Apathy Jack writes:

So, a fifteen year old girl goes home at tea time, but her mother is to drunk to cook dinner. The girl’s eighteen year old sister takes offense at this, so attacks Mum, giving her a black eye and sundry facial lacerations. The girl makes two calls: First to the police, second to her father, to see if she can come and live with him for a while...

The girl is one of my students. Her sister is one of my ex-students. I’ve met Mum a bunch of times.

My brother says he can’t imagine being emotionally involved in one’s work.

And y’know, just some days, I sit back and think about what it would be like to work in a shop somewhere. Some drone job where I get to shut down when I close the door.

I think of the students who come to me for help with their studies because they go through so many English teachers in the course of a year that I’m the only one who they even recognise. I think of the kid in my form class who brought some of her home troubles into class and was told today by the Dean “I will make sure you are kicked out of school.” I think of the rolling fight that broke out between the Indians and the Islanders yesterday. I think of the sentence of community service - with no actual jail time - that was just handed down to the man who raped one of my girls last year. Then I stop thinking.

Been waking up a lot at night recently...