Two posts in one week... I must be either depressed, lonely, or bed-ridden. Luckily for you, we've nearly got all three. Seriously, this is my third day laying in bed, fighting off what appears to be a nasty flu. Within the last week and a half, I finished my high school placement close to my new home and started my new placement at the elementary level closer to an old home and-- as a somewhat direct result-- landed myself in bed for an extended weekend of sore throat coughing fever and Lord knows what comes next.

I haven't been sick enough to really take an extended time away from school since probably high school or before that I can remember, and for those of you who know me well, staying in one spot for more than a day or so doesn't suit me well, especially when new and extreme demands are at hand.

Me, being the extreme analyst that I am, can't help but lay here and re-hash all of the same thoughts I've been having throughout the course of this difficult season. I just finished watching a movie that brought up a lot of ideas that I've been especially contemplating this morning.

The movie is called, "Broken English," starring Parker Posey, one of my favorite people. It was a refreshing movie because it represented a realistic picture of what so many people feel. The heroine of the film is a neurotic hotel customer service manager who feels stuck in her own anxiety-ridden life of failed relationships and unfulfilling choices. As the story unfolds, Nora begains to make more and more of her own choices, saying no to the things that have left her empty in the past. Eventually, she even quits her job to go after the thing that scares her the most.

As I was watching this, I couldn't help but think about something my counselor said to me while I was in Idaho. I will always remember sitting accross from him outside the Library, ready to leave and come back to CO in mid-May.

"Why don't you just go then?" he asked, matter of factly.
"What do you mean, why don't I just go?"
"The thing I am trying to get you to understand is that your choices in life are always yours."

You choose. So much of my frustration this semester has seemed to hinge on this idea taht someone else is taking away my choices. As I've made my way through college, the things (or people) that have left me feeling most frustrated and angry are the ones that I sense are attempting to take away my personal choices of how I spend my time, where I put my energies. I often feel that in student teaching, you are simply asked to choose not to sleep, not to cultivate relationships, not to enjoy life outside of your role as becomming a teacher. Many people have said, "Teaching is a full time job inside and outside of the classroom. It is an all-consuming profession." And apparently student teaching is designed to foster this sense of impossibility.

But I think that there must still be room to choose. There has to be a place where I as a teacher get to choose how much of my day will be devoted to giving to schools, to children, to education, and where I need to be filled. If there is no room for this in teaching, I suppose I may choose something else in life.

It has been difficult for me this semester to keep from treading the path of anger. In this time that I need more help than ever, I feel more alone, more pitted against the people who are set up to help me than ever before. I feel advisarial and in retrospect, I realize that I've been working against "the system" more than I'd like to admit.

My eyes are no longer on the prize-- teaching. My focus has somehow shifted from wanting to be the best teacher I can be to spiting this entity that I feel is only there to remind me how I am falling behind. Somehow I stopped choosing to follow my joy.

Perhaps it is a matter of senioritis. Maybe it is my decision to move to a place and at a time that now feels like a pre-mature shift in life. I left my student-self somewhere and am now trying to fit into other shoes that aren't mine.

I used to be a person who wanted to do well in all things. And I've somewhere become a person who is apathetic and angry. People keep saying, "just jump through the hoops," and "just get through it," and somehow I interpreted that as "stick it to the man." No wonder I've been frustrated.

So here I am, laying in bed with what is probably H1N1, wishing I could just be out there, getting it done. I do have a choice for so many things in my life. And although at this point, I don't have a lot of choices about what I do, how I spend all of my time, I do still have a choice in my own posture. I have choices about my attitude and my focus-- I can turn my eyes upon my future as a great teacher or I can allow my own choice of anger and bitterness wear me out until I give up on my dream.

It is still my choice.