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I just need someone to talk to, so just bear with me. Right now I am student teaching as an English teacher and I hate it. I hate that the paperwork takes away from my family, and I hate that I am under so much stress that I cry every night.
I also hate that KC is working so much. He works for about a week, then he is home for maybe two days. The problem with that is that I am working while he is home, so I am lucky to even see him considering that when I come home I am doing paperwork. If I am not doing paperwork I am so stressed about everything.
I have been spending the last five years of my life in college to get my two majors, but I absolutely do not want to teach, so I have basically wasted that time.
I haven’t been at the middle school level yet, and I am praying to God that it will not be nearly as stressful as high school is.
I long so much to spend time with my mom and grandma, along with KC and Chloe, but I have no time, and I just learned that my grandma is having heart problems. I haven’t seen her in over a month, and I swear that I am going to hate myself if anything happens to her while I am “too busy” to see her.
I also have less patience for Chloe. Because of my stress I get mad at her much faster, and I hate myself for it.
My mom understands, but KC doesn’t seem to understand. He says he does, but we need to “suck it up” so we can catch up on bills.
My family is my priority, and even though we are behind on things, I do not believe that sacrificing family is worth the money.
I need a different career, one that I will enjoy, but I am stumped. I feel like I am a disappointment to everyone.
I have been so tempted to call up my cooperating teacher and my supervisor to tell them that I quit, but I am so close. I still don’t feel like it is worth it.Boy do I feel ya girl! I am feeling the same way about my job. But really right now there are no other jobs for me to be able to just walk out. I think part of it is just knowing that there aren’t really any choices at the moment due to the economy and the area we’re in, I’m feeling trapped. Doesn’t help either that the last attempt at moving up met with failure, very hard to keep doing the crappy job when you know you should have gotten the better one and they passed you over for an outsider.
(Outsider in this case being outside of the company when there were plenty of qualified people bidding for it already within the company, I’m not the only one who was angry about it.)
Teaching takes a special amount of dedication and commitment, and yeah, there is a lot of work involved. I was originally going to college with teaching as the goal, but after some consideration, I decided perhaps something else would suit me better.
Your degree is not wasted, you can and will use it for something else. So far you have learned that with your family so young that having all your time eaten away by this career choice just isn’t working, nothing wrong with that. I understand completely, currently my job is eating 50 hours a week of my time, and I am really starting to begrudge them those extra 10 hours, I have a life and family of my own, I really object to a job taking so much of my time that I can’t be with them to do things I want to do, not just the things I HAVE to do.
Before you quit though, take a look around and see what your options are, what jobs out there you would be interested in that wouldn’t be so time consuming and that might be more fullfilling to you. English class has always been a thankless teaching position, no one really likes English much, it’s not a fun class as far as most students are concerned. I am guilty of that myself, I tended to read while my teacher lectured. 🙂
Anyway, hang in there, summer is coming, and you can take a break and reevaluate what you want to do. I would make sure you don’t burn any bridges when you leave, so that if you need to, you can fall back on teaching, teachers are always needed, so make sure you leave that door open even if you think you won’t ever do it again.
Anyway, if you would like to chat to a live person, please feel free to PM me for my number.
Kyrin
*hugs*! I know how you feel. Teaching is very stressful. For me, middle school was my answer. I hope you like your middle school better than the high school. Try and find happiness where you can. You don’t have to do everything. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your students is put aside some of the paperwork. *hugs* Hang in there.
girl, I send you my best wishes, the way I understood your dialog is that this is a temporary situation, so just hang in there, you can do it, I know you can, so until this phase of life is finished you should try and appreciate the time you have with your family instead of being stressed about how little it is, as soon as you try and start thinking positive, life will get better, and in the best case scenario money will run to your palms as soon as you open them 😉 so just bear with life, stay positive and stay patient, appreciate what you have and do NOT dread the things that you don’t have, that just makes you miserable
hope you feel better
I was going to teach too, but while I was in university, I taught French as a second language to adults and I was a TA for first year students: I found they all frustrated me so much, I wanted to strangle them. If I lost patience with adults, what was it going to be with kids?
