CAN'T YOU SEE I'M A NERVOUS WRECK and other t-shirts I need

I started my first week back at college with a small breakdown.
Nothing big.
Just a few nervous tears.
A pounding heart.
Some trembling hands.
An obnoxiously loud voice in my head telling me I was not fit to be here.
As I sat on a couch on campus.
Trying to look like I was definitely not having a minor freak out session.
Which obviously failed.

I love my job as a first-year mentor and partly because of this job, I took a second job teaching German 101 at BYU. You would think that being asked to teach German would be a no-brainer to accept; I was obviously excited about the theoretical prospect when it first came up, but as winter semester drew closer, I got more and more… panicked.

Because as it turns out, the only teaching I’d ever done was on my mission. And teaching people about Jesus Christ with the help of the Holy Ghost seemed a lot simpler than teaching students who are paying tuition to learn German.

I started Monday with my daily affirmation (inspired by Jessica’s daily affirmation, though my pajamas were not nearly as cute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg ) and headed off to campus to try to figure out exactly how I was supposed to teach German.

Unfortunately, I failed in this endeavor because I didn’t get a chance to figure out how to use my classroom’s technology before the needed classroom was taken.
I waited awkwardly outside the room for a few precious minutes during passing period, kind of expecting someone to help me for some reason (sadly, I’d forgotten my THIS IS MY FIRST DAY OF TEACHING PLEASE HELP ME t-shirt as well as my CAN'T YOU SEE I'M A NERVOUS WRECK t-shirt) and then I’d waited too long and my chance was gone.

I dejectedly left the building and found the couch where the aforementioned mini-breakdown was mentioned and wondered if it was too late to quit.
Because for some reason my mind tends to blow things out of proportion when I’m feeling especially vulnerable.

I took some deep breaths and said a prayer (which continued throughout the day because no way was I going to face any of this newness alone) and then thought about why I took this job. And I realized that part of the reason was because of my mentoring job, which has inspired me to stretch and grow and try new things more than most other activities in my life has so far. So ironically if I had decided to decline this job and commit all my time to mentoring, I would have missed out on all the mentoring lessons that I’ve been learning while teaching German this week..

I therefore pushed forward, deciding that with or without a THIS IS MY FIRST DAY OF TEACHING PLEASE HELP ME t-shirt, it would be okay. The class I teach finally rolled around at 1:00pm and despite still feeling slightly nauseous, I did it.
I taught a class.
And made 103 mistakes in 50 minutes.
But I did it.
And I did it again the next day. And the next day. And the next day.
And guess what?
I LOVED it. It just got better and better.
I learned from my mistakes. I had awesome students. I embraced creativity and vulnerability. I realized I’d keep making mistakes but as long as I viewed them as ways to grow and didn’t let them hinder me, I’d become a better teacher.
And then hopefully no students would say that I was not only a terrible teacher, but a terrible human being on their student evaluations at the end of the semester. #irrationalfearsstrikeagain

I ended my first week back at college with my favorite chick-flick, Confessions of a Shopaholic.
Smiling on the couch.
Laughing and feeling good with my roommates.
Vicariously experiencing minor pain and joy and love.
And also embracing my own first-hand.
Trying to take it all one-step at a time while still breathing it all in.



Thinking about the paradoxes in my life.

And preparing for the future beautiful disasters heading my way.


For if we were cool and confident in every new situation and with every choice, “we would miss out on ‘essential personal growth’ that comes ‘as [we] struggle to learn how to be led [and comforted] by the Spirit.'”
                           -Richard G. Scott

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Things I like about Indiana

So actually my brother Taylor started this list. But I liked it and decided to write it on my blog so that the whole world can have a taste of Hoosier Terre Haute and my family here. Some are about Indiana, but most are about the Woodward side of my family. My grandparents just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary so a bunch of my aunts and uncles and cousins and cousin-in-laws were here. The way my grandpa always tells too many details and it bugs the daylights out of my grandma. Today she told me that he skipped the days of school where they taught kids how to write short sentences. The way that my grandpa always walks hunched over. Kinda like my brothers. They'll be lucky if they turn out like him though:) The way my aunt April says "hey listen to this" when she wants people to hear a funny story. It's like a loud speaker announcing an anecdote. The way that you can escape the billions of people at family gatherings when you need some alone time. How y...
Read more

Let Walls Fall.

Image
Today is November 9th. 27 years ago, the Berlin Wall came down.  Today is November 9th. 78 years ago, the violence of Kristallnacht brought destruction to Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues, killing around 100 Jews. Today is November 9th. What kind of November 9th are we living in? I hope we live in a world where we try to break down walls instead of build them, where we focus on our shared humanity while also valuing our diversity. I hope we are trying to create a world where love overpowers hate. Regardless of political ideologies. I woke up on today, November 9th , with an aching heart. Wondering if my dream about trying to protect the gold and black peacocks in BYU's library was as real as watching the election unfold. An election that few had enjoyed. An election where many felt like they would lose either way. The peacocks weren't real.  The election was. And I couldn't help feeling America had lost. We elected a man whose big...
Read more

"And what do you want to do with that?"

Image
It’s a terrible question. And a terribly common one too. An attempt at a get-to-you-know question that sounds more like an interrogation to me. Plaguing its victim with self-consciousness and uncertainty . You take it as a personal attack on your aspirations and plans and even your humanity and feel the need to validate and defend yourself, even if you’re not completely sure of your answer. The dreaded “And what do you want to do with that?” I live on a college campus where future schemes and dreams are constantly under construction , where the finished product is anything but certain. Yet we love predicting our hypothetical futures . Until we try to merge those with reality. But when we first meet people, we usually ask questions about reality (we being unwilling to share our highly-imaginative-life-in-ten-years-vision). Like where we’re from. And what we like to do. And what we’re studying. When I respond to that last question with H istory and Ger...
Read more