I and My God

I have been asking myself why I kept on teaching here in school or why I became a teacher in th first place.

I don’t know. I am one of those people who fell into teaching and just fell in love with it. But, teaching is an unglamorous job. You don’t exactly have a very uplifting lifestyle and your salary is just not enough.

Aside from that, you get harangued by so much trouble. At the end of the day, you tend to ask yourself, damn it, was it all worth it?

Everyday, I always battle the tiredness I always feel. You just have a lot to do and you just do not have enough time to do them.

I wanted to become a good teacher this year. So, I made a lot of effort to come in early, to never be absent (I did last Friday for one whole day and last month for a half-day), and to always come prepared.

I have an advisory class and I was told that I have the most amazing, and bizarre collection of students in the second year council. Aside from that, we were consigned to a non-room room. I mean, we are occupying the upper floor of the abandoned school grandstand, which is veranda style and is open on all sides. It is also on the second floor which really makes me nervous since my kids are so hyperactive. I had to tell them that whoever is caught sitting on the veranda (whatever they are called) will be fined 100 so as to avoid accidents.

I am also one of the two advisers of the school Debate Society and as of this moment, I am in a debate about my next course of action. The club is not funded by the school and exists by virtue of the tenacity of the members and their willingness to keep it running. They have come up with all sorts of fund raising campaigns from delivering love mails and hate notes as well as downloading songs, printing out lyrics, CD burning and picking up garbage for recycling.

This year though, I am teaching English 2 and 3. I tried to incorporate an in depth study of literature so as to make the students conscious of the worlds around them.

Despite everything that I have done, I have felt so damned tired and just lazy. When July came in, I felt tired, drained, burned out.

I tried to raise my mood by playing out dreams, going through all my books and buying softdrinks (I could no longer fit into my uniforms because of the food intake).

Then, just this, morning, when I was too weary, caught unprepared and seriously contemplating running home; I bent my head and prayed.

I offered God my day, my teaching and asked only for Him to make me an instrument of making the kids believe in Him, or at least, lead the kids to Him.

I still do not know what to do with myself and God and my profession but, I am taking it one thing at a time.

I am a weak person but I am asking God to make use of me and everything that I am to help the children see the light. To become his instrument in molding the youth.