Slope-Intercept my Ass

I'm so tired. Just finished reading A Dance with Dragons. And the books are pretty good. They're hard to read. There are so many characters and plot lines tangled together that many times I wasn't sure what was happening or what was significant. Spoilers ahead...

Example: When Jon Snow was killed, I had to look up the names of his killers to remind myself who they were and what they had said to lead up to that moment.

I guess it just goes to show how good GRRM's memory is. And how good he is at subtly planting seeds of future treasons. My books will have to be way less complex. My brain can't handle that much overload. My brain feels too foggy. In a bit of a depressed way. Today anyway. Well. I just consumed two gorditas and an horchata from this amazing Mexican spot down the road. And as my doctor says, diet is directly related to depression. 

But hey I'm writing. I'll give myself credit where it's due. And I'm substitute teaching today and I've applied to several more jobs. Please. Let's hope one of the less horrible jobs gets back to me. It'd be nice to make some real money. This substitute teaching only pays $110/day. Not exactly sustainable. And one of the teachers disrespectfully had me actually do more than hand out assignments to the class. She didn't know she'd be out for the day until the last minute, so I found myself studying up on slope-intercept form to push the kids through lesson 4. 

I was panicking. I haven't looked at that shit since. Well. I was subbing for 8th grade that day sooo... at least 15 years ago. And actually teaching material to them went very badly. You see, I've grown accustomed to handing assignments to the kids while I sit in the back of the class and read and occasionally yell at loud students. So here I was trying to get the class to shut the fuck up so I could explain something I re-taught myself about 20 minutes before class started. 

And as soon as I got them quiet I'd fumble through my words (uhhh Y equalsss uhhhh, MX plus uhhhhhhh. B!), causing them to laugh at me. And I'd try to create competitions to motivate them to answer my questions. But you can't motivate someone who chooses not to care. Maybe if I was a counselor I could get to the bottom of why they don't care, but I think the answer is probably something simple like: I don't give a shit about math.

And I get it. At their age I hated math and was probably a terror to my teachers, so a little bit of karma coming back to me is probably in order. I would try to motivate them at first by talking about college. But one of them said "I'm not going to college. I want to work in construction." Fuck. And I'm not good at thinking on my feet so I kind of kept at my initial strategy of yelling at them when they got too loud and teaching as much as I could.

If I had thought quicker on my feet I would've asked "well how many construction workers do you know who didn't pass middle school?" Not sure if that would've even helped. But it would've been a good comeback. Nothing would make me happier than giving these kids some genuine motivation to listen to me and care about the subject. It's like "you're already here in this classroom and there's not much you can do about it. Might as well listen and try to learn something here. This is the system we have. Maybe other systems would work better for you individually, but you're stuck with this one. Make the most of it, bucko."

But the kids want to talk about who's dating who; who broke up with who; the latest gossip; sports. But they have life and energy in their bones. I'm jealous of that. They have that youthful vigor that hasn't been jaded in any way. And it's annoying. Just listening to them jab away in the classroom aggravates me when I'm trying to read my damn book. I'm the grumpy old man wanting to relax. Feeling depressed. 

I'm getting comfortable with my depression and not knowing things. What choice do I have? Depression runs in my bones and knowledge is fleeting, so I can either accept that, pretend it's not there, or fight it. Acceptance sounds like the best approach in my opinion. If anyone has a better idea, let me know. Yeah yeah I know I need to eat better too and exercise more. Good point, Peterson. I'll clean my room.