je voudrais être un yeti

Mirrored from Oh Clementine. You can leave any comments there.

I have not been having a great week. I won't go into details about much, but I will mention that I am having huge problems with a certain teacher. I have mentioned him before; I had him last year for two courses, and was a little on the dismayed side to find that I had him again for World Religions this year. Last year, he made a point of pushing his beliefs on us by saying things like (and I quote), "I'm not going to tell you to not eat meat – no, wait, I am. DON'T EAT MEAT," showing us videos about a slaughter house, and generally ignoring the curriculum in favour of these things; this year, he has insulted people who don't care about religion either way by saying that they are "ignorant, boring, and uninformed" and that he "hopes to change their opinions by the end of the year", as well as creationists, saying that they "don't display a sophisticated level of thinking". This makes me extremely uncomfortable to be in his class. If any class should be a safe space, it should be World Religions. It isn't a class about his personal opinion; it is a class where we're supposed to be learning about, you know, the religions of the world.

Yesterday, we had presentations. One group was missing a member due to H1N1; he said that they would have to present anyway. That's fair enough… what isn't fair is the fact that he told them that he expected them to present their partners' information. Apparently, we should all memorise every group member's part on the off chance that they're away. That definitely is not how a group project works; the point of doing it in a group is to split up the work.

That was the last straw for a friend and me. We decided to see the guidance counsellor about switching or dropping the class. Unfortunately, it's too late in the year to do anything about it. We can't even enroll for an online course instead. The guidance counsellor did allow us to voice our concerns, and she advised us to talk to the principal about him.

Today, I was helping out a grade 9 class. (They were learning to make websites, and I'm the head of the web team at my school.) My World Religions teacher came into the room and asked if he could see me after school. I immediately got freaked out, although I told him yes. The teacher whose class I was in¹ asked me what he was talking to me about. I told him most of what I told the guidance counsellor, and he said that he understood and that if I had any problems I should definitely talk to him. I think it's interesting that none of the other teachers seem to be very fond of my World Religions teacher, and are not quick to defend him.

Anyway, I was already having a really bad day, so my best friend ended up finding the World Religions teacher and telling him that I was sick and needed to go home right away. He probably didn't buy it, but I don't think it's appropriate to corner a student and ask to speak to them about something that you had discussed in confidence with someone else.

This entry has gone completely off base from where I was originally going, which was to discuss how people hold back emotions. Because of the way this week has been so far, I've had a lot of strong emotions. My natural reaction to strong emotions? Crying. It's embarrassing, and I don't like it, but that's just how I apparently have to deal with my emotions. This is especially a problem when I'm mad. When I'm angry with someone and trying to express that, the last thing I need is to cry.

When I was about 10, I read Ender's Game. I remember virtually nothing about the book, but one thing that has stuck with me was the brief description of what Ender does when he feels like he is going to cry: he starts at 1, then doubles it, then doubles that.

Since then, that's always what I've done when I'm feeling upset. It helps me concentrate on something else, and it's also a good way to gauge how upset I'm feeling. I've memorised a lot of the sequence, so if it gets so bad that I actually have to do math in my head to figure out what the next number will be, I know that I am extremely close to tears.

Now I'm curious: do you try to hold back your emotions? If you do, how?

(And, because this post wasn't already all over the place, I'm doing NaNoWriMo! I've made a lot of progress so far, and I can afford to take around 2 days off since I'm so ahead.)

1. who is in charge of the tech group, and who is awesome [↩]