Hi PP,
Yes, I'm afraid I'm turning into my mother
Not cool, either.
No, I don't have a job and you're gonna be sorry you asked.
Like you, my being taught to take and take and take and my inability to stand up to people and some of my guilibility made me a perfect candidate at my last job for a royal scr$$ing. Actually, it's the only job I've had since our oldest (she's 19) was born because DH and I agreed that it'd be good for me to stay home and raise the kids. About 5 years ago I went back to college and finished my English degee (please don't notice my grammar) and went to work teaching high school English at our local private school. It was the very job I had in mind when I went back to college and I was so excited that it came open right when I graduated and SO excited that I was hired!!!!!!!!!!!! Didn't pay squat, but still it was more than I had been making. I worked my butt off getting my room ready and like you, did things that weren't at all in my job description. The room they gave me was a total wreck, you could smell the mold in the ac's, the floor was horrible, etc.... so I stripped the floors and cleaned them up, I got some help and took the ac's outside myself (they were really heavy) and cleaned them, I decorated the room so wonderfully, made curtains, spent my money getting things all perfect!! I made one mistake, I agreed to take on the role of senior class sponsor when it was offered to me because the teacher who had doing it for forever refused to do it again. Big mistake. This teacher has major issues (I could tell you stuff he does in his classroom that you would not believe) and he likes to play the game called "Beg me some more and then maybe I'll do it". Apparently the school board just hadn't begged him enough times to be the senior sponsor and when he found out it had been offered to me and I took it, he silently declared war on me. Being senior sponsor is a job that comes with lots of work but also lots of praise and glory, not to mention this teacher had managed to chaperone the cruise, for free, every year by cheating money out of the student fundraisers, but I didn't figure that out till later. I didn't realize how he was maligning me and undermining me, but he did a wonderful job of going behind my back and telling the senior students and the new principal that I wasn't getting their cruise organized on time, that I wasn't on top of the fundraisers, that I wasn't getting graduation together, etc... and needless to say I couldn't get any cooperation out of the senior students, or any respect. I was doing my job, I had everything under control and in fact the fundraisers that I did with them made more than his ever had. One of the fundraisers was a Valentine Pageant and you would not believe the number of people who came up to me and went about how it was the best in YEARS, and it was. I did graduation a little differently and it was great too---I invited a local girl, who is blind and sings like you would not believe---to sing and her performance was so moving that she got a standing ovation. Can you imagine how green this teacher was???? By my second year, he wasn't even openly nice to me anymore and that's when the poop began to hit the fan, at the same time he became assistant principal and managed to make my life a living hell. The final straw was when I caught a student cheating, but through some "good ol' boy" politics I was the one punished and not the student. I was told that I was going to be monitored because if I had been conducting the classroom properly, the student would have been able to cheat. Have you ever heard such BS in your life???????? Let me say again, this was a private school, which around here means the diploma isn't even worthy of being toliet paper. Almost none of the teachers are certified or even have degrees in education and usually the principals are whatever goof ball they can find who will take the job. I knew they (with major lies and prodding from the very jealous teacher) were working on firing me, so I quit with a written note from our doctor that my son with special needs was having health problems (he was staying sick a lot in kindergarten) and that I needed to stay home with him. No way was I gonna let them fire me, the A@@holes!!
Course, a few good things came of the whole experience. I learned a great deal about office politics and I learned what a dump educationally the school was (it really was and is ) and got my kids out of there and into a better school.
Right as all this was happening my dad passed away and with my inheritance we built our house. Once we got settle in here, I planned to go back to college and get my Masters in Library Science and in fact planned on beginning in January but didn't quite make high enough on the GRE
,,,,which was real shock because I've never not been able to attain an academic goal that I set upon. So I'm back to studying for the GRE and will maybe start college next fall, meanwhile I'm bored and not involved with life. It's really depressing. I will be doing Christmas crafts in my son's classroom, I've kinda taken on the whole project, so that will get me out and that's good.
PP wrote:
For me it has been just one more thing to be ashamed of since I assumed it had to be my own fault, that there must be something wrong with me that life didn't just naturally come together for me. But I don't think it just naturally comes together for anybody. When you have the right things going for you, it seems natural because that is all you have ever known. .............All the going and doing and being I wanted when I was young and she just spoiled it much of the time for me.
THis is so true, I've thought for many years that finally I'd get it all together,,,,but I'm beginning to think that it isn't going to happen, especially with regards to friends and a social life. I was more outgoing when I was younger, but mom was so against getting out there that I bent to her wishes. I always bent to their wishes. I learned how to be a very good doormat,, which I realized wasn't a good thing when my first boyfriend began to emotionally and phsycially abuse me, but I didn't have a bone in my body with the guts to put and end to his abuse.
Applauding yourself just for going to the store and seeing other people
.
Isn't that crazy?? But it's true. I was so proud of myself because I actually got out and went to the grocery store the other day. I have this fear of not looking good enough, I'm afraid my make-up or hair or clothes won't be good enough and I really don't like to get out on days I feel fat. I'm a size 10/12 but I feel fat, my face looks fat so I don't like to be around people. Some people are pears, gain their weight all in their butt, some are apples and gain their weight in their tummy and some of us are watermelons and gain it all over. I GAIN IT ALL OVER, my body is an equal opportunity fat accumulator, no cell is missed. If I could lose 20 pounds AGAIN, I'd feel so much better about getting out.
Enough whining. Thanks for all your insight PP and everyone!
