I hate what having a night job does to my sleeping cycle. Notice the time stamp on this post? I’m more alert and aware at night than during the day. This sucks because I don’t feel like doing anything during the sunlight hours, which leads me to believe that I am a sloth. That's how I feel anyway. Up until three years ago (when I started this job), I was a morning person who was ready to wake up at 6am at any given day. Not anymore. I try to do productive things, like set up a “to do” list, but that hardly works. It is finished in less than three hours, and the rest of the day I have to myself. Fatigue always sets in right before I need to go to work, so I take a quick nap. Basically, I sleep most of the day, and I stay up most of the night. I don’t know whether I like this backward cycle or not. I guess sleeping-in is justified, given the evening hours I work and the wired-aftermath of coming home late, but I still feel like a lazy-ass.

I’ve had plenty of things on my mind today, and feeling like a sloth was just one of them. The other thing was trying to solve the sloth problem by finding a day job. But since every school district I have applied to has given me the tacit rejection, I don’t think I’ll be teaching this year. It’s a fact that I’ve come to accept, and have resigned myself to doing other things until I can try again next year. It’s so strange how advertisements exaggerate the shortage of teachers here in California. I don’t think there is a shortage if school districts can easily reject new teachers upon graduation. There is obviously a surplus if they’re just going to keep my application along with other applicants so they have a ready pool of substitutes and replacements. But that’s just my bitterness talking.

On the other hand, maybe not teaching this year is a sign that I’m not meant to teach. I need the year off to stop and smell the roses and reflect my life. It sounds corny, but have you ever rushed to do something because you wanted it so badly, and then when you finally have it, you’re not sure if you really want it because you never stopped to think about it? That’s me. Straight from high school, straight into college, and straight into a teaching credential program, and now that I’m a licensed English teacher, I’m doubtful about getting into the profession. I ask myself often: was there anything else out there for me?

I never really stopped to think about it.