October 24, 2011
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Here it comes. Here it comes. Here comes your 19th Nervous Breakdown.1 I told you on Frideeeeeee that weekends are severely shorter these days than they were when we were kids.
2 I blinked, and here we are.
3 Maybe it’s in the water supply.
4 Maybe the government is doing mind-control. We always read about how they used to do that during the Cold War. We know it was done.
5 What happened? Did they suddenly stop?
6 Google MK Ultra. It’ll send shivers down your spine.
7 Ah, I just did. It’s like almost 5 a.m. as I clack away at this keyboard. Whatever came up on Google looked pretty sugary. I’ve no time to go deep into that one.
8 Besides, who wants to read about CIA mind control when eating a bowl of mush?
9 Not this fellow.
10 Moving on, Part the First: Well Raider fans, that one had to hurt. Fear not. Carson Palmer just arrived. Remember the first time you got hired at a new job? How many interceptions did you throw?
11 Football teaches us a lot about life.
12 I won’t go into all the football metaphors. I used to have people roll their eyes when I would talk about “taking a knee” on Fridays before Christmas or Easter break.
13 That metaphor was always about how I played a tough game, and on some of those minimum days before holidays I’d have a short film. I won that game and was metaphorically kneeling down as the clocked ticked down to Christmas vacation, or to Easter.
14 Not always easy, because things come at you every day. Mondays I used to always worry about because I didn’t want to fumble the opening kickoff.
15 You see where this is going.
16 When I would finally see the light go on in a student’s eye, I would have thrown a long bomb for a touchdown.
17 See?
18 You start mixing metaphors on a Monday morning, you’re doing it on the right day.
19 Most people have one-eye open and the other closed on Monday mornings. I hope your face doesn’t land in your oatmeal and honey.
20 I think a lot of it has to do with my background of working at sporting events for years, including Raiders’ games.
21 I watched so many exciting moments over the years that I’m surprised I didn’t die of a heart attack.
22 As a former vendor, I was often asked, “What was the most amazing moment ever?”
23 The only answer I could ever come up with was, “All of ‘em.”
24 Honestly.
25 And I would often take those moments into the classroom.
26 The metaphors weren’t always about football. As recently as last year I remember thinking through every single period, trying to improve on it using a lot of baseball metaphors. We all do that. Last year because of the baseball mania, I did more often than not.
27 The first class of the morning, for instance, would usually be where the nervousness or settling in would take place.
28 Take today. I’m excited for this week because it is The Sixth Sense, followed by brief discussions, and students’ ghost stories on Friday.
29 To be honest, I awakened early because I want to be ready, and to go in strong.
30 Still, I get those Monday morning butterflies. I assume Lincecum got those a few times last year.
31 I remember a few days last year where I would have a rocky first inning. My lesson might not have worked, so I would adjust all day. When I would have my support class, I knew I had to have a plan, because some of them were easily distracted, and that class could jump all over me in a New York minute.
32 I used all sorts of strategies, the best of which was simply being nice and not over-reacting. Once I got them working on something, they would settle in. As I delivered a brief lecture and kept them interested, my mind would see me looking into the glove of Buster Posey, my eyes severe as I would begin burning a few innings.
33 Sometimes I would get rocked in my fifth period class, because by then I was into a bit of a rhythm.
34 I remember starting one day amazingly. Because we could no longer get class sets of books, I had to try eliminating books so the students wouldn’t have to lug them to class. Books nowadays are ten times heavier than the books of yesteryear.
35 I remember distinctly thinking to myself, “They just do nine books of The Odyssey when they have the lit book. I’ll give them the entire story, which is 26 books!”
36 So we would read the nine books in class. I’d read; I’d put on a CD of a professional reader; and when our literature books would run out, or have gaps, I would come in with the missing chapters. I had to hunt the story down, bullet it, practice at night, and then tell the story to five classes (I had all English 1A and English 1 classes last year, so all classesd did a lot of the same material.)
37 That was tough on days when I had to review the day before and then tell the story later in the period.
38 This one morning I got through the first four classes so smoothly it felt like I had a no-hitter going.
39 Because The Odyssey has prophecies and then the unfolding of the prophecies, AND because I repeated the story to four previous classes, I had a moment last year when I couldn’t remember if I had been telling the prophecy or the unfolding of the prophecy.
40 Greeks. I swear to God.
41 My mind drew a complete blank right in the middle of the review. I panicked, and my world slipped. All I saw was ears and braces looking at me while I turned red, pink, and almost blue. I’m not exaggerating.
42 “Stuttering Stanley, Stuttering Stanley!!!“
—Cole, The Sixth Sense
43 That’s a reference to a substitute teacher who gets figuratively knawed on by the Cole (Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense.). That was a teacher moment in that film.
44 I was rattled, and felt like a pitcher who had just walked a batter to load the bases.
45 Fortunately I recovered swiftly and got it back.That’s why I prepare so doggedly for each day these days. When you’re a younger teacher, you could use a smile and a wink and get away with a momentary lapse or ten. When you get a little older, you have to keep your mind sharp as a dart. You have focus on the game.
46 And if you load the bases, you must make your final pitch disappear on them.
47 I was able to, because I had prepared so carefully. I came back the last period and won the game.
48 Whew.
49 Re-living that was nerve-wracking. Ironically, one of the girls who seemed most pleased by my public lapse last year is the same girl who yelled out when I announced The Sixth Sense this year, “This is officially my favorite class!!!” She is brilliant, and I worried last year that she didn’t think I worked hard enough.
50 This year I helped her with a letter of recommendation and she got to see how much time I put into each day.
51 Well, a clock radio went off somewhere. It’s time to get up.
52 It might be time for me to get a little more rest and awaken in another hour.
53 Hope this was okay for a Monday. A few mixed metaphors, but we got this.
54 The ball is now in your court. You need to run with it.
55 Have a good one.
56 Fly low.
57 Peace.
~H~
