UNDER PRESSURE

One thing I noticed this week is that people around me seem to be having the same kind of shitty, nit-picky week that I am.  So much to do, so much to accomplish, and yet ridiculousness surrounds me. 

I'm trying to prep the kids for a major exam next week.  It's going to be a killer.  However, my schedule keeps getting interrupted for meetings or plays or sensitivity training or whatever else comes down the pike.  If it isn't a fire drill, it's bus evacuation practice. I haven't had one full teaching week yet this year that has NOT had some kind of an interruption or confrontation or minutiae.

This morning on my drive to work, I'm trying really hard to psych myself up for a good day.  I make a mental list of things I hope to accomplish.  I think over the possible outcomes for a contentious meeting I have coming up.  I mentally size up the ramifications to losing my cool during class yesterday.

Wait.  What the hell.  Why am I trying to appease myself?  I didn't cause all the problems, issues, and crap.  I'm not the one who needs to solve all the world's woes.

I crank up the radio as I tool along the dark back roads to work.  Tom Petty sings, "Oh, baby, there ain't no easy way out..."  No shit, guy.  "I'll stand my ground, and I won't back down."

Hmmmmm.  Decent advice.

Next song:  "Pressure ... raining down on me ... Under pressure..."

Holy smokes, it's the soundtrack of my life, or, at least, my life at the moment. 

As I pull into the parking lot at school, I briefly consider belting out the lyrics at the top of my voice.  There's only one other car in my end of the lot.  Who cares, right?  I notice it's one of the construction workers, still sitting in his car, sipping coffee with his driver's side window down.  This is when I decide that singing is probably not the grandest of my ideas.

I shut off my car just as two of my coworkers arrive in separate cars, so we all walk in together and do that perp walk through the deserted halls.  It's nice to have the strength in numbers, and we gab about various silly things happening in our building.  It's all okay, though, because truthfully, in the end, when it all starts to fall apart:

I'm under pressure -- but I won't back down.