Arughhh! *crushes cue-ball in fist*

So I'm frustrated a bit today.

I've been on edge because there is lots of talk going around the school about making Carol stay an extra two weeks to make up for the time she missed due to her ear infection. I guess the school sent out a letter volunteering her time, and the parents are in favour. Carol was never asked about it though.

So that's frustrating me, because they might want me to stay too. I want to leave on July 4th and go to Bali, as the school schedule says. It seems they are manipulating the school's schedule, and anyone could be a victim. Carol has said she's leaving on schedule and won't stay the extra two weeks.

Carol has heard that they might fight back and say we owe them for our plane ticket because we're not staying a full year. We came in August to teach in September, and the school year will be over in July. There is a summer session that we never agreed to teach, but maybe now they want to claim we're breaking the contract if we don't teach it. So, there's talk (not official talk, just rumours) about making us pay back the $1000ish that they gave us, which represented one way of our round trip tickets.

It's a bit frustrating. Anyway, the point of this post isn't to talk about the politics at school, but mention how they affected my teaching style.

It's Friday, which is usually a good day to teach. But I've been frustrated today, so I've been edgy. We play Letter Bingo on Fridays, and it's fun. We got though that OK, then the kids started being bad. Guo wasn't in the room, so they were a bit more misbehaved because of it.

I asked them to take their chairs to the circle, which most did. One boy tried to steal a girl's chair, and they ended up fighting over the chair, each grabbing two legs and trying to pull it away from the other student. We have fourteen students in the class, and about twenty chairs, so there were lots of extras. They were fighting over the chair, and yelling, and I was upset.

So, I grabbed the contested property from them, opened the classroom door, and threw it outside. I told them we have lots of chairs, and they shouldn't fight over them. I thought it wasn't the best move, since I lost my temper. But then I reasoned that it was fine since class was in session and all the other teachers would be busy teaching, so nobody would know. And at least I wasn't yelling, beating the kids, swearing, or anything like that.

When I went out to retrieve the chair a minute later, I saw the head teacher and another teacher standing about ten feet away from the chair, chatting away as if nothing happened. It must have been interesting for them a minute earlier, talking about school or pregnancy or relationships, or whatever, and a random chair comes flying out of my classroom.

So, that's the story. I threw a chair out of my classroom. I regret it, but the guilt will pass I'm sure.

I think it already has.