Minuit

I can't sleep. I need to be up in a few hours, but, I can't will my mind to shutdown. I need to talk to someone. I want to talk to my bestfriend who's awake at the other side of the world, but, I feel like our conversation would turn into an argument and I'm the jerk for ranting about wanting to quit my teaching job.

The only thing that irritates me so much is that after agreeing to rectify the grades of my graduate students, compromising my syllabus to cater to what they want and what they could only learn, I'm still seen as the bad guy. 

I had placed myself in their shoes. Check. I asked questions if they have further questions. Check. I am willing to lower my standards. Check. I asked them directly for feedback or complaints. Check. Then why the heck are they complaining that I'm too strict?

I hate it when other people think that I'm not understanding enough. Not nice enough. Not accommodating enough. In the end, I'm the one who gets stepped on. And, I guess they wouldn't believe the process that I have to go through to make myself numb and teach them the foreign language that is akin to stepping on shards of glass. Blame my brain for automatic inferencing and memory retrieval. Blame my brain for connecting the painful memories from one person and equating that with the language spoken of the latter. I had to train my neurons, axons and dendrites to create new pathways that would compartmentalize my emotions, but, it has left me drained.

Of course I cannot tell my students that there is an added pressure on my part not to tap into specific areas of my memory that are triggered by the symbols of the language I teach. Damn you, Barthes! Damn you, Derrida! I have erased you, I am erasing you, but, your traces remain. And when I thought that by teaching, I could desensitize myself, I was wrong. 

Gah, it feels so awkward to have soliloquies at midnight. 

"Pray thee tell, what is your wish, O self?" 

"I wish to turn my back at my students and leave them to the elements. I am no stranger to the art of leaving--I, being left behind too many times I've lost count."

"Do you not ponder on the repercussions of your hastiness?"

"Alas, I have. Alea iacta est. I have decided to hand in my resignation letter knowing fully well that I am standing up for honor and the knowledge that I am right."

"What about compromise?"

"What compromise? I have compromised and yet, I am still charged as an uncompromising villainess. They are a burden and they have hurt me. I do not wish to prolong the agony of pain."

"Aha! You are a slave to your emotions!"

"True. You and I succumb to the throes of rage, pain and fear. I no longer want to continue this discourse. The Land of Nod beckons."

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Please reset. Come on, neurons. Re...