Day Eight: Necessary Ego Blows

* Today's assignment was to make a list.

1. Abilene High School, AP English with Mrs. Ireton. I took my planner to her while she was typing at her computer, and I asked her if she would sign it, so I could go to the bathroom. She replied, “I just graded your quiz. Looks like reading would be a better use of your time than leaving the classroom. The bathroom will wait.”

She was so right, and I’m still ashamed at the corners I cut in some of the assigned readings. I cheated myself.

2. Hope, Kansas, a softball field playing D-team ball for Ikes I. I was probably seven years old, and I was standing on the pitcher’s mound. I could not throw a strike to save my soul. I walked batter after batter after batter, and I remember seeing my shadow stretching out to the left of the mound and envying its place in all of this. If only I could be a shadow and not have to live through this moment. “Take me out,” I kept murmuring with each pitch I’d throw, but some how I did finish that long inning. However, my feet rarely saw the pitcher’s mound after that hot July evening.

3. A vacant lot in Abilene, practicing softball with my dad. He hit pop flies and grounders to me, and I fielded them the best I could. A car drove by and honked, and I took my eye off the ball to see who it had been. I turned my head just in time to see his pop fly come soaring toward my face. I cried, and I gathered equipment, so we could head back inside. “Get back out there,” he said. “You don’t take your eye off the ball when I’m hitting balls to you. Get back out there, and we’ll try this again.” He ignited some stick-to-it-iveness within me that day. Even though I sometimes lose sight of it, I always hear his voice reminding me to get back in there. Love is sometimes hard to hear.

4. Milliken, Colorado, a student’s desk in 2009. My name was scrawled across it, and a blonde-haired boy was reading the choice words with it for everyone to hear, “Mrs. Ho-fart is a nasty, skank-face bitch.” He finished reading it, and he looked up perplexed, “Huh? That’s not even true,” he said. Thick skin is a must-have for teaching, and this was a moment that helped me develop my teacher exoskeleton. Thank you, anonymous eighth grader for teaching me this lesson. I’m not going to play it cool; it was a pretty decent ego blow. It takes a little bit of practice to be able to handle such things with grace, and this was a necessary lesson along the way.

I really hate telling this story, but surely, I'm not the only one to see her name get besmirched in such a way.

P.S. You aren’t really anonymous. 😊

5. McPherson, Kansas, Freshman Composition with Prof. Richard Arthur. I turned in my research paper about journalism, and Prof. Arthur asked me if I had just turned in something I wrote in high school. It was a huge blow to me because up until that point, I thought that my writing style made me special. I learned that I was not above revision, rewriting, and pouring effort into my drafts. This blog is evidence of the fact that I still need to take time to revise, edit and worry about my writing style, but I’m going to start small—just get some discipline.