This time of the year, we’ve all got it. Everybody — teachers, principals, and especially students — are running — really, more like limping and dragging ourselves across the floor, gagging — on the fumes of our fumes. The needle is decidedly tilted towards “surviving” and less on “thriving”.1

Every campaign has a “I’ve hit the wall and I just need to curl up and disappear and eat hamburgers and ice cream and sleep forever” moment in it somewhere. Generally, we forget about these moments because in the end, things always work out well. Occasionally, though, it helps to remember that we’ve survived those crapstorms in the past and that calmer waters are almost always just around the corner, beyond our immediate periphery.

This past week or so — which by the way has had way more riding on it2 than any week ought to — was one of those moments.

Last week in class, I had a student ask me how I cope with stress. After thinking for a brief few seconds, it hit me: “Duh. I eat.”

Not going to lie: I eat my feelings.3 Great for the soul, not so much for my bathroom scale this time every year.

One of our students made hats for the two Statistics teachers on our campus:

I pointed out that my “q-hat” signifies the probability of failure. My afternoon students quipped, “Well when you look in the mirror, you see success. But when other people look at you they see failure.” Zing!!!

And in one of those great “you had to be there” moments: This past week when I was teaching 2-sample means, I often have to say “mu two” — which sounds like “mewtwo”. This usually incites giggles.4

During one of my first classes, I noticed a lack of any childish giggling when I said “mu two”5 and openly asked:

I almost find it odd that no one is giggling whenever I say ‘mu two’… Are kids your age no longer into Pokemon?

A student sitting near my perch responded with a no-nonsense, matter-of-factly:

What do you think we are, nerds?!

After about seven seconds of honest awkward silence, the same kid reaches into his backpack to pull out a Pokemon water bottle, which he slams on his desk with a straight face, then proceeded with his note taking like nothing happened.6

:)

1. Vice Verses. Track seven. But backwards. [↩]
2. between AP exam registrations and my first formal observation at my new campus [↩]
3. Honestly, I gotta think that a lot of teachers do. I actually had a student this morning tell me that I should pursue a career as a traveling foodie blogger! Actually… that sounds incredibly gleeful. [↩]
4. I don’t really know much about Pokemon, but after five years of teaching this, I know that it’s a Pokemon thing. [↩]
5. Really, sometimes it has gotten so bad that I would purposely say “mu one and mu second” or “mu A and mu B”… [↩]
6. nbd [↩]