Take a break from the ordinary

Sounds like a travel ad: "Take a break from the ordinary" but there really is nothing like a break from the usual routine to shake you up and make you realize that your life has been rather ordinary for the last while. Ordinary isn't a bad thing, it's just really easy to slip into it without knowing.

Sometimes I treasure ordinariness (for example, after our hectic and stressful cross country move I was almost cried with joy at the end of a day when I realized it was the first time I hadn't felt homesick all day). But sometimes it just starts to make you dull. You do the same thing over and over again until you don't even notice that you're not growing and learning anymore.

Today I think I must have done some growing, or at least should have, because it wasn't an ordinary day.

I suppose it actually began on Thursday afternoon. As I was teaching the poetry class, I saw one of the writing program directors in the hall. I assumed he was there to talk to my colleague across the hall, but he waved me out of my classroom. I suppose I was more curious than anything, so I met with him. He asked me if I would take over a class right away. I said I had to consult with my family, but would call him the next day and I did to say I'd do it. They seemed pretty desperate to cover this class, and I'd taught the same one last summer, so I figured it'd be pretty easy.

He told me they were replacing the existing teacher because she'd failed to attend the last three classes. When I found out two days later who it was, I was surprised, because I knew this instructor (mostly by reputation) and she didn't seem like a flake. There might be other adjectives for her, but flake is never one I've heard applied in her situation.

So I walked into the classroom this morning and got the students to start telling me about the course. Strange way to begin a relationship with a group of students, and I felt slightly less authoritative than normal because I had to rely on them to tell me what they were doing.

The class is behind by a good bit, and the students are going to have to work steadily through the remainder to make up for it. I'm trying to figure out how to keep it from feeling like punishment for their teacher bailing on them.

Then I had a very relaxing and highly enjoyable dinner/writing discussion with friends. I realized that I've been relaxing far too little lately, because the enforced relaxation of just sitting around seemed strange at first. But I did get used to it, and boy did it feel good!

And then?

All I can say is neither Tampa Bay nor Raleigh have naturally occurring ice.

There's something wrong with the universe.