Thursday, August 14, 2008

Restaging a show put on by a formerly abhored artist, and loving every second of it

Who'd have thought that after ten years, I would be back where I've started?

It's just funny that this time I'm on the opposite side of the teacher's table, and honestly, I am still stunned that I found myself once again on this place that has made me into, well, me.

It's been only a mere three months since I've started teaching in INHS- School for the Arts, and believe it or not, I've managed, in a couple of occassions, to do what Sir Rex had done several times during our high school stay in this crazyhouse --yank open each locker door and throw out messy/wet/smelly tshirts and leotards and undershirts, and dirty socks and sneakers from Girbaud to Chucks, and Algebra workbooks, and unwashed lunchboxes (which shouldn't have been in there, in the first place) in a perfect 180 degrees trajectory out the door!

May my students forgive me but yes, I simply couldn't help it. Perhaps it came from impulse, that ugly little red nerve threatening to burst inside my brain that twenty four kids managed to switch on just by being very messy, very irresponsible, very snotty, very foul-mouthed, and ugly-mannered, and very everything!

But then perhaps it also came from wanting to try to do that very thing-- what seemed to my 14 (or was it 15?) -year old mind as an act that was full of flair, full of extravagance, a memorable finale to an impulsive reaction from an abhored yet idolized teacher of Biology. And so perhaps I simply wanted an encore performance, starring myself.

Thank you, Sir Rex for inspiring me to break plastic garbage cans by throwing them in the middle of the room for the sad reason of being unemptied, and to experience the sheer thrill of letting an Algebra workbook fly!

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