So some of the comments on an EC Ning post brought up some really painful memories. We live in the Deep South, and while back north of the Mason-Dixon line I was slightly right of the area's center, here I am apparently a liberal heathen. For the most part, I just suck it up and soldier on, because I don't know how to do otherwise with any grace.
I would hope that, if I were an area where my views weren't on the fringe, I would still retain an awareness that there are those to whom they seem preposterous. I know that I don't understand, for example, what it means to be ... racially oppressed, I guess, comes the closest to what I mean. I've lived in places where I was a racial minority, but even there being white meant privilege.
I'm not apologizing for it. I am who I am, and if it's not something I can change, I'm not going to waste time moping about it. Privilege is awfully nice. It's nice to feel valued. It's nice to truly believe that what you say, or do, really matters. It's nice to have agency.
Tangent: haven't heard back yet from the salon where I ordered my purple wig. I really really really hope it comes in today or tomorrow! I sooo want to wear it for the hafla tomorrow night!
Back to the point: There are many ways in which I'm privileged. Most of them, in fact. But one instance in which I've missed it is in being female in a subtly patriarchal culture. In this area, it is taken for granted that women are supposed to want marriage and children. It is taken for granted that men are the primary breadwinners, and that a woman's work outside the home is secondary to her role as primary caregiver. It astounds and horrifies me that people (can) say that as a wife, the only decisions I should make are those that my husband delegates to me.
Other than that, I love living where I do.
I am absolutely overwhelmed with the revamping plus having three preps at once. I feel like I'm always behind. I'm always tired - not physically exhausted, or sleepy, just tired. It's not too bad. But there's always an undercurrent of stress. There is just SO MUCH to do. I don't have a sub for tomorrow. I spent most of my planning time calling and leaving the same damn message. It was incredibly frustrating, because there is so much other stuff to do. AURGH! Photo day is coming up and I'm scared because we've got a new photography company and I don't know quite what to expect.
And Pipsqueak is not working. ONCE AGAIN! I get so tired of this crap. It's absolutely ridiculous. So do I NOT write and just go police the room? Or do I write with them, which is what everyone says I should be doing? The quickwrite I assigned them was about their ideal day. Pip was also supposed to come by yesterday for detention and did NOT. So I guess I get to write him up. Woo.
My ideal day would be one in which I woke up and found that everything had been arranged already. Photo shoots had already been scheduled, the whole way through the year. Lesson plans were all transferred over onto the inconvenient form that our administration makes us use. All of the messages left for me with questions about senior portrait retakes had already been answered. All my announcements had been turned in to the front office. All of our ads had been sold for both the newspaper and the yearbook. All students had ordered and paid for a book and had already received their receipts. All of the students in my classes had completed their homework and turned it in and it was already graded.
"Overwhelmed" only BEGINS to describe it. I don't particularly want to go to bellydance tonight. Right now I just want to go home and vegetate. I want to tell this class to just read for the entire period. I don't want to bother with lesson planning. I'm tired of students trying to squeeze two extra minutes - the pass says you're excused at 1:45, kiddo, I'll let you out of the room when the clock says 1:45 and not a moment before.
Some days make me wonder...
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