Monday, June 04, 2007

How long would you give it before you gave up?

Now that I have sent in my last assessment toward my OU course I have been feeling a little bereft. It is strange that when something that has been part of your life for so long ends the effect can be almost immediate. Or perhaps it is just me.

I have also been feeling a little, how can I put it, off? Odd? Out of sorts? Any of those descriptions would do really. And that has resulted in me taking a step back and looking at what else I had commited to in this first year of study (after about 100 years) for me and first year of proper school for the hobbits.

What I am waffling on about is, to be quite frank my commitment to the school via the PSA and through trying to work out this new concept of Parent Councils. I have decided that enough is enough. I had thought that I would be one of many turning up for the meetings, turns out that even in the better schools parents remain unmotivated, I can now see why. While I enjoy volunteering at school parties and helping out for various events at the school I am afraid that the PSA, through a core group of about 10 people, is unfortunately quite clique. I have tried to fit in, I know that I have problems trying to fit in socially and I know why but I do try and sometimes I am so fearful internally of joining in that I remain too quiet at these meetings. Perhaps that has made me seem stand-offish, I have the same affect while waiting for the hobbits at the school entrance. For no matter how much I smile at people, no matter how much I battle to start conversations I stand alone. Okay, there are a couple I talk to but no more than chit chat for less than 5 minutes.

I did mention to hubby once that if I walked into the school handing out chocolate and £10 notes they still wouldn't talk to me, he said I have an air about me that makes it hard to approach me. For God sake I grin like an idiot, I open my mouth and utter verbal shite comes out and I hear myself and think "what an idiot." I just can't do it anymore.

So, enough is enough, I have gone to the meetings, I have helped out, yet PSA members pass me by without so much as a hello. I can't figure out if I did something wrong, I can't figure out if it is because of the fact that I represent the lower-wage earning faction of the school (and am the only one I hasten to add) or is it because I don't live in the town but in another which is not as nice. I give up. I have given it a year, more or less, I will still volunteer but I don't want to sit there at the meetings like a lump of wood.

This sounds so much like a poor me post but I have just been doing a lot of this kind of thinking lately.

Same goes for the Parent Council, I am completely useless there also, the others who attend have their own agendas, their own plans for this new Council. Again I wanted to represent the lower-wage earners but I give up. I couldn't even say I wanted to represent the SAHMs as there are a few who already do that but are from the middle-class rather than from whatever they call the one below that, i.e. me! (I would say working class but then that label has now been taken by the benefits crowd and we are not quite that bad.)

I am not a quitter, I am a giver-upper.

No comments: