This
Journal

October
1999

Let's see. What's jolly for today. I shouldn't have to look far because this is Spirit Week at Carmel High School. Students are allowed to dress around a particular theme each day. Yeah, we did this at my old school, too.

Yesterday was...(I forget...must have been awesome)

...Oh yeah, yesterday was Come As You Are Day...Pajamas, big fuzzy feet slippers, blankets and lambies, bathrobes, t-shirts, really messed up hair. No shaves (for those who could).

Today was Crazy Day, everyone dressed goofy. Lots of wild mismatched colors in clothes and hair. A bit of male-to-female cross-dressing (no balloons allowed). Odd attachments, toys, athletic shoulderpads, wigs, gloves. A bit of underwear on the outside.

Tomorrow is...I don't recall. But I misspoke to say that everyone dresses this way. I do not. I rise each morning and reach for the usual trousers, shirt, tie. Anything else would precipitate a crisis of identity that I just don't need at 6:30 in the morning. So I get "Come on, Brother Tom! Where's yer School Spirit?" all day (though it wears down by afternoon). I suggest that somebody needs to maintain The Norm from which all others will stray. In fact, I'm quite impressed by the creativity of the kids here. At JCA it seemed that most students used the weird dress days as an excuse for jeans and t-shirt with minimal adherence to the theme of the day. Not so here. They really get into it. You have to smile to see this crowd of clowns bounding up the stairs after lunch. But....

But all of this merriment does some unpleasant things to the academic routine. A teacher should probably not try too hard on these days if he hopes to maintain personal sanity. I was trying to wrap up Poe's dark vision and introduce deep themes from To Kill A Mockingbird to rooms full of rainbow-bewigged, monster-pawed, sparkle-haired, Cats in their Hats and goofy glasses. I pity poor college teachers who never get to have all this fun.

Now I remember, tomorrow is Disco Day. Ugly clothes, really ugly clothes, but the music taught us a few things. I will be spared the freshmen, though, because they will be on retreat. How will I pass those empty hours?

In truth, despite my smiles throughout the day, I wasn't having much fun. As I approach the end of this first grading process, I see way too many F's in the final column. I take those personally. I know that, statistically, a certain number of students will fail a certain number of classes in any given term. I just don't want them to be my students in my classes.

Another slight unhappiness takes the form of old Gloomy Displacement. I see all these funny faces around, kids having a good time, and am struck by how few of them I know and how few know me. I think how, despite the very friendly outreach of faculty and staff here, I'm still in transit. (I almost said "in exile" but that would suggest that I long to be back where I had been...and that is not quite the case.) The New Guy Blues linger. I'm not here yet. Where am I?

I know, I know. It just takes time, but it still sucks.

My moodiness has physical origins as well. I haven't jogged in about three weeks. I'm getting no consistent exercise. Experience teaches that this is no good for my body or my spirit. I need a program. I miss my pals at the JJC fitness center. (I'm eating way too many of those yummy little elf cookies.) Am I whining yet?

So this is where I stand on Tuesday of Spirit Week. Not so spirited. But I know that if one foot keeps landing in front of the other foot, the season will turn. I've been here before.

What can be more base and unworthy than the pining, puling, mumping mood, no matter by what outward ills it may have been engendered? What is more injurious to others? What less helpful as a way out of the difficulty? It but fastens and perpetuates the trouble which occasioned it, and increases the total evil of the situation. At all costs, then, we ought to reduce the sway of that mood; we ought to scout it in ourselves and others, and never show it tolerance.
William James