I had to figure out what I wanted to do. Speaking with a employment agency helped; the lady pointed out that my degrees gave me outstanding writing skills. I worked for a few years as an admin assistant for a very small company. There, I served as translator and proofreader, and that’s where I went afterwards.
That’s for figuring out where to go…
Now for the overworked part… For 3 years, I worked for someone who basically burned me out (major depressive episode is the medical term). The funny thing was that I was working for a disability insurance company where 50% of clients claim for depression. You’d think I’d have recognized the symptoms earlier. I finally clued in when I cried for 2 days after watching the Buffy episode where Angel turns bad. WTF? Then I realized that I wasn’t myself anymore and that my family would soon start to suffer. It took me about 2 months to figure things out, then my boss gave me crap for making typos (saying that my raise would be affected by said typos). I was furious. When you translate (not proof!) 5000 words a day, typos are bound to happen; that’s what the reviser is for.
Anyway… I applied elsewhere and 6 weeks later, I got an offer for a translator/proofreader job. That’s where I’m at now – it’s been over 5 years. I found the most awesome company and I’ll stay there for as long as I can.
All this to say… look for options on something else you can and want to do before it brings you over the edge. It’s very important to understand that everyone had a very different threshold when it comes to depression/being overworked. People may say they understand, but if their threshold is different than yours, then they don’t, not really. Know yourself, recognized when you reach your limit… you’ll feel better with yourself and all your loved ones. If you cry every night due to all that work, I’d say you’ve reached your limit, and then some. Big hugs, girl!
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http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htmwow, yeah don’t listen to me listen to her (dragonmedley) I think that no one could have expressed it better, good luck :bye:
BRoS wrote:wow, yeah don’t listen to me listen to her (dragonmedley) I think that no one could have expressed it better, good luck :bye:
😀
Read my books! Volume 1 and 2 of A Dragon Medley are available now.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/mybooks.htm
I host the feedback lists, which are maintained by drag0nfeathers.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htmI wish I could say I know how you feel (but my tolerance level for stress is pretty low :()
I’ve been feeling burned out and overworked at NAIT as well. I’ve just lost pretty much my entire weekend (pretty much my only free time to spend with my fiancee) to doing lab reports (and I still have 2 more to do, I’ve finished 3), plus about 5 exams next week. And that’s just a typical week.
I keep telling myself this is the only semester where I have to do that much in that little time – and that it *does* get better eventually.
That and I squeeze as many seconds (sometimes, that’s literal) with my fiancee as possible, so that makes everything at least a little bit better. If you concentrate on the time you do have with your family, maybe you’ll get a similar feeling (a little bit better is still better).
I just wish that my stress would leave my bloodsugar levels out of it. Almost passing out in the hallway at NAIT is so not fun….Thank you guys….It really helps to know that I am not the only one who has gone through this. I might PM you later for your number Kyrin, but I might not either, just because I wouldn’t know how to begin talking! I agree that I shouldn’t burn any bridges, so I will go through this with a smile on my face (I hope).
I don’t know what else I could do with a Secondary Education and English degree. I thought about substitute teaching. Who knows-maybe I will love being with the middle school kids? I sure hope so!
I am supposed to start teaching mechanics tomorrow, beginning with capitalization, and I am stressed about that. I probably won’t start teaching that until Tuesday because the students’ need to finish presenting their projects.
Oh man-I just hope that I know my stuff. I feel insecure about that right now.eaglefeather831 wrote:Thank you guys….It really helps to know that I am not the only one who has gone through this. I might PM you later for your number Kyrin, but I might not either, just because I wouldn’t know how to begin talking! I agree that I shouldn’t burn any bridges, so I will go through this with a smile on my face (I hope).
