In Which I Get a Job

I now have a job. At a preschool, of course. Where else would you expect a person who just finished her M.A. in international affairs to work?

I truly do work in a preschool. I teach 2 and 3 year olds. It is a Montessori school, so I am learning a lot myself.

Here is a hard thing about teaching 2 and 3 year olds: they are SO DANG CUTE and you can't do anything about it! You have to maintain a good teacherly distance and not do what you would get to do if the kid were your niece or nephew. There is this one kid who gallops nearly everywhere he goes. He says he is a horsey. And I have been told to not even smile at these kids until January!

At any rate, all I do is work. I get up in the morning, throw everything together, commute for frickin ever (1 hour 15 minutes), teach from 9 to 6, and clean and do curriculum planning whenever the kids are asleep or in special enrichment classes. Then I have to clean up until about 6:30. If I'm lucky, I get to hang out with Himself afterward for a little while. Or I just go home exhausted, play Solitaire to stop my brain from going a mile a minute, and go to sleep.

I basically think only about my job. It is stressful. I love it and am glad I'm doing it, but it is very hard.

And why am I doing it? Well, soon we are starting an afterschool program for elementary school students that I will be running. I will get to make it as internationally themed as I want. This is my dream job: teaching kids about international issues. So we shall see how it pans out. I wonder sometimes how I will fit everything in. I certainly hope I am not headed for a nervous collapse!