September 18, 2012
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1 So how do you spell "hubris?"
2 I spent the entire weekend making absolutely sure that I would not have what people affectionetly call "The Mondays."
3 I worked all weekend, truly sixteen hours, to make sure I would be on top of my game yesterday.
4 While taking care of my Dad I was still able to work sixteen hours on Saturday and Sunday grading papers and making sure that I was tanned, rested and ready for Monday.
5 I even took the vocabulary lists that I tweaked at Dad's to Fed Ex so that I wouldn't have to worry about walking into the school on a Monday morning and lining up behind a slow or jammed copy machine.
6 I had it all down.
7 I had Monday conquered.
8 Yee-uh!
9 The hubris had me walking pretty tall.
10 I love working an entire weekend and then coming in on Monday morning ready to throw the kitchen sink at my students.
11 I also have a secret sort of "I outplayed you!" to teachers who come in on Mondays unprepared and slackjawed.
12 I went in yesterday with a chip on my shoulder that if frozen, could have sunk the Titanic.
13 Dude.
14 I worked hard, and I was struttin'.
15 I felt the same way the 49ers must be feeling right now. I was going to win the Super Bowl of education: coming in on the Monday of Back-to-School week completely prepared and ready to conquer.
16 We have Back-to-School night this Thursday. Traditionally, it is one of the toughest weeks around, because that day becomes a fourteen-hour day if we get to bed early. I will awaken at four or five a.m. and begin my work day, and I will be at school until at least 9:30.
17 So I had I decided to get myself well prepared, and yesterday morning I had already graded almost two reams of papers AND gone to Fed-Ex to run the two brand new vocabulary lists AND left fifteen minutes earlier just in case anything would screw me up.
18 Walkin' tall man.
19 I got in early, put all my papers and stuff down, organized everything, and just as the bell rang, reached into my bag to pull out the two vocabulary lists, the main course of my Monday lesson.
20 I reached into my bag, and instead of two stacks of vocab lists, there was only one.
21
22 I have no idea where my first class's stack went. I still don't. But it was gone.
23 I don't believe in bad days, so I just took out my flash drive, which for some reason didn't have the list.
24
25 Not panicking, I simply took a list from last year, changed its title to Vocabulary 1, tweaked it a little, and pushed print.
26 The paper went through the printer. I had three minutes to get this done.
27 The paper came out blank. My printer was out of ink.
28
29 I don't believe in bad days. I believe that sometimes a series of things might go wrong, but I don't believe in bad days.
30 I grabbed a stack of blank paper and with flash drive in hand, flew down to the copy room. I could print from the flash drive, right?
31
32 I put my flash drive into the copier and then searched for my document.
33 The copier decided that it would just show me five of my documents. If I scrolled up or down it would show only five. I don't usually copy that way because I have had difficulties before.
34 The bell was now ringing for our first period of the day and I had a stack of blank papers to hand out.
35 I wound up being tardy for my first class. I looked like a first-year rookie. I looked disheveled and disorganized, despite all the work and training I did.
36 Hubris.
37 I asked the students to take out a blank sheet of paper, explained what had happened, which I'm reasonably certain none of them believed, and then asked for a volunteer with nice handwriting to write the word list on the board so they could copy the vocabulary.
38 One kid shot his hand up and thankfully volunteered. Here is his word list, which I used throughout the day:
39
40 I still don't believe in bad days.41 I do believe in hubris.
42 No news.
43 Moving on, Part One: Speaking of which, I saw this headline in the back of the Merc News last week:
44 Any journalists out there?45 Classic. I remember learning about that one when Perry White used to yell at Jimmy Olsen about no-news stories.46 He would scream at Jimmy Olsen that if a dog bites a man, it is not news. If a man bites a dog, it is.47 How Jimmy Olsen ever got hired is a mystery to me.48 When I saw that headline the other day, it was impossible not to think of Jimmy Olsen.50 I couldn't really find a pic of White saying that to Olsen, but over the years, that has been a cliché for bad journalism.51 Moving on, Part Two: Speaking of which, I'm pretty certain that most of today's readers are probably a bit weary of bad journalism.52 I gotta get on my horse and try to screw up this day too, so I think I'm gonna ride off into the sunset, even though it is 5:45 in the a.m.53 So you have yourself a great Tuesday.54 See you again.55 Peace.~H~www.xanga.com/bharrington
