morph.

"my job is never boring or mundane!"

that is a loaded statement.

we had to write "biographies" today. also known as AUTObiographies when you write it about yourself. they're going to be hung outside our classrooms. we were told to include a sentence or two about why we love our jobs.

my job is never boring or mundane. take that however you want, it's the best i could come up with.

oh, by the way, this is a long and boring string of thoughts.

today i remembered an important truth.

it's impossible to hate your enemy if you pray for them. and not a "help them see the error of their ways..." kind of a prayer. try it. pick an enemy, any enemy. hopefully you don't have a lot to choose from...like, none.

i have at times seen my boss as my enemy, which sounds extreme. i am my toughest critic, so i've lectured myself plenty of times about how being an adult and showing up to work is not going to be a party. there will be hard days. but this isn't my first job. i've been working since i was 16. i didn't walk into this job with expectations of being friends or even friendly with my boss. i've had PLENTY of bosses that i didn't like personally, or that made me do a lot of stupid and annoying things. it's part of working. they make the rules, i follow them. without complaining, and without rolling my eyes. that's how every job i've had has been. so i feel like i'm in a position to say...this is different. i've had enough jobs and bosses to say that.

with that said...

today she came into the room to let the other teacher in my room go on her lunch break, so we had a little chat. she just started talking about stuff, and how she's been really stressed lately. one reason is because the parents are insane, and demand ridiculous things from us. i know she gets more pressure from them than i do. i have ONE class of parents to deal with, she has the whole school. so we share that stress issue. and it was interesting to see her as a human. and not the devil. who is my actual enemy. she has bad days too. she goes home and feels tense too.

she also mentioned how she feels stress because so many people are quitting, and i had to pretend to be sympathetic. because it's her fault. they're leaving because of her. she's oblivious. which annoys me even more. but regardless of why she's stressed, she is having a hard time too. and it was kind of "nice" (talking to her is never actually NICE) to have that conversation, and be able to express that i have been feeling a lot of stress and pressure too. i only mentioned the pressure from the parents. and she told me that the parents in our class are happy, and i should ignore the "witches", as she put it.

so, that's an interesting follow-up to the day i had yesterday. God created an opportunity to remind me that i should show her more grace. grace is being kind to someone when they don't deserve it. giving the benefit of the doubt. God does that all the time with me, and did it ultimately on the Cross.

swallowing my pride at work is really hard, and looking at her as a human is not something that pleases me initially, but becoming more like Christ is what i want more than anything. i'm not content to sit and stew and be mad, even when i'm RIGHT. that feeling of "being right" is only good for about ten seconds. there are moments i know i'm right and she's wrong, and i can prove it with FACTS and DOCUMENTS. (pride in blogging translates to uppercase letters..) but i want more than that. i don't just want to be right. i want to change for the better, and focusing on how insane she is doesn't help me do that. it changes me in a bad way.

a frustrating thing is that even though i realize these things, i could go in to work tomorrow and have the worst day ever. i never know. so i could have to wrestle through it again tomorrow. that is not cool.

one of our many annoying conversations occurs every friday. same conversation. she asks me question, i answer it the same way every friday, and every friday she says "no, i don't think so" in a "you're an idiot" kind of way, and an hour later it turns out...i'm right. EVERY FRIDAY! so i'm bringing it up here to jinx the situation, and hope that tomorrow...she won't even go there.