Marooned

There's a monsoon in Atlanta. How do I know, you ask? Because its debris has washed up at gate H11 (and several others for that matter.) I finished dinner in the airport, trotted through the terminal, and... remember what I said about flashing lights? They're still bad news. When the flight that was scheduled to leave at 3 is still hanging around at 6, you know it's going to be a long night.

The unfortunate clerks behind the counter looked overly frazzled, so I left in search of those crack guava-filled pastries, and a seat to watch the flashing lights depress us all. First it was 40 minutes, then 55. They finally seem to have settled on an hour and a half.

Now I have extensive experience entertaining myself in airports. I have no problems unrolling a kanga and sleeping on the ground. But there are always a few stages one goes through before being at zen with the terminal.

Denial: Oh, there's no way we'll be that late. I'm sure the pilot can make up an hour's delay in the sky. The last one did so well with that 20 minute late start.

Anger: $&*%$^$ MIAMI!! I CAN'T EVEN WATCH THE OPENING CEREMONIES HERE! WHY DOES AMERICAN'S FLIGHT LEAVE ON TIME?!*

Bargaining: Maybe the nice stewardess at American likes guava pastries. No? How about a Toblerone? No? Ever wanted to learn about genetics? Yes ma'am, I'll go sit down.

Depression: I'm never going to get out of heeeeerree!! I won't make it to Boulder for my class, and they'll fire me and not let me finish my courses in Miami and I'll never go to Puerto Rico and life as I know it will... Yes ma'am, I'll go sit back down.

Acceptance: Angry Birds!! Netflix!! Namasté, MIA.


*American's flight wound up significantly delayed, too. I might have been just a little self-satisfied with that.

Curtain Call

Today was my last class for one of my sessions, the one that meets at the University of Miami medical school. It's a spectacular campus, full of very busy people scurrying around in white coats, like the lizards up and down the walls. It's also a short walk from my hotel, which is why they're housing me there. I left early this afternoon, hoping to enjoy the walk in the heat as much as possible. The breeze was blowing, the palm trees waving, tropical flowers blooming along the fence. I plucked a fragrant cluster of little red blossoms...

Oh, yeah. Fire ants.

I finished picking the little red demons off my wrists by the time I reached the crosswalk. It took me a minute to realize she was talking to me.

"Ai yi yi, mama! It's too hot to be wearing black! Why aren't you wearing white like me?!"

Actually, that is only a partial translation, given that all I caught was negro, calor, blanco. For all I know, she could have been asking why all the white mamas keep running after the hot black guys. (In Spanish, at least, every woman down here is a mama. The first time I was addressed as such, I had the same reaction as when a friend's kids first called me Ms. Emanuel: Um... that's my mother.)

I had no idea what to say (C'est n'est pas si chaud, madame.) So instead I laughed and responded in English. It took her several sentences to catch on.

"No español?"

Sheepish grin. "Nope. Sorry."

If I wind up getting shipped to Puerto Rico to teach, I definitely have some learnin' to do.

I walk each week into a classroom of Emma Lazarus' making and do everything I can to give my students some sort of fighting edge. And it's hard to think that despite all I've done, there are still some of them who simply won't pass, or pass well enough. I have to make my peace with what I do during each class. Most of my students have never had a physiology course, and my job is to take 7 semester length bio courses and condense them into 25 hours over a 10 week period. Sometimes it just gets a little overwhelming. Fortunately, this class has been spectacular. They seem grateful to have me, they answer my questions (usually), they ask me questions of their own, and stay after class to go over homework problems. It's very satisfying.

Today's class was reproduction and development, something that, despite all the awkward giggles, I've always liked because it clearly highlights the understated elegance of the endocrine system. My students were excellent, enthusiastic and engaging. I've given them everything I knew to give them, I tried to redeem a terrible situation for them as best I could, and I think they understood and acknowledged that.

I left my classroom to applause.

Holes and Nests

By the end of August I'll probably be able to drag myself through security at DIA in my sleep, and have the A terminal memorized. At least the portion around A47.

