Friday Funk

Today my sophomores were in the computer lab.  One of the babies was working diligently, and he called me over to ask me a question.  Naturally, because I am always available to answer any and all questions (hardly..."too many questions!!!" is often my cry at the end of the week, and/or day), I hauled tail over to his computer.  Much to my horror, the image on his screen was not a lovely Firefox window filled with EBSCOhost research database information.  Unfortunately, it was a picture of me.  Fear not, dear mother, it was an appropriate picture (my ID pic the district has on its website).  In my sometimes-overdramatic fashion, I began to flip out.  I demanded that the picture be changed NOW.  When he began to ask me a question about the assignment, I said, "No!  Change that picture.  Right this second.  Don't push it, ___________.  You're one step away from it."  (Don't ask me what "it" is...just the first thing that popped into my mind.  I have many instances such as that - surprised the babies haven't called me on it.  Yet.)  So he changed the picture and I walked away.

As I walked away from his computer (and the giggling babies surrounding him), I began to think about my reaction.  Perhaps it was a little much.  But oh dangit, I did not want to apologize.  That sweet student has driven me up about a thousand creeks over the course of my short teaching career (for those who have heard the story, it's the "booty shorts" boy), and I was just done with him today. 

It made me think about how very human I am but how inhuman I occasionally expect my students (or anyone else for that matter) to be.  I tend to get so worked up over little things (anyone who has interacted with me for at least 5 minutes can attest to this) instead of letting them slide off my back.  So my mantra for the next week is going to be:  Relax.  Take a deep breath.  It's not that big of a deal. 

As for the sweet student...as much as he makes me want to run to Antarctica and never look back or crawl into a bear-cave and pray to be eaten or eat 5 pounds of cookie dough and spend the rest of the day in the bathroom, a small (very very very small) part of me looks forward to every day with him because I know that it's rare to walk away without a good story.  And that's what life is, right?  A beautiful collections of short stories.