The Mind-Numbing, Pants-Shitting Kind.

Early yesterday morning, I started working as an in-school tutor for Ms. Jones' 1st and 2nd period Pre-Algebra classes at Chattanooga Middle School. I don't know what was different about this particular classroom, but I wasn't feeling it. Ms. Jones seems into it and all. She even runs a pretty tight ship. Her kids were pretty well behaved for being the day after Halloween. But something about my whole day there left a bad taste in my mouth.

Maybe it was the way she talked about the kids, or the subtle look of disdain in her eyes when she spoke to the class. Maybe it was the look of confusion on the kids' faces when I said, "Balance the equation," or "You can't have an expression without a variable." Maybe it was the kid who tried to pass off a sporting goods catalog as a magazine as reading material. Whatever it was, it has left me terrified. I'm putting my money on the last one...and if he tries that shit again on Thursday, he's getting Asimov's Martian Way or Orwell's Animal Farm. (Ya know, I don't really give a shit if all you read is Robert Jordan, so long as your brain is doing something other than contemplating how you'll look in this year's Nikes. Actually, I take it back, I do care...but first I have to get you to be able to read Robert Jordan. You see my point.) You're going to read something of substance, you little shit...and don't think I'll hesitate to rip your head off and shit down your throat if you just pretend to read. Remember, I used to do that shit. I'm wise to the game. Hell, I invented it.

Back to the point: Me. Terror.

At this point, I've stalled out. I still can't make up my mind. Student teach? Yes or no. Right now, I'm leaning towards no. But at the same time, it's the only thing between graduation and me.

T H E__O N L Y__T H I N G.

It isn't a question of the work. That’s the easy part. I think it may be a question of maturity. Of course, I really can't think straight any more. The last couple years have really fucked my head proper. I've achieved such a propensity for doublethink; I should be an agent of the Thought Police. What's an incredibly sexy, semi-literate, pedant to do?

I'm beginning to think that I am just naturally discontent with everything. No job will ever suit me, because nothing satisfies me. A good part of it, at least in my mind, is that the world in which I live is one I neither planned on, nor wanted 8 years ago. I never suspected that I would possess the depths and breadths of knowledge I now enjoy. That same wellspring of awareness fills me with power that, at the same time, I am powerless to employ in any meaningful way. My hunger for knowledge is a symptom of some deeper need. It pops out from time to time. Just enough to let me know it's there, but never enough to be locked down or recognized as such, until it's vanished. I can only guess at what it is; the more I live, study, and contemplate, the more troubled I become that it doesn't exist. Some people know it at an early age, others later, and at least a few spend their entire lives looking.

I wonder which one I am.

You?