My flight made it in on schedule and with no more than the usual turbulence. And my luggage came on time as well (and underweight! yay!) which is always the greater accomplishment. After those three days in Africa when I had nothing but a set of scrubs and a toothbrush to my name I've developed a healthy appreciation for good baggage handlers.
I am in the same hotel TPR put me in last week, though two floors up, and with an excellent view of the medical school where I teach one of my sessions. Being right next to a university teaching hospital, there are always interesting people staying, and not just the legion of army medics that were here last week. Patients range from the interesting to the incredibly sad and I have to keep reminding myself not to :
1) stare
2) ask for case history
While learning experiences may abound left and right here I have always sworn that whatever I am, I will not be tacky (I'm not always sure how well that's working out.)
My hotel is in central Miami, in a neighborhood that would be considered quite if it weren't for the roaring hospital across the street. When my supervisor dropped me off she made it quite clear that while going out alone at night was probably a poor decision in any part of Miami, this was a part that did not deal kindly to poor decisions. Consequently, if I am out after dark it is only to float in the hotel pool and watch the Boeings knifing their way through the clouds. I don't really have much to do out of the hotel other than walk to the medical school and grocery store. About 10 minutes away is a little Winn-Dixie where I go for mangoes and guava pastries. The walk takes me along a few old apartment buildings, under broad-leafed nut trees, and over a small drainage for the Miami-Dade county sewer department. The bank is always studded with crabs; lopsided fiddlers, and one big monster who lives in a hole under the sidewalk. I've never seen all of him, but I think he's about as big as my hand. There are signs all along the drainage prohibiting fishing, but nobody has said anything about crab trapping.

The store is always crowded, and always swarming with languages that wash over me like so much water when I enter. I've taking to repeating any and every Spanish phrase I hear, and then picking at it until I find the bones that look so much like my own French. As much as I love the language, and as much fun as I had learning it, it does seem a little silly sometimes. Like someone down in Uruguay deciding to study Icelandic.

It is awfully nice to be able to come back to the same hotel when little else bears semblance to its former self. I left a house empty of almost all remains of former roommates, and soon to be empty of me, too. There is something to be said for having a room with a couch and tables and chairs, for knowing someone else is in the room next door, even if it is a complete stranger. They seem kind of funny, my two strange little half-lives coming together to make something entirely different from both of them, but somehow they work perfectly just now. And who am I to ask otherwise?

Pressure

I woke up this morning with the intention of going for a swim before heading down to breakfast. I also woke up to thunder and lightning, so that finished that idea for me. So instead, I decided to tie up one of the computers in the lounge and people watch right by the elevators. Not necessarily in that order.

I got the phone call to come down to Miami on a Friday afternoon. They wanted me in Florida by Monday. Possibly that gives some impression of the urgency of their need, but I don't think I completely understood it until I arrived and started talking with my students about the previous two weeks. For the sake of the unfortunate former bio teachers I won't say much, except that one of my students told me yesterday that he considered the bio class to have officially started two weeks in, when I finally showed up. It was both flattering and painful.

I teach three classes throughout the week. Two are regular Princeton courses, held independent of any school or college, and open to all applicants. I have about a dozen students in each class, give or take. My third class is an "institutional course." I had never heard of such a thing until I first spoke with the supervisor, and my mind went two places:

1) Psych ward (no, it's not PC)

2) Fancy private university with elite stuck-up students (it is Miami, after all)

It turned out to be neither of the above, fortunately. This class is run through the Diversity Department of the University of Miami's School of Medicine. It is a program for minorities and underprivileged students, helping them through the medical school application process by (among other things) setting up their shadowing opportunities and MCAT prep classes. I walk into a classroom each week ringing with Spanish and Creole and French and wonder that I ever even vaguely considered myself bi-lingual.

I was briefed on this course, and the state of their biology class on my ride to the hotel when I first arrived last week.

"Because it's an institutional course, they expect a very high standard of us, and the state of the biology class is a little less than that right now."

I nodded, imagining first-class me dropping pens and stammering over words. Those poor instructors.

"To say the directors are displeased is a bit of an understatement." My supervisor began to rattle off a litany of "displeased" including teaching to the board, mumbling, being unprepared, and having the students correct the instructors.

