Stress, The Final Frontier...

I may have made a terrible mistake, and it's scaring the shit out of me. Please don't take this as arrogance, or hubris, but usually I make the right decisions for myself ie. career moves. I freely admit that I have made some horrific blunders in my life, one of which is now rearing up to bite me in the ass, but usually my 'big' choices turn out to be the correct ones. But this new gig has my blood pressure overwhelming my medication, and my sleep patterns. Teaching high school, I figured, would be much easier than teaching college. Oh how foolish we mortals be. I have one class that consists of 20 freshmen, none of which seem able to stay quiet for more than a few nanoseconds. And it is my last class of the day, right after lunch, so while I'm fighting off the post lunch nap monster, they are more wired than Richard Simmons at an ABBA concert. Another thing I had not considered was that in high school you meet with your classes EVERY DAY! I'm used to seeing my classes twice a week, and having large gaps of time in between them. Now my first class comes in at 9:30am(two hours after I'm required to sign in) and I don't stop, except for a 20 minute lunch, until 2:45. I'm exhausted, and it's only the first week of classes.

I hope that this is just an adjustment period, and that I'll eventually find my stride here, but right now I feel like someone who has walked out onto a rickety, old, Indiana Jones style suspension bridge, with huge gaps in the boards ahead, and angry Thuggee warriors behind. I just hope no one decides to cut the ropes.

Your friendly, nerve-wracked Marius.