I am extremely miserable today. Every class I taught was very high-strung and bad. They couldn�t focus and wouldn�t listen and it amounted to me talking to myself. In an effort to safe my sanity I just gave them a list of words to copy off of the projector. The whined and complained but busy work is the only way to control them on days like this.

To make matters worse, I actually hit a kid today. I feel like such a beast. I cuffed him in the back of the head; it was an unconscious reaction to his grabbing my breasts for the twentieth time this week. It didn�t hurt him, he actually laughed, but then another teacher walked by and slapped his hand and said �No!� and he seemed to finally understand. But that upset me, because it brought back images of when we were training our puppy in Belize. We would slap him and say �No!� It disturbed me that we were treating this six-year-old boy as if he were a puppy. I went home for lunch and cried for a long time. I don�t know what would have been a better way to handle the situation. I obviously couldn�t allow him to continue to grab my breasts, or to think it was okay to grab women�s breasts, but I felt so awful about the slapping. Even though he didn�t cry or seem shocked, I felt like a monster. It makes me question if I am fit to be a parent some day. How will I instill a sense of right and wrong in my children? What if I do turn into a beast who hits children, out of desperation? A disobedient child can really drive you to the edge. It is scary.

I have not been sleeping well. The tenants above us have a snoring problem. But I am not sure if this is the only reason I can�t sleep well. I haven�t been able to fall asleep in the afternoons, either. Previously I have taken a forty minute nap each day during the lunch break.

I feel really low today.

ckb

Tuesday, Apr. 08, 2003 at 5:13 PM