Monday was my first day not teaching kindergarten Music and Science. It was only last Thursday when they told me my new job--I'm the new gym teacher!
You should have seen my face when they told me. I was jaw-on-the-floor shocked. Let's just say I'm not the most athletically-inclined person. I don't like contact sports, or any sport involving a ball. I did used to row in high school and college, though. It's one of the safest sports there is as far as injuries go...yet I somehow managed to get knocked out by an oar once.
It was the beginning of a sprint race at a regatta in high school. We were in the middle of a "power 10," which gets the boat going really, really fast. However, it was drizzling outside, I was nervous, my oar was wet, and the water was choppy. I hit a wave with my oar and caught a crab. If you don't know what that is, I think you can find videos of it on YouTube. Just think of an oar like a lever...when the oar end gets caught under water, the momentum of the boat causes the end you are holding to fly towards you. During normal practice you can usually stop it or duck underneath...but like I said, this was a sprint race. The oar slipped out of my hands and hit me square in the neck before I even knew what was happening. It knocked me off my seat and I hit the back of my head on Anna's knee, the girl sitting behind me. I didn't feel any of it. They told me I was out for a few seconds. I remember wondering why we weren't rowing as I sat up, so I just started rowing again. So did everybody else. Somehow, we still got 3rd place! I felt bad I had cost us 1st...but the girls insisted it had been worth it for the funny story they now had to tell!
The first aid lady told me afterward that if the oar had hit me about an inch to the right, it might have broken my larynx.
Suffice it to say, I am quite the klutz. I can, for example, take something as carefree as riding a bike and turn it into a bloody mess involving parked cars, ambulances, and lots of broken glass.
I don't like broken glass. I know what it tastes like. I've even had a piece swiped off of my eyeball for me. The doctor told me after that particular incident that I was lucky I didn't break my neck. Heck, I was lucky I didn't even break my nose--and that's what I broke the windshield with!
I have some very valuable advice for anyone on a bicycle: Always look where you are going. Don't turn around to look at your friend as the two of you spout off Lil' Kim lyrics back and forth. You might just veer off to the side and run smack into a car, innocently parked on the side of the road.
The resulting mess is not fun. You fly off your bike and sail face-first through the back windshield. Then the neighbors come running out and move you onto the street, where you lie face-down on the pavement, spitting blood and glass out of your mouth, trying to catch the pool of blood draining copiously from every area of your face, thinking maybe you can put it back in. Next an ambulance arrives and paramedics flip you over, putting you in a neck brace and asking you what hurts (besides your face). Nothing really hurts, which is scary, but you say, "My right leg," because you sense something going on there. The next thing you hear is the sound of both your pant legs getting ripped up the center so that they can take a look.
"Does your left leg hurt at all?" The paramedic asks. It doesn't...not even a little. Suddenly you are left imagining that bones are protruding because you're hurt so badly it's gone numb.
I had bruises on both my shins the size of golf balls. After signing a release form with my blood-covered arm at the hospital, they cut off the rest of my clothes to X-ray every bone in my body and nothing was broken but the bank. You should have seen that bill!
I was released from the E.R. about 5 hours later, badly bruised, scratched up, wearing a set of blue scrubs, and holding a bag of chopped-up bloody clothes. My friend and I were laughing about it the whole taxi ride home. Sometimes you have to laugh just to keep from crying. I was insanely lucky.
Now that I think about it, it's no wonder my imagination often goes awry. I've given it a lot of fuel over the years. I have war stories that will never make it into this blog.
I've broken an arm before, rollerskating when I was 10, and a leg when I was 5, running at the pool. It would take a while to go through the multiple sprains I've had...often occurring right before a major trip or vacation of some sort. I even broke my big toe in my sleep once. I was dreaming I was kicking a really mean boy in the face for squishing a turtle. Unfortunately for me, I kicked the wall in real life. Hard.
My mom says that I have surely run out of lives by now, and that I must have about a million guardian angels, all of whom are tired. I, however, don't think it's in my cards to die an early death. I am most definitely going to achieve my lifelong goal of becoming an extremely wise old woman. I can't wait to be Grannie Annie one day and have endless stories to tell the young'uns. But if I do die young, I hope it's something cool like in a sketchy carnival ride accident. My only regret would be that I couldn't write about it afterwards. If that happens...someone please write my story for me. Print out a copy and send it to me...just tie it to the end of a helium balloon and release it.
My new schedule at school is actually pretty awesome as far as I can tell. I still teach one block of Science first thing Monday morning to the Nemo (preschoolers) class. Every other morning begins and ends with visiting that same class for circle and activity time. On Tuesdays and Fridays I teach gym all morning in 30 minute increments. Wednesdays and Thursdays I only have 1 block of gym, right after lunch. On those days I spend an hour in the office with the Korean supervising teachers helping write tests for the students. They actually gave me a desk to work at over with theirs! I feel like part of their exclusive club, like I'm one of the Koreans now! It's fabulous.
My first day teaching gym was also pretty fabulous. My lesson was "relay races," which Elly came up with for me. She had come in to my class where I was teaching at 7:15 Thursday evening, just 5 minutes before I was to go home, and asked me what my lesson was going to be for this week. They had only told me that morning I was going to be the gym teacher. Why didn't they tell me they needed a lesson before my hour and a half break, which I had spent shopping for school supplies at the store down the street? I looked at her a bit incredulously and she suggested relay races. "Perfect!" I exclaimed.
It was perfect. During gym yesterday, I was overcome with absolute bliss as I watched the kindergarteners run back and forth with smiles on their faces. Finally, I get to watch the kids play! I'm the luckiest klutz in the world.
 |
| I'm good at translating "Konglish" into English by now. My translation is: "Every Calamity is Spur of the Moment and a Valuable Lesson." I bought it at the subway station for $3! |
No comments:
Post a Comment