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2003-01-07 - 10:01 a.m.
A few people have asked me if my new job is better than my old teaching job. Even though I've been asked this more than once it still throws me off guard. I always say "Yes," though the more I think about it, it's not true. My new job as a clerk is not better than being a teacher but it does afford me the luxury that I desperately wanted: irresponsibility and laziness. I know this sounds bad, but really, honestly, this is what I wanted.
I wanted to sit at a desk all day and play on the internet and talk to my friends on IM and chat with my co-workers and swear out loud when someone does something stupid. I also wanted to do some work, which I do. But mostly I wanted a youthful existence that didn't require me to be a role model, affect the quality of someone else's life or change the way anyone was thinking. I wanted a job that had a finite ending in the evening and didn't require me to carry home armfuls of essays or plan lessons for the next day. I wanted a job that didn't make me cry at night because of frustration, powerlessness or my own inadequacy. I have all these things now. If I come to work hung over or tired or emotionally burdened the only person affected is me, instead of 135 keen, impressionable students.
I didn't want to fuck up anyone else's life but my own. And I got what I wanted.
Is it better? I don't know. It's just different.
And I get to spend a few more years being young and fun-loving and irresponsible. I guess what I chose is a lifestyle instead of a career. I realize this isn't the most socially responsible or admirable decision and as much as I'd like to say that I don't care about that, I do.
I noticed when I was a teacher that all of my colleagues were married and planning families. It made me feel weird to be the one person that wasn't. Then I realized that being single and being a teacher is possibly the most isolating existence possible save for being a solitary ranger in the Ozarks. Of course you'd get married if you were going to be a teacher...you need something to come home to other than papers. And you have no time, or energy, for friends. That's not to say that getting married is only for teachers, but I noticed that my colleagues were only interested in talking about these two subjects. None of them had other hobbies, habits or callings. They didn't do anything else. Of course it seems ridiculous for me to condemn anyone else for loving their work or loving another person, maybe this is enough. In fact it should be. It is probably better to choose two things to love than to try to love everything and spend your life doing nothing. Maybe I have misled myself.
In other news, I pissed off my friend Jolene, I made my parents happy, and I want a PhD.
Also, I haven't masturbated in over a month. This is very, very weird.
Finally, I really want to see this film about Jacques Derrida (a French philosopher who wrote a theory of Deconstruction) which opens Friday in Berkeley and I want someone to go with me.