When I go to school/work, or when I do things for that work, I do not feel better about myself. I do not always feel worse, but I never feel better. I feel mediocre. I feel lackluster, slow, drab, fumbling, scattered. I don't feel intelligent or funny or charming or lovable. I don't feel clear-headed or insightful or quick. I have in the past felt these things to some extent in other venues, and value the attributes. Especially the quickness, the intelligence: I value that in me very much, and to not be able to feel it all day long is shit.

I try to tell myself that my student-teacher experience is not indicative of my future as a teacher. That is probably true. Yet it does not help all that much because I do not actually know. I feel bad most of the time these days; I am many thousands in debt in the effort to become this thing I do not like being, though we are not our work, but
It is very difficult for me to get myself in well-enough order to have time for doing the things that make me feel ok about myself and life. Writing is kind of the main thing there. So this is it, for me and writing, and I feel guilty and self-defeating even taking the time for this.
I don't like how my life is right now.
What I want to say is, I am fighting something and/or myself, constantly, in the effort to not lead a miserable, stupid life, and it is tiring lately. Sometimes, I am happy, and that is a victory. Sometimes, I can see how nothing my supervising teacher thinks of me, nothing that happens in that classroom, fucking matters to my life. That is a victory. I just don't have a lot else outside of my dreadful parts of the day, and with all the work, the dreadful parts are mixed with the pulling-self-out-of-misery time, and it gets too hard to not be upset about these things that shouldn't fucking matter. I am not writing well about this, so that's starting to make me feel worse. Well, anyway.

Today, I started this entry to mention it and maybe it's no big deal, but today I got approved to lead a writing workshop in April at a young writer's conference in Portland, for 4th-12th graders. I will do it twice in the one day, I think just for 4th/5th graders; I will hopefully not suck at doing this, because it sounds like a thing I could do and like myself doing. It sounds about right. So, see, there's a victory.
Times like this it feels like I don't really have that great a sense of humor. I'm just all bitter and cranky, and write things like this which can't be fun or even very coherent reads. Fucking lameness, man. It is hard to get out from under it.