tuesday - september twenty-six, two thousand - 10:02am
i have this urge to go to the science museum, or the art institute, or somewhere cultured. it must be the fall. i love the fall, for so many reasons... i love the crisp air, the smells, the colors, the clothes you get to wear. i love how it's cool enough to light a fire, but warm enough that you can stand being outside all day. i wish it were about two months longer than it it is. but, mostly i love the idea of going back to school - with fresh new classes, and teachers - new school supplies, and clothes. i used to love going back to school in the fall. my friends all thought i was insane. don't get me wrong, i loved getting out of school in the spring as well - the idea of a whole summer of freedom ahead of me - but, i inevitably grew tired of having nothing to do by august, and i anxiously awaited the start of the new school year. i think that's why i crave knowledge and culture right now - i need to be in that institution-like environment to feed my craving.
it's all i can do to restrain myself when i walk by the school-suppy isle in target. i want to buy a bunch of new pens, and pencils and notebooks.... a trapper-keeper, some folders. i'm even tempted by the big box of crayons with the sharpener on the back... the one my mother would never get me. at home, i have a trunk full of art supplies of this sort... most of which go months or years without ever being touched or used, but i still want to get more - it's unbearable - even the smell of the newness lures me.
i used to think i wanted to be a teacher - so i could take advantage of all those things i consider to be perks that the students get... summers off, new supplies every fall, fresh new classes and students every year (or every term if i were a high school teacher) - maybe i should look into this more thoroughly. about the only thing i'd be qualified to teach, though, is art... and i hate how students always think that taking an art class will get them an easy "A". i would be the kind of instructor that would really make them work for an "A" - then nobody would take my class, and i'd be fired. if i were an elementary school art teacher they would HAVE to take my class.... plus, in elementary school we had the coolest projects... i LOVED art class then - well, i've always loved art class, but high school kind of blew in that department... even junior high was pretty cool - we got to do more of a variety of things. but, i don't know if i'd want to teach it because that age is generally kind of rebellious, i think.
i should talk to my new sister-in-law about it... she's an elementary school teacher - see what she has to say about it. i feel like i'm making a life decision as i write this. i really enjoy my job - and i'd probably have to take a pay cut if i started teaching - which really pisses me off because i'm sure it would be much harder work. those commercials that are out right now about the teachers who have to buy school supplies for their students out of their own pockets because the school doesn't have enough funding to get them always make me get teary-eyed. i'm writing very scatteredly (?), aren't i? anyway, as you can probably see, i'm torn about it - but it does enter my mind from time to time - especially in the fall. i have a lot of teachers in my family... maybe it's just in my blood.