"Yikes." I looked at the folder that contained all my notes, and wondered how long it would take to commit all 10 lectures to memory perfectly.

"Yeah, it's been pretty bad. Far below Princeton's standards. While you're teaching you'll have a teaching assistant in the classroom at all times."

I'd never had a teaching assistant. Princeton Review doesn't use them. I imagined having someone to unwrap my cough drops, fill my water bottle, and erase the board while I perched on a desk next to some inquisitive student and filled their mind with the mysteries of biology and physiolo...

"She's not a doctor, and I don't think she's a professor, but she definitely knows her stuff, and will be checking to make sure you know yours."

My heart plummeted to my kidneys.

"I was told she spent the first few classes constantly taking notes in the back of the class because of all the wrong material the teacher was giving her students. We kept getting phone calls after class because of it. They're not very impressed right now."

What little I remembered of the Great Litany started running through my mind:

From the hypercritical, and all those who wish to see us crash and burn,
Good Lord deliver us.*

"What are you humming"?

"Oh, nothing. So she'll be in there all class?"

I imagined a scowling menace in the back of the auditorium grilling me on biochemistry while my students looked on and smirked.

"Probably. Unless she thinks you're doing well."

By now, my supervisor must have seen my face.

"Oh, I'm not trying to scare you! You had great student reviews and score improvements! I'm sure you'll do just fine! But I wanted to let you know what you're getting in to."

Too late. "Fair enough."

I have never been so scared walking into a class. I don't think that even my first class was as intimidating as this one. The teaching assistant greeted me at the door with a friendly smile and a handshake.

I bet she can smell fear. You don't scare me, woman, I work with eagles.

The class was microbiology: viruses, bacteria, and a list on fungi that I didn't have time to get to, forgot last class, and will have to scribble on the board sometime during break on Thursday. Whoops. It went well, too. After the one class where I forgot my micro notes and had to lecture off of what I remembered and what I could scribble down in 30 minutes I like to think I have it down solid. My supervisor picked me up after that class to drop me off at my next one. Right before she let me out she remarked that the office hadn't received any angry phone calls from UM.

"That means you did well. If you hadn't performed to her standards, we'd have heard by now. Did she stay in the classroom the whole time?"

"No. I think she was in and out."

"Well that's a good sign. It means she thought you were doing well enough that she didn't have to keep track of everything you said."

I bounced off to my next class ecstatic.

*I'm pretty sure this part was when our deacon hit one of the chairs with the thurible, so if you don't remember it, that may be why.

Be Prepared

Welcome to week two of running amok in Miami intensive and diligent training for our proud future doctors.

I've always been a fan of airports and flying. Most people I know find it stressful and taxing; I've always adored travel. Except for packing. I've never been particularly good at packing, I either neglectfully under pack (It's Africa! Who ever heard of it being cold in Africa?!) or neurotically over pack. This time around I chose the latter, though I believe I may have justification. Hear me, oh people, and judge accordingly.

I spent last Thursday night/Friday morning in an exhausted delirium, lugging a 25 pound duffel bag through the bowels of DIA, trying desperately to make it to my car in Utah the economy lot before my legs gave out from under me. Yes, it was that pathetic. During the drive home I swore by all things good and holy that on my next flight down I would be accompanied by something with wheels and a collapsible handle. Enter my parent's rolling suitcase.

It was big and beautiful. It had wheels and a collapsible handle and so much space! I lovingly braided an ID ribbon around its handle, and fell to carefully filling it with everything I brought with me last week. And maybe a few extra shirts. And the MCAT homework book. And the new fancy accordion folder I bought to keep my notes and receipts straight. But that's it, and I swear on all my life.

When I heaved it onto the scale at DIA the readout started blinking furiously. Now I remember enough from childhood StarTrek marathons with my father to know that blinking lights = bad news. I checked to make sure I wasn't wearing a red shirt, and then glanced at the clerk who was eyeing my behemoth of a bag suspiciously.

"It's overweight, isn't it?"

"Yep."

"It's going to cost extra, isn't it?" Wince.

"$125 please."

This is how I know I am not a good person: For a brief, fleeting moment I actually considered it. I eyed my credit card and wondered if Princeton Review wouldn't notice that my baggage fee had mysteriously increased five-fold.

