WHEN TEACHERS BECOME ZOMBIES...
1 So I get to school yesterday all prepared, vocab packets, plans for the week, and enough knowledge to bore the entire city of New York.
2 The best laid plans, they say...
3 Got in, ready to test the video and a booming speaker, not for today, but for LATER this week.
4 That's how together I had it.
5 I worked at it all weekend. Last year they gave brand new LCD projectors that are bright, along with Apple Mac Pros as an enormous upgrade. It's almost frightening to get a bunch of new technical stuff. You have to learn how to USE them all, but I knew at some point I had to get it all going.
6 I ignored people while I plotted and planned through the weekend. I graded papers, planned and planned like a madman.
7 Heck, I looked at my stuff and worked so hard all weekend that I KNEW I had the next two weeks corralled. I was on top of it. I tested and re-tested the equipment just to be sure I could do it smoothly.
8 Yesterday I Iugged eight bazillion tons of handouts, graded papers, videos, speakers, projectors and two organic bananas down to the school. This was stuff I could only have dreamed of a few years ago, all tested and ready to launch.
9 I was so excited that I had this stuff.
10 It felt awesome knowing I was two days ahead for the first time in my career.
11 I looked at my notes on my iPhone. Papers. Check. Handouts. Check. Vocab Lists. Check. Video equipment. Check.
12 Cheshire smile.
13 My plan was to start slowly, normal lessons and all, and then break out the big stuff on Wednesday.
14 Not today, mind you.
15 Have I mentioned that?
16 I climbed into my room with so many weapons of divine instruction that I looked and felt like a madman.
17 I knew I had the next month planned out and ready.
18 My test mission at home became a full-screened surround sound work of art. I knew it could only improve in the arena of a large classroom.
19 I couldn' WAIT to unpack my stuff and get it all set up for a soulful look at 'Murica, only through a digital glass, darkly. I knew I had everything covered, and I was pretty cocky about it. Not gonna lie.
20 That was your first mistake...
--that miscreant Macartney
21 Oh, bother.
--that miscreant Pooh
22
23 M'bad.
24 I know what you're wondering.
25 What's the punch?
26
27 Why, there is none.
28 This is how it went down.
29 OH.
30 Did I neglect to inform you that many others of us felt equally confident? The entire staff in my building has fed off each other's energy all year, so it isn't just me. We have all been honeymooning this new school year. It's been flawless. Not gonna lie.
31
32 So there we all were, tanned, rested and ready when a garbled voice had something to tell us. I didn't hear it because I was in the parking lot, game face on. I boldly lugged everything into my room and began.
33 Once I was set up, I turned the power on my laptops to set up attendance, grades, and all sorts of other mundane chores.
34
35 No internet.
36
37
38 Uhhhm...no Internet? Like, with a capital "I"?
39 Things turned invisible.
40 Many teachers froze in their tracks.
41 MANY teachers began morphing into this:
42 The meaning of life.
43 That last mug, btw, looks deliciously like me.
44 We're all mad, I tellya.
45 Teachers began threatening the world.
46 Some began picking and pulling on the toes and cheeks of others.
47 I personally grabbed all my stuff and shot out the door like the madman I had become.
48 We became the walking dead.
49 I regained my senses. Most of it wore off as the day wore on.
50 But life without the Internet.
51 We've all become WAY too dependent.
52 After crawling through the day without a net, I set up the video stuff.
53
54 I could get none of it working. It would have been a disaster.
55 I put it all back in my car, stopped at a pie shop for a slice of humility, and trudged home.
56 I got it working last night, but I am a lot more humble now.
57 We all are. That comes naturally after you spent much of the night gnawing on your own flesh.
58 Gottago. Tempus fugit.
59 I talk in tongues.
60 Peace.
~H~
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