Some Days Can Be Like That…

Tuesday was a crazy day. I was all prepared for my class and really was excited to go. Everything was normal until the I hit the classroom door at the college.

I had to rearrange the room again, due to sharing the room with another professor. Her arrangement is fine if you are doing discussion only, but my students had some group work to do. I thought she must dislike rearranging the room after me as well! There was a monstrous screen in front of the room. I’m sure it is some sort of fancied up smartboard, however, I use the projector and computer. I dragged the fancy Smartboard to the side of the room. I unpacked my bag and then went to turn on the computer. Yes. This is where the issues started.

The computer turned on, and I brought up my PowerPoint I was using for the day. I clicked on the remote to project the PowerPoint and what did I get? A blue screen. It’s done this before and I just pushed a button on the little box to the side and it was fine. Not today! It would not do anything to project. I usually can figure these things out, but the blue screen prevailed. Here came my students. Well, it was going to be a day. I went next door and asked my teaching partner if she knew what to do. She came over and pushed the same button that I always pushed when it did this. It didn’t work for her either. She looked at me and told me I could go and use her room. Fine. I told everyone to pack up and move over there.

They moved to the next room. I thought I’d be ok. WELL, not! This room has two screens. The screen that I could put my PowerPoint on was not projecting. The other screen that was blank was projecting. I didn’t know how to get the cursor over there. It wouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t see the search engine on that monitor. Lord, help me. By this time we had wasted ten minutes of precious class time. I just had them bring the PowerPoint up and I began talking. The group work was not an option today. That is too bad because it is the best part of my day where I get to collaborate with the students and make them think about things that could happen with children’s behaviors. Finally, class was over in the overheated (must have been 80 degrees) classroom. The girls dashed out in two seconds it seemed. I felt like I failed them today.

I made it out to the car in the parking lot, threw all my gear in, and buckled my seatbelt. Traffic was heavy on Main Street because it was 3:30 PM. I was driving down in front of the McDonald’s and a truck pulled through two lanes of bumper to bumper traffic right in front of me. I didn’t see him until it was almost too late. God was with me today. I slammed on my brakes as hard as I could and missed him by inches. I think I have a bit of whiplash. He just kept going like nothing had happened. I teared up. I thought, Lord, let me get home and be safe. This is not my day.

I still had to teach another online class an hour after getting home. I pretended to be ok, but my insides were rattled. I blundered a question they asked even though I knew the right answer forward and backwards. Later, I wrote a clarification and apologized. What a day. I went to bed after that class. Tomorrow could not come soon enough.

Count your blessings every day and always drive defensively. Look out for the other guy. They will not look out for you in most cases.

Later…