Game Time

Well, it's just about time to leave for good 'ole Oxford, MS, and I'm trying to remember how I felt about starting the program at this time last year. I was just leaving Colorado, and I think I just capped that experience off with an equisite fly-fishing trip to Aspen. Needless to say, I was pretty pro-Colorado at the time. I'm amazed at how beautiful and different America is so many times. But anyways, I was actually very unsure of how it would go being that I had taken a year off from academically challenging myself with University material, and I was more in fear of how hard it was going to be to get back in to study mode. I guess I just believed that once you stop your collegiate experience, you forget all about how you made it through the whole thing. So I think that was what was on my mind at the time when I was making my way up Hwy.6. You can tell I was a rookie; I was taking Hwy. 6 at the time. What a tool. Hwy. 7 is the only way for those experienced Mississippi travelers. But then ofcourse after meeting everyone in the program and just seeing how exciting this program was going to be, I closed the experience with a high that I hadn't felt in a while. I was genuinely excited about the opportunity that I was about to be graced with. I was going to impact students' lives in Jackson, MS. Ofcourse, they had never had anyone who was as talented as I was, so therefore I'm going to absolutely dominate the moment I walk in the door. After all, I've been successful at a lot of other things. I mean seriously, how hard can it be. I'll have them saying O Captain, My Captain by the end of the first week. Then reality set in, and in the words of the great James Drake, "I felt like a chump." I was getting my butt kicked and I was on the phone complaining to my dad about how I felt so incapable of having success at my school. The high that I had after leaving summer training was over, and I did something that I think every new person should consider. I set a timeline for how fast I was going to have success. And when it didn't occur, I viewed my works as somewhat of a failure even though I wasn't doing half bad. But I didn't think I was the best in the building. I didn't think I had all of the kids' respect. I had to learn PATIENCE. Just like Axle Rose teaches us in the popular Guns 'n Roses song. "Just a little patience." You've got to learn that you are going in to an area of the world and being engulfed into a culture that most of us have no prior experience dealing with. You're going to have to take the time to get adjusted. It's a fact. You're not a character from a novel or a movie; remember that. Success happens for everyone at different times. Also, don't measure success by how your progress is compared to others in the program. It's a marathon not a sprint. You don't want to burn out too early. Trust me, it happens. But if you don't think I'm being completely honest about my time as a teacher in this state and in this program just read my blogs. Start with the first one ofcourse and just read until you get to my last blog before this one. I went from having kids make me feel like a failure to making me feel like family.....and that's the reality.