So it’s become pretty clear that I do not like instructions. You’d think that someone who likes to do something perfectly the first time would thrive off direction, but that doesn’t seem to be true.
For instance, this past week — five days of two, three-hour classes — has been filled with VERY PARTICULAR INSTRUCTIONS. On everything. I wrote my first lesson plan (I almost said my first ever lesson plan, but that’s not true: I wrote some short, Catherine-suitable plans for vocal pedagogy in college), and I couldn’t believe how long it took.
Step-by-step?
I have to write down what I’m going to say?
Shouldn’t I already know what I’m going to say?
I felt like I was in elementary school, just learning how to write cursive and hating the extra curlicues and exactness.
I did it, though. I wrote out a five-page lesson plan, complete with about 15 glorious colored pictures and even a graph (thank goodness for little brothers who, with only minimal eye-rolling, show me how to insert cool stuff into documents).
I wrote it, freaked out because I have a huge and horrible tendency to lose my brain under stress and forget everything, and made a thousand copies so I could teach my first lesson to ESL students.
Real ones.
I rushed into class, ready, excited, nervous. Felt like I was about to sing an aria that I’d been singing all semester, but I was still scared of that run towards the end.
I rushed in, but the class was empty.
Somehow, there’d been a mix-up in administration, and the 7 or so elderly Russian immigrants didn’t know to come.
We waited a good fifteen minutes. Unlike my fellow students, I wanted the ESL students to come. Desperately. I LOVE adrenaline, and I perform best when I have a ton of it nearly shaking my knees out of joint.
But no one came. I had freaked and worried about being the worst teacher in my class and panicked over the copier for no reason.
Now my first lesson is this coming Wednesday.
The story of my life.
Intensity intensity INTENSITY
until the bubble bursts.