this is not all that uncommon, sadly.

Problem for me is that every time we have one of these invisible parents, my blood boils, probably more than it should. Sure, I always got aggravated with these people before, but after losing Joel... well, parent sensitivities go into over-drive. A little more angry at people that take their children for granted, or just don't take them at all.

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Every day of work for me (pretty sure I've said this before) is a room full of reminders of what Joel will never be. True, some days my job is a big reminder of what I don't want my children to be, but that too just makes me hate these parents even more.

At this point, honestly, I really just cannot deal with the constant barrage of people that don't give a fuck about their kids. Maybe every once in a while, but I think I'm just still a little too emotionally raw to insure that I remain tactful with these worthless wastes of universal energy. Why couldn't THESE be the people in the World Trade Center back in 2001? I mean, aren't they why people hate America?

*sigh* so yeah, this combined with an upcoming consolidation has me hitting the bricks and heading to a new school next year. If it weren't for the consolidation I'd stick around and drive myself insane (eventually hunting down and tar and feathering the parents that never respond to calls from school). Of course I also feel guilty leaving the people that really and truly helped my wife and I get through everything. Great people.

Anyway, if you have kids, ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE! (thats our moral)

g'night!