High and Low

At my new school, they start out every Friday with a "temperature check," and share with the class one "high" experience, and one "low" experience. I'm gonna try that out.

---

High
My new placement is amazing. My mentor teachers care and are taking an active role in our training. They want us to have an active place in the classroom, teach, attend staff meetings, the whole nine yards.

It's euphoric.

Low
Being yelled at for missing a class due to uncontrollable vomiting. (What was I supposed to do, bring a bucket?) I have to meet with two of my professors on Wednesday to "discuss my goals so they can help support my growth as a teacher." That line may be saccharine enough to rot teeth, but my personal favorite from the correspondence is the following:

"I understand that you have legitimate reasons for missing class; my concern is that you understand the professional expectations of schools. Missing four days in the first month and a half of the public school year would not be well received by a school principal. In all the schools I’ve worked in more than four absences in a school year was considered excessive."

That's right. I was just told that I am too sickly to teach. I love it! I can't be a zookeeper because my hands are too fucked up, but I can't do anything else, either, because I won't be able to hold down a job. Forget that two of those absences were for doctor's appointments that were scheduled eight months in advance and with the intention of making me healthy again! What am I supposed to do with my degree, then? They're insinuating I have three options:

1) Welfare
2) Kept woman
3) Rot

Fuck that. I am sick of fighting with people over this. My teachers keep forgetting I have a disability (after all, I don't "look" sick!), and I've had several assignments in class where I have been essentially useless and been give no other alternative to complete my task. This is just the icing on a very embittering cake. Reminding them doesn't seem to have changed a thing.

So what am I doing? It's time to go back on the warpath.

1) Contacting the campus disabilities office. She'll send out an e-mail politely reminding my professors that I am, despite my deceptive appearance, disabled.
2) If that does not work? Talk to the Ron Thom (President). He'll throw a royal fit over this. Last resort, since professors will likely become resentful.
3) Getting a referral so I can finally be officially diagnosed with fibro so I can legally claim disability. Also, hopefully this will lead to effective pain therapy so I can, oh, you know, use my fucking hands and left leg again.