Saturday, October 07, 2006

More Tears

Thursday was our last day of school before this five day long weekend. Lets just say everything fell apart on Thursday... it was one of those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days like Alexander had. The stress has really been adding up at school, and the foreign teachers are really getting the brunt of it. The Taiwanese teachers are stressed out too, but we're putting in longer days and coming in on weekends just to try to keep our heads above water. For example, I'm spending at least one of my five days off here at the office just to try and catch up. And we're underpaid for the hours we're putting in, so it's all a bit frustrating. Also, our job includes things like making bulletin boards, listening tests and reading lists (a policy leftover from the days when foreign teachers had less work than everybody else). I guess I'm complaining: it's driving me nuts, and Thursday was the great melt down.

Believe it or not, I've decided to cut out sugar from my diet. I know Mom just fell off her chair reading that! I think it's going pretty well, Mangos make up for a lot. I've had a weird headache for the past three days which I originally self-diagnosed as water on the brain or a tumor (always a Gilroy). One of my roommates suggested sugar withdrawal, and sure enough, the symptoms are similar to caffeine withdrawal. So I had a KILLER headache on Thursday, and had just barely managed to get through my classes by showing movies and keeping my head very still. During lunch I had to literally run around doing school-related errands and by the time 2:00pm came, I was just sitting at my desk, head in hands, hoping to make it through. I had a grade 10 novel class then I had to run to Foresight's office for a meeting with the President (I didn't know what it was about) and then run to a mandatory Foresight teacher appreciation dinner. I didn't even have time for a shower after school. About 20 minutes before class, my co-teacher called and asked if I could do most of the teaching for the class because he was feeling very tired. I hung up the phone and totally lost it. The Taiwanese teachers didn't know what to do with me, but the other Kathleen gave me Kleenex and massaged my neck. I ended up spending 15 minutes weeping in the bathroom stall before finally pulling it together. I walked upstairs to the classroom telling myself "Pull it together, pull it together." Of course, the students in the front row stared at me like I just jumped out of a UFO and whispered back and forth about my red eyes. One girl asked why I had been crying and I managed to get out "I have a headache and I'm really stressed." Somehow I made it through class. The rest of the evening was a mess too, but I think I've written enough. Lets just say thank goodness for vacation!

Posted by Kathleen @ 1:34 PM