And so Another Year Begins

I don't really have too much to say today, because I'm just tired. First day back and I am no even going to do lesson plans, even though their one of those things that I really need to get done, but I'm just not motivated. The sad thing is, this lack of enthusiasm really has nothing to do with the kids, but more the fact that I can't stand where I am. Amazingly, with all the changes this past year, the more this one thing remains the same. 

This makes me feel like the post-war Scarlett O' Hara. No longer Cotton Aristocracy, but a Cotton Chopper, just a step up from Poor White, not to mention a Mick. You don't see this in the movie, the part where she begs Ashley Wilkes to take her to Mexico (where many ex-Confederates had fled in real life at the invitation of Santa Anna), but in the book as she walks away, having told Ashley that "He needn't worry, because it wont happen again," the omniscient narrator tells us the squares her shoulders, tilts her chin up defiantly, and walks away the burden weighing on her same as before. That's what my job is, Reconstruction, which if you ask any Southerner (and most historians) was just a brutal retaliation brought on my men who were more interested in flexing their muscles than getting anything done. That's my boss. She's more worried in saying I'm the boss, this is my school, than being what a principal should be, which is a mentor and educator. But, just like Scarlett in the face of hunger, famine, Carpetbaggers and what not, I'll square my shoulders and tilt my chin up just a little, because there really is no one else to do what I do.