Work, Part III

I've been on a total high at work lately. AND, I'm waiting for it to all come crashing down.

That's sick, but it is the way I am. Instead of playing the "Work What IF" Game, my psychologist said that I need to start making up a list of things I can think about should I find myself venturing into a seedy neighborhood in my head. Here's what's on the list so far:

1. Generate the (infinite) list of Fibonacci Numbers in my head one right after the other as far as I can go.

Mmm . . . yeah, that's as far as I got.

Do you know what the Fibonacci Numbers are? It is a number sequence that goes like this: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 . . . The next number is the sum of the two previous numbers. It continues infinitely, and the really cool thing is how it relates to the arts, science, and nature. I'll elaborate: If you take a number and divide it by the number previous, you'll get a number that is around 1.6 . . . the further out in the sequence one is, the more precisely it will approach 1.6. This figure is known as the Golden Mean. The Greeks and the Romans really liked this ratio for engineering and architecture. One can see Fibonacci numbers at work in terms of how many leaves are on a stem, or how many spirals appear in a Nautilus shell, or how many seeds are on a seed head. Amazing, really. Visit this site http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/ if you want to read an exhaustive summary of it all. I don't teach math anymore, but it is a personal love. (And maybe I will teach it again some day . . . )

But as I said, work has been going swimmingly. I've been feeling uber organized and on top of everything. I astound my coworkers in my department with my techie skills and everything I do. They've told me, "You're amazing," and it gives me these brief moments of elation. I have a "to do" list two pages long, but it's keeping me on top of my game. I feel like I've been teaching some really great lessons and like the content is truly getting into my students' brains. Like we read this AWESOMELY great spooky thriller this week, "Three Skeleton Key" by George Toudouze, and they seemed to love it as much as I do. (Maybe they're just picking up on my enthusiasm, but whatever, I'm going with it.) Their parents report their kids like my class, which is a good thing. I'm making parent phone calls to help get students who aren't performing in gear, and the parents are appreciative. I'm earning mega brownie points by creating this super deluxe PowerPoint-ish presentation for the school bored, ahem I mean, board, for my principal. (It's not PowerPoint, but Apple's version of it, Keynote.) It is pretty damn awesome, if I say so myself, and it gives me a good reason to procrastinate grading writing (which I hate to do). Even Bitch Mom has had nothing to complain about and smiles when she sees me.

(I met Bitch Mom three years ago when she was, well, a BITCH to me. [See Work, Part II post for a total wrap up.] She was horrible and rude and I was new to the school and didn't know better but to LET HER be that way. Even though I had started my tenth year teaching that year and I should have said to myself, "been there, done that, Dulce, there are parents like this and you've had them before," I lapped up every criticism she had of me and thought, deep down, she must be right. I must NOT be the teacher I thought I was. It was actually so bad that I had to start up therapy again because I could NOT handle her [and a few of her cronies]. I had panic attacks and lost a bunch of weight and couldn't sleep . . . it was horrible. I took personally everything she said about me . . . and even now, as I have her younger child in my class, my immediate reaction to seeing her approach my classroom, or seeing her name in my email in-box, is to get immediately defensive and to shoot my guard up. It's like my own personal National Terror Alert status goes to RED immediately and I get this visceral feeling like I want to throw up.) <--- can you see why Dr. Psychologist wants me to work on this? And to get back to what my coworkers think about me . . . that's nice to hear those things about how brilliant they think I am, but I don't believe it. Deep down, the perfectionist in me knows that I'm not all that and that I'm really nothing to write home about. I could (and should) be doing it better.

And actually, I'm fine to work on work issues because I have to get over this. And it's nice to focus on work, because then I can live a little bit longer in Purposeful Denial, that place where I pretend nothing bad has happened to me, you know, like baby loss. I know Dr. Psychologist and I are coming to that neighborhood soon, and I'll be forced to vacate, but until then, I'm waiting for my Three Day Notice to Quit. I'm going to have to forcibly evicted.

We had parent conferences this past week, and they went well. Amazingly well. And I can't wait to show my principal this Keynote tomorrow. I know she'll love it, and I'll get those little positive strokes for my bruised ego that I so desperately need, all the while hating that I like to get them so much . . . ach!

Ah well, a few things to do before bed and then the race begins again.