It’s been an interesting two days.
Actually, it really hasn’t. I’m going to talk about it anyway.
Yesterday, I worked middle school language arts for a teacher who’s a family friend. She hadn’t written lesson plans for the day, so we came up with some together before class started, and the day went really well. The kids only tried to sass me a little bit, when they did, I shut them down for the most part, and the lesson plan went really well. Sometimes I think I have good ideas for classes – I’ll give them a logic puzzle to chew on for the first five minutes of class to get their brains running, or I’ll have them journal for fifteen or twenty minutes, or we’ll listen to War of the Worlds or something like that. 9 times out of 10 when I do something like that, it get’s met with one of three things: 1) Blank stares, 2) Whining about how they don’t know what to write/say/draw, depending on the assignment, or 3) Complaints that the assignment is both boring and “gay”.
The lesson plan that we came up with for her advanced language arts class was this: I’d divide the class into three different groups and show each one a picture. Then, everyone had to start writing a story about the picture in question. After five minutes, they would pass their paper to the person next to them, who would continue the story. The rules were that they had to stick with the theme of the previous writer, they couldn’t kill any characters, it had to be school appropriate and the story couldn’t just be two pages of characters fighting and insulting each other.
It sounded like a pretty fun idea that I would’ve enjoyed if I were a student, so, naturally, I knew that they would give me a lot of shit for it and then spend the rest of class bitching about how hard/boring/gay it was.
Granted, it was an advanced class, but advanced classes can be some of the whiniest bitches on the planet. They start moaning and complaining when you have them do serious work, but they get sand in their vaginas when you try to do something fun with them too, because it’s beneath them. After all, they’re the ADVANCED class of 13 year olds! They don’t have time for this kid’s shit!
Because of this, I went into the class with low expectations, prepared to immediately get bombarded with 30 high pitched, whiny voices saying “Why do we have to do this!?” all at once.
“Because fuck you, that’s why!” I was prepared to yell.
But the whining never came.
Actually, things went the way they would if it were a movie. Everyone was into it, they worked hard, they followed the rules, and they were pumped up out of their minds about their stories. It was hilarious watching them scribbling away as fast as they could with huge grins on their faces, snickering at their own clever plot twists. Once we were done and started sharing the best stories with the class, they were all tripping over themselves to read their stories aloud.
The point is, the day went about as well as I could possibly hope for it to. I put a lot of energy into getting down on every aspect of my life, but yesterday was a “I actually think this might be the right line of work” kind of day. I have days where bad things happen that I find funny, days where I’m glad that the room doesn’t burn down, and days where, to avoid crying in front of the students, I have to repeat “six more hours and I will never have to see these little pieces of shit ever again” through clenched teeth until the bell rings. As a man who has to rely on thirty teenagers who don’t really want to be there for things to go according to plan, things RARELY go according to plan, so it was a real treat.
I went to be with those good vibes vibrating around in my head.
Then, I woke up the next day and realized that I will turn 30 in exactly a month, which was kind of wild to realize.
I don’t know what I expected out of thirty, but I didn’t expect to be going to school and living with my parents when it happened.
I couldn’t tell you why, but it doesn’t really seem to be bothering me. I’ve spent enough time pulling my hair out over the fact that I’m not living in some mansion jacked up on cocaine that it doesn’t bug me as much anymore. My life is what it is, and all I can do is try to move towards the things I want.
Besides, my life is more interesting when I don’t know what to expect. I mean, mediocrity, of course, but what kind it will be is a total mystery. What will I be doing in ten more years? Teaching? Working as a line cook? In the middle of another blog-related lawsuit? Living in my parent’s basement and going to school? It seems unlikely, but I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be doing it at 30 either.
Whatever I’m doing, it probably won’t be what I think I’ll be doing now. And I think I’m okay with that.
We’ll see how tough I am when I actually turn 30. Expect a frantic, suicidal post, followed by me growing a ponytail and buying sports car.
Why?
Because fuck you, that’s why.