Giving Thanks

I made it all. The lemon sage turkey. The apricot-cranberry with ginger sauce. The best herb stuffing. The buttermilk mashed red potatoes with caramelized shallots. The roasted veggies with pine nuts. A spiced sweet potato pie. And I made everything except for the mac & cheese 'cause nobody can touch my mama's mac & cheese.
It was good to be home.
It was great to cook fresh food & to be cooking it for people I love, even if I couldn't eat everything I made. I am more comfortable in a kitchen than I thought, but I still have a ways to go before I'm fixing up plates on a moment's notice.

My flight departed from Miami at 8:35 pm yesterday. NYC looks amazing from the plane window, all lit up, twinkling & busy, and I was once again dumbstruck with how great this city is. In the taxi on the way to my apartment, I started to feel anxiety about returning to work. I've accepted that I do not love my job. I enjoy spending time with my students. I'm receiving a crash course in politics just by dealing with the bureaucracy of the Board of Education. But what I am growing more intolerant of by the second is the selfish, deceitful, irrational demands of my principal and her inability to hold her cronies accountable for their disgusting behavior towards the students. I don't know anybody who is asked to do half the shit she asks of myself and the other teachers. I don't know anyone who can turn a blind eye to verbal abuse the way she can. My friends gloat about how laid back their schools are, how much free time they have and I begin to resent them, resent my school and resent myself for returning for a second year. I beat myself up for constantly allowing her to speak to me in a manner that is condescending and rude.

I feel super confident about applying for a teaching job elsewhere, though I know this isn't what I truly want to do.
Going my own way (art programs, photography, traveling, writing) will require me to make some major sacrifices and create a serious plan of action . So even though I can't wait until summer (school ends in June & I receive my masters degree in August), I have a lot of thinking to do.