Feeling: contemplative
Listening to: Ben Lee on repeat
Reading/Watching: doing lots of note-taking for grad class. This is a break.

In true MegMarch fashion, I have burned a song mix representing my progression through my first year of teaching.

It begins with my feeling upon learning of the job and applying for it, and follows through the very last day. And every time I listen, I relive the entire year, and get an extra grain of understanding.

So, to share what it on my mind these days, I will share the mix with you.

1) Ben Lee - Begin ("While you're wondering 'how's this gonna end,' I only want it to begin.")

2) Dave Matthews Band - Ants Marching (A longstanding favorite, seems to illustrate perfectly the optimistic beats of getting ready for day after day, excited until you realize it never changes.)

3) Evanescence - My Immortal (Although the text isn't exactly spot-on, it's the song I sang & played for the kids to convince them that I was "cool"... and it reflects that quiet moment when I realized that I was entirely invested in this job, and they didn't want me there.)

4) Seether - Out of My Way ("You like to think you�re owed a favor now, man you�ve seen it all... Give it up, son, I'm doing this my way.")

5) Blue October - Into the Ocean ("Now waking to the sun I calculate what I had done, Like jumping from the bow, Just to prove that I knew how")

6) Evanescence - Lacrymosa ("In this short life, there's no time to waste on giving up. My love wasn't enough.")

7) Blue October - Inner Glow (The entire song deserves to be quoted, so here.)

8) Dashboard Confessional - Bend and Not Break ("I am fairly agile: I can bend and not break. Or I can break and take it with a smile.")

9) Marketa Irglova - The Hill (As referenced in this entry.)

10) Snow Patrol - Run ("Slower slower, We don't have time for that. All I want is to find an easier way to get out of our little heads.")

11) Ben Lee - We're All in This Together (My first moment of feeling unity and hopefulness)

12) Tonic - Mean to Me (Followed by the staples incident.)

13) Three Days Grace - Get Out Alive (Started feeling like maybe this wasn't the place for me. Maybe I wasn't safe here, that I'd never fit in.)

14) Blue October - Holler (Thanks for all the support, Mr. Principal. "I won't be strong, I won't be brave; I'll never stay, 'cause you don't treat me the right way.")

15) Glen Hansard - All the Way Down (Weeks of final competition and concert, in which I worked 12 hours a day and cried or hyperventilated myself to sleep: "You have broken me all the way down; I'm down upon my knees.")

16) Tonic - Soldier's Daughter (The song I always listen to when I need to climb out of that hole one last time.)

17) Ben Lee - Close I've Come (Had to end on a high note: "But I can see things clearer. It's all smoke and mirrors: yeah, you broke my fucking heart, but I still want you.")

And that... is where I am these days. I am apprehensive, but every bone in my body tells me that next year will be better. Considering how things ended, and the fact that my most difficult punkasses were the eighth-graders who graduated, and that next year I won't be riding the coattails of a quitter, it just has to be better. So I've signed my contract, and I'm going back in the fall to finish my internship and get fully certified. From there, I could go anywhere I like, if I so choose.

As always, you're welcome to e-mail or comment me with a request for a copy of the mix CD, but I'll need your address.

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