Turn the Page

Two weeks past... I am mostly over the rejection. But sometimes it still hits me. And the Metallica song (Bob Segar originally) just seems so apt.

Those last two weeks were just so intense. Those first couple days, after Craig Cook, executive financial officer of New America School told me "There just aren't reserves. Your position has been eliminated." This is just scant weeks after he stood in front of a crowd of us teachers and announced, "We are financially healthy, and it is because of you, the teachers." Just a few weeks later... So is he a liar, or is he that inept at his job? Has there been a mismanagement of funds?

Those first few days after, I slunk in, avoiding all eye contact.




"And you feel the eyes upon you,
As you're shakin' off the cold
You pretend it doesn't bother you,
But you just want to explode"

I scuttled. I did not want to feel their eyes upon me. I scuttled to my classroom as if I had done something wrong. As if I had been the one responsible...  That Thursday I did not want to go. My stomach was in knots. I told myself I would work Monday and Tuesday, only for the kids.

"Yeah, most times you can't hear 'em talk,
Other times you can."

I didn't give them the chance. I kept my head down. I stopped going to the copy room. I sent the kids instead. I  scurried out of my room just once during the day, because I would have to go to the bathroom. I looked neither left nor right. I kept my ears closed. As if I had done something wrong. As if I were to blame...

Wag the dog. "I've been chewed up and spat out and booed off stage..." The bureaucracy of education chewed me up. The bureaucracy of education spit me out. The bureaucracy of education booed me off stage.

There is no other way I would have left them. The bureaucracy of education cuffed me and walked me out.