Feelings of loserdom, and grappling with the reality of now

I have been away from this blog for a while, and I had a musing which simply begged it's way to my fingertips onto this computer screen. One of my students made a comment to the effect that he believed I was secretly very successful and doing a spectacular job at hiding that fact. There was some stuff that I read into that statement which basically entered the realm of being a teacher was the "Clark Kent" to my secret identity as an art world "Superman". I recognize that as an egocentric grandiose delusion. I'm a part time teacher working two teaching jobs, digging my way out of crippling student debt, living with my parents. I have had the very recent and inordinately fortuitous luck of exhibiting a substantial artwork in a National Museum. That is such a mind blowing occurrence to me as such a drifter in life with such a late start into anything which could be considered a career. And to one of my students I am "successful".
I understand perspective is very much at play here, and this student only sees one sliver of my reality. What he says and believes is a compliment, and I should take it as that, say "Thank you" and move on. But in my warped sense of what a successful thirty something should look like, the idea that I am successful is such a cognitive dissonance in what I understand to be successful.
Now this alone was just some existentialist ennui until I heard a very thought provoking episode of Citizen Radio where a 26 year old listener refers to himself as a live-with-parents-loser. He goes further to articulate how he is trying to make things better for himself. He was both very candid, and really funny in how he wrote about his situation. His plight prompted many people too empathize and reflect on their own very similar situation. This too, resonated with me, and hearing this caused my student's statement to echo. Unfortunately, in reflecting on my own situation and the age disparity, I felt a little bit worse in the apparent solidarity of college graduates in similar situations. I have friends who are married, have a place of their own, have a well established career with some job security and an overall sense of stability. Contrasting that my own life seems frenetic, and stress has a distinct rhythm which is concurrent with the stability of my income. The past four months have been more stable than the past three years.
Given the fact that I am among the generation of college graduates who had the misfortune of graduating into one of the worst economic times in the history of the United States, I can justify my current state. However, my mind has been warped by the narrative which has been pushed in the media, and socially for the past twenty years or so. In spite of my acknowledging the reality of my situation, cognitively, I have a dissonance which upon self-reflection, nags on me, and provokes the self-identification as a loser.

Pitfalls of Finding a Balance and Failing to make Substantial Art during Study Halls

I am trying to find a balance in teaching trying to pair a theme with some fairly technical projects, for what ends up being overall a fairly technical class. I'm tasked by the curriculum to teach my students good composition along with strengthening their skills shading with a pencil. I'm trying to pair the book which they will be reading in their American Literature Classes "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, and "The Things They Carried" exhibit at the National Veterans Art Museum. I'm expanding it include the Gulf War, Afghanistan & Iraq in the past decade. I am at an awkward juncture where too many of my students are not finished with the previous project for me to pull a proverbial plug on studio work, but I also have close to half the class who is now finished and ready to begin a new project. I'm hoping tomorrow will be a better on this front.

In other news: I am failing at finding an artistic something I can do besides decorating my hall passes during my study hall periods. I am usually reviewing my notes for how class went that day, or lesson planning, or composing presentations, or teacher journal logs, or reading the myriad e-mails I receive. I do get a few moments in which I can sit and observe and let my gears turn, and creativity percolate, sometimes. My issue is that nothing worthwhile has brewed up that is not a lesson plan or image presentation. I have nothing I have created that makes me squee with delight, and proclaim "I made this!" like a kindergartener bringing home a piece worthy of the refrigerator door-and this bothers me.

Adventures in Teaching or Biting off more than I can chew.

I successfully completed my first week of teaching and have been busily coordinating and concocting some plans for the school year. I have no clue how I will be able to balance out working at Oak Forest High School while sponsoring Art Club, Teaching the Community Arts Sustaining Academics Program, and Co-leading and continuing programing for the Vet Art Project. Where there is a will, there is a way. I still have a month in which to set down as much of the groundwork for the Vet Art Project and balance out my schedule of staff, department, and programing meetings as all of this will play a part in how I am able to do my jobs.
At OFHS, taking full advantage of the fact that I am only teaching one section of art, I have compared notes on all my students and touched base with as many of the Social Studies and English teachers to basically get the gears turning on cooperative lessons bridging art and historical context in academics. I already have one teacher who would like to co-plan a lesson on the Reconstruction in post Civil War America, and the Fox Sisters basically purporting to be supernatural mediums, and pairing it with a black & white drawing lesson.
In my concerted efforts to go out and do things and not be such a hermit, Thursday, I had gone to a speaking event at the National Veterans Art Museum. There I met two very cool veterans, Brock & Jake and reconnected with other cool veterans I had met before (Barry & Sabrina). Brock & Jake have been traveling cross country talking about their visits back to Afghanistan and have so many striking, shocking, and beautiful stories about their experiences. I had dinner with all of them afterwards were we chatted and met up with another veteran who had recently come back from Afghanistan the evening before. After this encounter and dropping Brock off at Midway to catch his flight, I stopped by Atomic Sketch afterwards to check out the art and acquired some artwork for my personal collection as well as talking with some of the artists at Atomic Sketch about the possibility of having them come speak to either my class, or for Art Club. Altogether it was a rather busy evening.
This got my gears turning, in which in the most grandiose delusions, I could have a panel of veterans speaking about their experiences and discussing how a decade's worth of war has shaped our culture as is, as well as what is going on as well as giving a first person perspective on what military veterans have had to go through. At its most humble, having a few guest speakers either for my own classroom, or for art club to do demonstrations and share a little bit of their experiences. With everything I will have to do over the course of the school year, it is exciting and new, and at the same time I ask myself: Am I biting off more than I can chew?