WARNING: I'm currently feeling sad, angry, and resentful

This blog is not crafty, creative, appetizing, humorous, or even sprinkled with my charming sarcasm. (Ok maybe just a little). I find myself once again in emotional limbo about my career path. Right now I'm a ball of nerves because we are headed to contest on Tuesday and I'm placing my professional success in the hands of 12 year olds again. Right now at this very moment I am having Vietnam flashbacks of the first two years the Trinity schools were open. Back then, I felt like this every single day. I had a constant feeling of how it wasn't worth it to put myself through the emotional and mental torture of pouring every ounce of my heart and soul in to something that I got absolutely nothing back from. Even last year, which was better than the first two, was almost more than I could bare.

I started this school year with every intention of finding another job outside of education this June. I had decided that I'd had enough of feeling resentful towards my job. There are so many things that make it hard to stay motivated to want to work hard. For me, being single, I need this to fill me up emotionally because I have little time for much else to give me any emotional satisfaction. I am an intensely passionate person and this job is pretty much all I have to be intensely passionate about at this point in my life. Sad as that may sound to you, that's how it is. I need to feel like the sacrifices I make in my life are worth it in the end, and I rarely feel that way. I find myself feeling so resentful of my job at times, especially on Friday afternoons watching people leave at 4, because I'm exhausted and still have a few hours of work ahead of me. I hate working 50-60 hour weeks and then having to go to the school on Sunday afternoons because I'm STILL playing catch up. I hate when people tell me not to complain about working longer hours because I get a stipend. There is not a teacher of the face of this earth that gets paid enough for the hours they work. Not me, not the coaches, not the math and science teachers. No one. None of us do it for the money. So stop saying that to me. I can't work like I dog and then have parents tell me what a shitty job I'm doing. But that's the nature of the beast, and I'm constantly reevaluating whether or not it is worth it. This job is like an abusive boyfriend. It keeps beating me down and making me feel horrible about myself and just when I've had enough and decide to leave, something happens to make me change my mind. And I tell myself it will be different this time, it won't happen again. But yet here we are. I'm battered, I'm bruised (literally, I'm bruised all over from dropping percussion equipment all over myself), and I'm ready to move on. I'm definitely at low point right now. I know that when I cry when I don't have PMS that I'm really hurting. I just hope that it's all worth it on Tuesday.

My Craft Crazy Spring Break

I have had a wonderful break! I love having so much free time to enjoy a creative process. I can't wait until the summer! I saw an idea for interchangeable flip flop straps on a craft blog I follow. I thought they were so cute so I decided I would make some for my sister. This was the most time consuming project I have done in a while. The hardest part was getting the velcro glued on the the flip flop. I'm still not quite sure it's going to stick for eternity - I guess we'll find out after Vicki test-drives them for a while. The tutorial on the blog shows to sew the ribbon on to the soft side of the velcro, but I don't have a sewing machine so instead I used an iron on fusing material that I use to fix fallen hems. It worked perfectly! Tip: If you use this method be sure to put a t-shirt over the ribbon when you iron it on, and I ironed it with the soft velcro side up. Here's what I came up with:

I also found these super cute green shoes on clearance at Target and I decided to spice them up with a flower shoe clip. I'm going to make an orange one, too. I'm going to have the most colorful feet at work!

I made these ribbon flowers for another project. Stay tuned for that one.....

I made this necklace, but I couldn't get a good picture of it because my camera stinks.

I still have two days left before 10 more weeks of nonstop band! I'm going to make the most of them and hopefully have more pictures for you in a few days!

From the Mouths of Babes

I've had some students say some pretty funny stuff over the last few weeks and I wanted to share the laughs with everyone:

Me: What's the opposite of crescendo?

Kid: Uncrescendo?

*******

After giving a rather detailed lecture over what an accidental is, I ask the class, "Ok, so who can tell me what an accidental is?"

Kid: Something that wasn't supposed to happen....like me! My mom found out she was pregnant with me on the way to get birth control.

Other kid: Hey, me too!

*******

During an awkward silence in clarinet class a kid blurted out, "Gay llama!" I was like, excuse me??? He told me that saying that would make the moment less awkward. He also told me that his pet rock was expecting children. His pet rock's name is Fred, so I'm not sure how that's working for him.......

*******

I walked into the back ensemble room only to find a 7th grade boy riding a stand rack like a unicorn. When we asked him why he was doing that, he said he had forgot something in his backpack. Yeah, makes total sense. About as much sense as the kid that told me he left his key signature in his locker.

AAHHHHHHH!!! At least the kids are entertaining. Only 4 days til spring break!!!!!