October 25, 2011
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The Daily News1 Yesterday I mentioned that Greek literature is filled with prophecies and then the unfolding of prophecies. This is especially true of Greek tragedy.2 I also mentioned that no matter how hard I plan a lesson, or a week, I could get annihilated in the top of the first, to use a baseball analogy.
3 I naturally let a little hubris take over yesterday, because I knew I was going into Monday with guns blazing: the last part of The Sixth Sense, a film I like more and more each time I view it.
4 I got plenty of rest, caught up on almost all of my grading, and felt absolutely at the top of my game when I drove off to school yesterday morning.
5 I arrived early, had a few students hanging outside my door, reached in my pocket to get my keys and guess what?
6 No keys.
7 Allow me to back up. On Friday I got to class the same as every day, and it smelled like the women's john had backed up. It is right next to my classroom, and I absolutely couldn't stand the smell, and neither could the students. I'll spare you the details.
8 Fortunately, when I opened the classroom door, the room was fine; the smell was all out in the hallway. I quickly closed the door and called the front office.
9 After a few minutes, two custodians and a security guy showed up. By then, the smell had pretty much dissipated, so I felt a bit foolish. They told me that when the gas goes on first thing in the morning, it does give off a strange smell. I assume this is an alarm they answer each winter when they have to heat the place.
10 I didn't buy it for a second, because I know what that gas smell is, and I assured them that what I smelled wasn't a gas leak.
11 Since it all went away, I was fine. I had no idea what it was, but I assume now that it was one of those little stink bombs that students occasionally drop in classrooms.
12 Occupational hazard.
13 Anyway, that happened on Friday, and then yesterday I had to go to another teacher's classroom to ask them to come up again, because I had forgotten my keys.
14 You never want to bother the same people two days in succession, ever. Fortunately for me I have a good relationship with our custodians.
15 She was glorious, called the office, and all seemed okay.
16 My students naturally enjoyed this. They chatted away in the hallway while we waited for the custodians. And waited. And waited.
17 Three other teachers came out of their rooms wondering what all the noise was about. The teacher who helped me, Gwen Dixon, offered her classroom, just to get the kids out of the hallway. It was her prep period, but I saw it as an intrusion on my part. I felt bad, but she is a pretty good friend. The kids just talked while we tried to get the custodians again. One of the other teachers had loaned me a power cord for the LCD projector a student had brought from home on Friday. He had forgotten a power cord, so I borrowed it from this teacher, who asked for it back yesterday. I had no idea she was going to need it. So now the reality hit me that when I finally would get into my room, I wouldn't be able to show the movie. AND the custodians not arriving was now putting ANOTHER teacher out. My temples started to pulsate. Plus I felt I was putting my kindly Gwen through an ordeal for which she never applied.
18 I finally told her I would go out and find the Activities' Director and borrow her master key, because obviously depending on the office wasn't working. An evil part of me thinks the attendance office was getting even because I don't always turn in my attendance folders in a timely fashion.
19 I own that, but I had to run all over campus trying to find either a custodian or the Activitie's Director. I found out she was teaching a class, so I went over to her classroom. There was a sign on her door telling the class to meet in another room.
20 When I got to the other room, she wasn't there. I figured I had better get all the way back to my own my class, because I didn't want to miss the custodians when they got there.
21 This was now about forty minutes into my morning class. Mind you, I went in feeling I was the most organized guy on the planet. I even combed my hair twice so that I would look dashing.
22 Our campus is huge, and it was muggy out, so by the time I had done the equivalent of an 880, I looked like Einstein. My hair frazzled out, beads of sweat poured down my head, and I pitched a very shaky figurative first.
23 When I arrived back at Gwen's room, I was informed that the custodians STILL hadn't arrived. She made a second call to a different person, and then said she really wanted to go out and get something to eat before the students arrived. I thanked her like nobody's business.
24 Within seconds, my friend Vernon showed up to open the door. Vernon is the custodian who is also a good friend. We share a passion for the Giants, and have gone up and down with them on a daily basis. I talk with him nearly every day, so I was glad it was him. I expected him to give me the business for bothering those guys two days in a row, but he was pretty cool.
25 He must have seen what I looked like, which was a bit like Einstein on prozac and caffeine.
26 We got in, I started the film, and around five minutes in I remembered the other teacher!
27 I stopped the film right when Cole sees the girl who was poisoned losing her lunch, and of course the students had just finished screaming and jumping out of their collective skins. But I had to stop it, remove the cord, and gallop down the hall with it.
28 I ran down the hall with the cord and gave it to the other teacher, and apologized up and down. On my return I went into another teacher's class and asked if she had a power cord. She did, and graciously lent it to me.
29 I quickly popped across the hall and back into my room, holding up the cord. The kids lit up, because they really were enthralled with the film at that point.
30 By the time I got the cord in, the DVD loaded, the projector going, and the amplifiers working, we had five minutes left in the period. Fail.
31 The students were fine, however. They always are. The bell rang, they had a nice time, I used the story to introduce the film in all my other classes, told a couple of stories, and the remainder of the day went pretty smoothly.
32 But after almost boasting on Friday about how I know how to handle Mondays, Monday handled me pretty well.
33 I felt like Lincecum when he gets rocked in the early innings.
34 That takes us full circle to Friday's DN.
35 And really?
36 If that's my only worry, then I got no worries.
37 Just thought I'd share.
38 Have a great Tuesday.
39 Peace.
~H~