I don’t know what else I could do with a Secondary Education and English degree. I thought about substitute teaching. Who knows-maybe I will love being with the middle school kids? I sure hope so!
I am supposed to start teaching mechanics tomorrow, beginning with capitalization, and I am stressed about that. I probably won’t start teaching that until Tuesday because the students’ need to finish presenting their projects.
Oh man-I just hope that I know my stuff. I feel insecure about that right now.You’ll be fine…I hope you have a great day tomorrow!
Kyrin
My sister is a teacher she taught in the public schools for about 10 years and was so burned-out from just spending most of her time just to keep discipline – there were so any things she couldn’t do and apparently the parents didn’t either. After that she changed to a private school where things were so much better she has been teaching there for about 30 years and just loves it. You might consider private instead of public once you get your degree and just think student teaching isn’t forever.
Another thing to keep in mind is you could go for a master’s degree and teach at the college level. I don’t have the patience to deal with kids, but I love teaching at the college level. The work load is tough, but the students are better. I am currently teaching 4 classes, wait tables/manage a restaurant 20-25 hours a week, and working on a MA in English. I get one a day a week off and it pretty much sucks. (But was better than the 3 semesters where I got no days off a week) But I am working towards a full time position teaching and that will help give me more free time.
Look into graduate programs in your area, many of them offer a stipend to live off of and a tuition break if you teach while working on your graduate studies. You are right, you should not do something you hate, it will wear you down and make you sick, however I think dragonmedly had some good advice. It’s not wasted you just need to figure out how to make it work in your favor.
Hope you have a better day tomorrow.
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Sun Dragon Koi #3Same here! I’d love to stab my eyes out with dirty siringes right about now myself, but I’m getting through it slowly but surely. You will too 😀
It’s true though, you shouldn’t force yourself to do a job you hate (though it’s only probably a lucky 5-10% of people who actually get to enjoy their job anyway)If it’s that bad then you need to do what’s best for you. It’s tough when you feel like you’ve lost that prideful feeling and no longer enjoy your carreer. Stress is at an all time high for everyone in this country job wise and it’s felt in almost every profession at this point I think. Especially when you work with the public. I know there are really no words to make things better, but the forum has always helped me when I needed to vent, so we’re all here for you. If you need to talk I can certainly relate to being generally and/or morbidly unhappy with your life… and I can also certanly relate to having a short temper due to stress. 😉
*hugs* I hope things get better for you… maybe the best thing you can do it just tell that job to stuff it. Just be smart and find something else first if you can take it for a while longer. It will be hard and chances are good you’ll have to bite the bullet and make less money for a while, but don’t risk your health or happiness if you hate it so much. In the grand scheme of things, it’s just a job, like any other… and don’t let what other people thin bother you. You need to live you life for yourself.
I look at it like the guy buying a $40,000 kitchen from me at Home Depot for his new 1.2 million dollar home may have had many more opportunities then me and my meger $12 an hour apartment… he may have been given every opportunity and got to skate through life by earning nothing for himself….good for them if that’s the case. You have to remember though, just because they seem happier or have more money, doesn’t mean they actually are. Maybe that guy was even more miserable then we are right now, long ago and then busted his ass to get where he is now. I try to think of things like that as somthing to strive for. Some people are amazing and I think everyone has the potential to do anything if they want it bad enough. I’m sure if you focus on whatver you decide your goal to be, you can do it if you don’t let anyone hold you back and you no matter what, never loose your drive to do or be what you want to be. Have pride in yourself, you can do whatever you want! Screw what anyone else thinks!
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Dreamscape, Orion, Poison Dart, Fireberry, Spangler + Tigerberry DragonsWow..I cannot tell you enough how much these personal scenarios and advice are giving me. Last night I was pretty anxious, but today went really well. I actually was happy when the day was over, and I didn’t complain to my husband for the first time in about three weeks.
I have a butt-load of paperwork however, so I will sign off for now.
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