I am so sick of looking at their faces and theirs hands- awkwardly flipping book pages, as though there were navigating some foreign landscape- and knowing that it's not their fault, and knowing what they go home to at night. Read: It's not goddamn fair.

I dropped off one of my students at her house last night, after tutoring. A sweet girl, a little attention-hungry. Her mom reluctantly walked over to the car to meet me. She was holding a lit cigarette in one hand, and a giant can in the other, with the top popped, wrapped in brown paper. The lawn was scattered with beer cans, and the house itself was a broken-down trailer. I'm pretty sure that she's better-off in terms of home life than many of her peers. She lives essentially across the street from me- a one-minute walk. I live in a big brick house. The house immediately across the street from her is a giant southern-style almost-mansion, with expensive architecture, a front porch, and landscaping. I wonder what she thinks. This morning, I invited her to start coming over after school to do homework and make cookies or something. We'll see if it happens. And if it does, what happens when I leave?

The post-break low point is past, and now I'm thinking that I almost certainly want to teach next year, for the right reasons this time. I know that wherever I go will be Less than this, in every way. I don't want to go, anymore. I want to stay, but I already promised, and besides I know better than to think that staying here wouldn't destroy me. But who cares, it's one for hundreds, and I could do so much better than I am doing now. I can't write. I can't sort out what I could possibly have to say to this, can't sort out the inside things from the outside things because the because the outside things are bigger so expression is frivolous, but I can't turn off the inside things, which makes it worse.

I keep failing them (my kids), in both senses. I will work this weekend and try to plan some good lessons, but it feels like building sand castles at low-tide.

The G-ville (haha) soccer team won last night, against an experienced team of athletes. This was the infant team's second season, and I've watched their (teacher-corps) coach agonize over his team's struggles. In this place, with these kids, every defeat is a tragedy. (They already feel so defeated. ) While the experience alone more than makes up for it, last night was incredible.
Five minutes of beautiful in a thousand hours of maybe, or maybe someday. So worth it.