Back to the Desk?

We went out for short trots on Saturday and Monday. I’ve been beset with a certain level of stiffness that comes on and off without reason, and that – along with the cold and all – made us fear that I’d got meningitis as well (my sister-in-law felt that way to begin with), but thankfully that wasn’t the case for me. I was happy to trot for about half an hour each time. Pace: easy.

A few more days’ break until school resumes again for the Summer term. I’ve been thinking about going back to classroom teaching again full-time. Even though I work in schools, at the moment what I’m doing is best classed as “tutoring”, really. I do enjoy the work, but unfortunately, it is paid on an hourly basis. Each term I get varying numbers of students (hence varying hours), and the financial insecurity and worry, before each term commences and until I find out my timetable, is getting to me. I don’t really fancy going back to teach in a secondary school environment, and would have to retrain as a primary school teacher if I ever wanted to teach. It means a year of being a student again, which would put us under further financial stress. But it will eventually pay the bills, I won’t have to go through job insecurity and guilt over not working during the holidays, and I can enjoy my free time. But then again, after having seen what goes on in schools, I have lost a lot of faith in the education system – a lot of teachers I have seen don’t so much as teach, but kill time by watching the clock and occupying students with meaningless tasks. And I don’t want to become someone like that.

Some degree of soul-searching needed, I think. But for the moment it seems to occupy every single waking hour, to the point where it’s compromising my motivation; to run, or pretty much do anything else active.