"What can I say, American just charges way more than US Airways."

And then the poor-decision-recognition center kicked in (I think it's somewhere by the pre-frontal cortex) and I dragged my bag off the scale and glowered at it. I considered pulling a Poisonwood Bible, but decided that I really didn't want to land in Miami wearing three shirts and an extra pair of pants. Instead, I wound up pulling all my MCAT books and folders out of the bag. It met weight, but just barely, and I was left toting a stack of print the size of the Gutenberg Bible through the A terminal of DIA. In the end, though, we both made it to Miami International Airport, and on the same flight, which is even more of an accomplishment.

So, assume what you will about my packing capabilities, but should a blizzard hit Miami while I'm here, I'm sure I will be the only prepared person in the city.

What's In A Name?

I never wanted to be a teacher.

While my childhood career interests were many and varied (including, but not limited to, cartographer and street sweeper driver) I don't ever recall teaching being on the list. I don't even remember playing "teacher"or "school" with any great enthusiasm. And while it seemed to be a phase that most of my friends went through in jr. high and high school, teaching as a profession never once crossed my mind.

I applied to teach with The Princeton Review on a whim, over a year ago; I was underemployed, frustrated, bored, and desperate for anything new. I found the advertisement on Craigslist of all places, filled out the required forms, and wailed when they started asking me supplementary questions.

"Describe your teaching philosophy."

"Describe your previous teaching experience. Include any diverse student populations you have worked with."

At that time, my teaching experience was limited to one semester as a teaching assistant in an undergraduate anatomy lab. It was a simple position that mostly consisted of drilling students on the branches of the facial nerve, finding the common interosseous artery for the millionth time, and reciting raunchy mnemonics (cranial nerves, anybody?)During my first month I was absolutely terrified. Most of my "teaching" consisted of watching my classmates give a lecture on the brachial plexus, and nodding sagaciously. I eventually warmed up to the position, and enjoyed watching my students master difficult concepts and succeed. Still, that was all the teaching I ever wanted, and when May rolled around I was a little more than relieved.

So here I was, driving to Boulder to give a five minute audition lesson for a position I'd never trained for, or prepared for, or even wanted. That is a long drive and a lot of time to argue with oneself.


"I can't do this. I'm not a teacher. I don't want to teach."


"Yeah, but you don't have a choice. It's decent money. And you know this material forwards and backwards."


"I don't want to teach. I can't stand in front of a classroom for two and a half hours and talk. Introverts don't teach."


"Well, what other ideas do you have?"


"..."


"That's what I thought."

It went like that for 60 miles.

My audition lesson was on the difference between hawks and falcons. I was terrified. The interviewers said I did a great job channeling my nerves to put energy into my presentation. I had no idea. I went to Qdoba afterwards, got a celebratory burrito, and alternated between people watching and trying to figure out why these poor, deluded, fools thought I would make a good instructor. I wondered that all through my training. I wondered it during my first class, in between nervously dropping markers and notes.

Her name was Andy, and for the rest of my life, I'll never forget her. She came up to me with tears in her eyes after the first class, stammering about how she'd never had good biology professors and didn't know a thing about this subject.

"This is not my place. Someone else would know what to tell her. Someone else would show her how to learn. Someone else would know how to make this work. Someone else, someone else..."

But there was only me, so it had to be my place, and it had to work. And it did. I watched all 10 of my terrified undergrads transform into confident students who answered my questions with questions of their own. Somehow I came to own this thing that was never supposed to be mine in the first place. Each lecture brought me closer to a potential I had never imagined, and slowly, reluctantly, I came to realize that I might actually be good at this kind of thing. I might even like it.

I never wanted to be a teacher, but teaching, it turned out, wanted me. And right now, I couldn't think of anything better.

Greetings!

Hi there, folks. Given the recent changes in my circumstances, it has been suggested multiple times that I start a blog while I'm running back and forth across the country. I've never really been one for blogging (heck, I can't even remember to write in my journal most days) but I figured I'd give it a shot. Perhaps, if anyone out there is thinking of teaching for TPR, this could be a good source of information. More to come, I promise, but my office hours are about to start.