Back to the Grind

My job is not a hard one. I teach approximately 2 days per week (not counting one class on Tuesday evenings). Just the same, the realization that tomorrow I begin to teach again is beginning to dawn on me.
Perhaps it should have dawned on me a bit earlier, I might be more prepared.
As it is, I need to wake up a few minutes after six o'clock to walk to the train to catch the L to catch the 4 train to the Bronx to get off the train and walk 10 minutes and teach my first class.

And I can't sleep.

It is probably a little known fact that teachers feel nervous before the first day of class. It is always a bit nerve-wracking, a bit like giving a speech in front of 25 strangers (actually, it is exactly like giving a speech in front of 25 strangers). Who knows what the students will be like? Who knows what they'll think of me? What if I accidentally sit on gum on the train and don't know it? What if I sneeze and don't cleanly swipe at the each and every one of those pesky nostril monsters?
Funny thing is--I never feel nervous, I just feel the effects. I can't sleep, or I sleep badly, my stomach gets upset. The first time I taught (and a few times after), I shook like a leaf hooked on heroin whenever I wrote something down. It wasn't pretty.
And so, with these thoughts in mind, I finally return to the Blog, writing in it as if this were a personal email or a diary entry...This is true evil, exactly what I had hoped to avoid.
I meant, and mean, for this blog to be filled with exciting, culturally significant entries. I want to write about people I meet on the streets, fun festivals that I visit in weird states, museums that I've visited, interesting facts that I've picked up along the way.

Instead, I am telling you that I'm sitting here in my underwear, in a small room in Brooklyn, NY, unable to sleep. I'm sipping a glass of water, and I forgot to turn off the kitchen light.
You know, people always say that when you're giving a speech, there are various ways to calm yourself and remain collected in front of an audience. The most common of these--to picture everyone naked--seems like a generally good piece of advice. Somehow, however, as a 25 year-old teacher of 18-22 year-old students, this seems both inappropriate and a bad idea. I personally have always preferred the bathroom method--picture everyone in front of you sitting on a toilet (western or otherwise). To be honest, I have never used either method. However, if I continue in this insomniac funk, I may very well employ this second method tomorrow as a clever and amusing means to both stay awake and relieve any first day anxiety at work.

Anyway, tomorrow morning I teach and Friday morning I head off to Canada for a wee adventure. Hopefully I'll have something more exciting to tell you then. Until then, enjoy my verbal diarrhea.