There are some out there who have audibly wondered what possible interest I could have in a career like education. Aside from the known, which is that it seems to be he only field I've been in thus far where the prospect of being fired doesn't follow me around like some lost, zombie puppy. I've had successes, and, dare I say it, I've had failures; but quantifiably fewer failures than I have ever had before. None the less, it goes deeper than that.

• Most importantly, frankly, I suck as a social being. I simply never learned about the rules of proper social conduct, because I was too busy in my childhood being shuffled off to God-knows-who-or-where. The concept of team play? Totally alien to me. I lettered in track in high school, the most individual-effort-based high school sport there is, for the most part. As an adult, that pretty much means that a conventional business workplace, even in the instances where I have managed to get an interview for these types of jobs, would probably cause me to totally lose my mind, and it shows. People who know me know how transparent I am emotionally, for the most part; there goes my career on the World Poker Tour.
• I just started reading Moby Dick not long ago, yes, the Melville classic. Believe it or not, I've never read it. And the character I find myself most identifying with to this point? Queequeg. Let me illuminate this a bit:

Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face - at least to my taste - his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington's head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.
Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be looking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my presence, never troubled himself with so much as a single glance; but appeared wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous book. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found thrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference of his very strange. But savages are strange beings; at times you do not know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing; their calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever; appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All this struck me as mighty singular; yet, upon second thoughts, there was something almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is - which was the only way he could get there - thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal to himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy; though no doubt he had never heard there was such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have "broken his digester."
As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in that mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain; the storm booming without in solemn swells; I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits. Wild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began to feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him. And those same things that would have repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me. I'll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some friendly signs and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile.

• Queequeg, in the judgment of most people, is a freak. His freakishness is more external than mine perhaps, but given that he's in a setting which is essentially totally alien to him, you might almost expect it. Such is it with me; ADD, whether we're talking about a point in my life where I've tried to deal with it or not, makes me feel incredibly alien in settings most people would have no problem with. Inevitably, what you could say about Ishmael is that he seeks people who are "the same kinda crazy as me," to borrow from Delbert McClinton. I won't pretend the analogy is exact, but I think everyone sees what I'm saying.
• ADD makes a lot of things inevitable, even now. I can't sit still, I never have been able to; even as a mechanic, I spent as much time seeing what everyone else was doing as doing my own stuff. I also crave interaction, mental and physical exertion; it borders on a chore to sit and watch a movie, unless I'm really into it. And by the end of the day, my Adderall has worn off, and I've pretty much crashed and burned for the day, so that doesn't happen very much.
• Which leads us back to talking about teaching, especially subbing, as I'm doing right now. I grant you, I won't pretend the money is anywhere near good, but essentially, if you don't go into a place and cause anyone else to have an experience they'll be talking about in therapy, that's a good day. You come in, get it done and move on. Sub plans provide adequate structure most days, as I've discussed previously; when they don't, I can improvise, it provides me with a few moments I can feel good about. And believe me, I'm learning, fast. But as long as it's ever taken me to get my life anywhere near the right track, I can bridge the developmental lag I experienced for nigh on the first half of my life.
• I also won't pretend I don't want more out of life, I want it, and I need it. I have manifold responsibilities. the big part of it is, I guess, I'm getting there. I can talk to people without having them draw away from me, or just openly clear out. I can keep up with a conversation. Be all that as it may, I still have work to do, social-image-wise. I can look people in the eyes better than I've been able to; that's definitely a big one. It's still a lot of work, but given that in teaching, you spend more time looking at groups than you do individuals, that works out better for me.

Ergo, anyone can think anything they like of me, but as far as I'm concerned, my career has me somewhere near the "sweet spot" of the real me. I noted with some amusement, a sign in a classroom which said "Teaching is one part preparation, and three parts theater." I can't imagine a better mix. I'd also like to point out that by teaching, I have probably done more to conquer my simple fear of myself, and my feelings of inadequacy that have haunted me for eons, than anything else I have ever done. Job and therapy, what more could you want?!