Terminal Apathy

I’m not going to analyze everything for you this time. I’m not going to defend my attitude here. I’m going to make this as concise as possible.

Last week was absolutely terrible. Every day was an exploration in unprovoked spite on behalf of the students. Thursday was the most aggravating, but the final death knell for the warrior bard’s optimistic approach to the job was Friday morning…

Thursday night was a district choir concert. The kids were integrated into a massive choir with several other schools, and they sounded good. Friday, I knew well in advance that I’d be covering the choir teacher, and she said it was my call: they could have their reward (watch a movie) or they could save that for Monday and I could get the chance to lead their rehearsals.

So Friday morning, first period, they file in with their pizza, popcorn, etc. I start to compliment them on the concert, though they don’t seem to be very gracious about it—in fact, they look as though they are just waiting for me to shut up so they can watch Up. I explain how usually when I get to sub for their choir teacher I am “excited by the opportunity for some hands-on experience conducting” them, but that this time they have a well-earned respite. I get interrupted with a sarcastic, “Sorry to disappoint you.”

Another person asked, “Oh, do you want to teach music?”

I stare at him blankly. “I have taught music.” Inside, I’m thinking, “I fucking made you into better singers the few times I worked this gig.” But I guess that was last spring. I thought I had proved myself, shown my chops, or whatever.

So, feeling like an unwanted fifth wheel, an outsider, a trespasser, I shook my head and put in the DVD, then went over to the teacher’s desk and stared at the clock.

After a horrible, exhausting, infuriating week, I had hoped that it would end on a wonderful note. But even the best gig, the one I’m most qualified to teach full time, holds no appeal anymore. Even the best kids make me feel like I’m wasting my effort. I was still angry from the week leading up to this moment, so when I got snubbed by the choir, I finally decided, “Fuck this place. If I never get called back, it’ll be too soon. I’m getting out of this shithole, somehow. Somehow. And tonight, at least, I’m going to fucking Columbia and I’m drinking Killian’s and feeling like a respectable human being for a change.”

So I spent the whole weekend in Columbia, not just the one night.

You see, Saturday night I had planned to go to a benefit thing. There was a lasagna dinner, silent auction, and pop concert to raise money for the scholarship named after the girl who died last month, and to help pay for the survivor’s hospital bills. It’s not that I snubbed them back by not going, it’s that I didn’t feel like going. I didn’t want to see the bad students, I wanted to see the good ones. But I wasn’t going to bid at the auction anyway, so I wasn’t going to do any more good than a hypothetical conversation with one or two people. Simply put: they didn’t need me. So I put some distance between that world and myself.

I wish that Friday had been my last day, but I need money and have nowhere else to get it. Yet. For now, I remain a dirty, dirty whore. And I am becoming the bitter sub the Captain said I wasn’t yet.

So instead of detailing the specifics of why it was a horrible week, I’m just going to say it’s not worth working here anymore. My apathy is terminal. I’m not going to “get anything out of this,” I’m not going to win the hearts and minds of young musicians. I’m not going to fool myself anymore with bullshit optimism. I’m done here.

”When you can’t tell your friends from your enemies, it’s time to go.”
—M