07/05/2002 - 9:22 p.m.

Do figures of authority just shoot you down?

My hands smell of Play-Doh. These last two days have been fresh fuscia Play-Doh days. I don't know why. I've two, (er, what are they exactly, jars?) thingies of Play-Doh in my locker, one green and hardening from being over played with by my friends, and some that's fuscia and fresh (mostly because it's such a repugnant colour). But, yesterday I pulled it out of my locker, put it in my lunch box and started playing with pieces of it during classes. Nothing in particular, just feeling it, playing with it. And now... my hands smell of Play-Doh.

Andy certainly hasn't had the luck he ought to have had in the past four years.

I've so much to do. That English paper which I'm just going to turn in late, but which I can't be arsed to do because it's a trace paper. I don't want to trace suffering in Crime and Punishment. I want to I just hand him the book and say- read it, if you miss the suffering, you're bloody blind. Why is the mindless one supposed to be the one around 1300 words? Why is it then also worth the most points? I'll get on it.

I've also got to catch up on my mail. It's all written, it just, hasn't gone out yet. I've been too busy. I want a vacation that doesn't really take up any time. Because, the next vacation is after graduation, but that doesn't count. No, I want to stop time, finish all this stuff that needs doing, and then creep back on the conveyer of time. That'll happen.

I'm so glad I'm not involved in any of that other senior stuff. I'm glad I don't have to worry about parties, and invitations, and pictures, and graduations, and dances. I'm glad I've got more time than I might have. Too bad I'm squandering it here moaning about my lack of time.

Of course, they tell me that I need to "learn to manage time for when I'm in an office someday". That day will not come. If it does, I will kill myself. All seriousness. If things get so bleak that I have to get an office job and sit in a cubicle and do meaningless useless tasks while I climb the corporate ladder to hell, I will kill myself. My life is for better things than that, and if I lose all that I have to be reduced to an office worker, I will have no more reason to go on living.

I've asked this before: why do teachers assume that all of us will grow up to work in McDonalds or offices? They know they don't. Teaching is one of those alternative routes- not everybody can do it, it asks for an interesting mix of skills and qualities not found in a lot of people. Teachers have chosen a path different from many of their peers, why do they have to convey the image that we could never do that? Why do we have to continually be told that we're doing this for our boss, who won't like it when we file accounts the wrong way, or that we'll need to get along with our co-workers in business management sessions? I know that the job of a teacher involves many of those tasks (under a different name, and with many others added on besides) but why are we presented them Corporate America style? Why is that the highest standard?