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This unemployed-job-seeking support class is turning out a bit rough, with its emotionally gruelling combo of time-wasting and inadequate guidance.
The problem isn't the teachers - they seem good at what they do - but bureaucracy: 2 teacher/advisors with 30 advisees between them and a 6 week time limit. They have to keep EVERYONE occupied for 6 hrs/day that entire time, and they just don't have time to squeeze in more than 2 one-on-one sit-down meetings per advisee. The rest of the time is filled with general information about ceasing to be unemployed. Almost all the information is inapplicable to a chunk of people (people applying to schools and people actively seeking jobs are two largely non-overlapping groups), who are nonetheless not allowed to miss days. In addition to tons of info of no personal use, we've suffered a couple days' worth of repetition and an unbelievable number of times where the teacher is just reading aloud from a website ("There are a lot of pizza franchises in town, so much so that you probably can't get a loan to open one for love or money... let's see, what does PizzaLine want in a franchise owner?").
I HAVE actually gotten useful information - the information I wanted out of this course in the first place and some more as well. ( I'm just as uncertain about what I want to do as before, but for a completely different reason. ) So, like, I can't say that I didn't get what I came for or what I expected out of this class - on the contrary. It's just that all of the above is frustrating and exhausting. I've been like a sad sleepwalking zombie with the refrain "This week has been 2½ weeks long" for... I can't remember... maybe two and a half weeks. And THEN.
Then last Friday there was this non-communication INCIDENT between me & my Russian classmate on the one hand, and on the other our teacher who seemed incapable of hearing what we were saying or answering our questions and sort of delivered a condescending-feeling lecture in a slightly raised voice instead. Intellectually I know she wasn't angry and didn't intend to yell, but it SOUNDED like yelling and her delivery FELT impatient and like she just couldn't believe we were asking such dumb questions.
The thing is, I don't handle being yelled at... I was going to say 'well', but it would be more accurate to say I don't handle it at all, because I don't even know how to start to handle it. I REACT to it, yes, but can 'crying and obsessing over' be considered 'handling' a thing? I don't think so. (Or maybe the fact that I act calm in the moment and only cry & obsess later, at home, qualifies me for a You Tried.) I'm still not handling it. Awkward social situations WITHOUT yelling can freak me out for months, so obviously, three days is not enough for something like this that plays right into my key insecurities.
Trying to tell my therapist about it today: I was a mess. I was trying to talk, not just cry, because TIME LIMIT, but it turns out trying to force talking while crying kind of shreds my throat and makes my voice sound quite interesting. I must have been REALLY pathetic, because my therapist apologized to me three times for ending our appointment at the normal, scheduled time.
The problem isn't the teachers - they seem good at what they do - but bureaucracy: 2 teacher/advisors with 30 advisees between them and a 6 week time limit. They have to keep EVERYONE occupied for 6 hrs/day that entire time, and they just don't have time to squeeze in more than 2 one-on-one sit-down meetings per advisee. The rest of the time is filled with general information about ceasing to be unemployed. Almost all the information is inapplicable to a chunk of people (people applying to schools and people actively seeking jobs are two largely non-overlapping groups), who are nonetheless not allowed to miss days. In addition to tons of info of no personal use, we've suffered a couple days' worth of repetition and an unbelievable number of times where the teacher is just reading aloud from a website ("There are a lot of pizza franchises in town, so much so that you probably can't get a loan to open one for love or money... let's see, what does PizzaLine want in a franchise owner?").
I HAVE actually gotten useful information - the information I wanted out of this course in the first place and some more as well. ( I'm just as uncertain about what I want to do as before, but for a completely different reason. ) So, like, I can't say that I didn't get what I came for or what I expected out of this class - on the contrary. It's just that all of the above is frustrating and exhausting. I've been like a sad sleepwalking zombie with the refrain "This week has been 2½ weeks long" for... I can't remember... maybe two and a half weeks. And THEN.
Then last Friday there was this non-communication INCIDENT between me & my Russian classmate on the one hand, and on the other our teacher who seemed incapable of hearing what we were saying or answering our questions and sort of delivered a condescending-feeling lecture in a slightly raised voice instead. Intellectually I know she wasn't angry and didn't intend to yell, but it SOUNDED like yelling and her delivery FELT impatient and like she just couldn't believe we were asking such dumb questions.
The thing is, I don't handle being yelled at... I was going to say 'well', but it would be more accurate to say I don't handle it at all, because I don't even know how to start to handle it. I REACT to it, yes, but can 'crying and obsessing over' be considered 'handling' a thing? I don't think so. (Or maybe the fact that I act calm in the moment and only cry & obsess later, at home, qualifies me for a You Tried.) I'm still not handling it. Awkward social situations WITHOUT yelling can freak me out for months, so obviously, three days is not enough for something like this that plays right into my key insecurities.
Trying to tell my therapist about it today: I was a mess. I was trying to talk, not just cry, because TIME LIMIT, but it turns out trying to force talking while crying kind of shreds my throat and makes my voice sound quite interesting. I must have been REALLY pathetic, because my therapist apologized to me three times for ending our appointment at the normal, scheduled time.
