My Wednesday

Wednesdays can be busy days for me. I get a ride into school from my neighbor usually around 7am. He's nice enough, but one of those people that spend the entire ride in talking about them, what's happening to them, what happened to them yesterday, what'll probably happen to them today.... I'm not much of a morning person, so I don't talk much. We get along swimmingly.

He drops me off at the BU Bridge (the middle of campus) and I walk to the School of Education building. Drop off extra stuff at the TF office (if I have to) and then take the bus to Gardner Elementary. Drivers of any public transportation in Boston don't want to look at you much less answer annoying questions from riders. I think this comes from the fact that people (not you and me individually, I mean the whole lot of us) are generally pretty dumb.

Bus drops me off in a part of town called Brighton and I walk the remaining 3/4 mile to Gardner. The elementary school is one of those old-school box buildings with big ol' steps and long hallways that must seem to stretch for a mile to the average 7-year old. I go downstairs to the basement where it is either 30 degrees or a comfortable 90. Officially, I'm the BU supervisor for the college kids doing their practicum with Gardner's teachers. Unofficially, my goal every Wednesday is to have as little contact with humans as possible. I read over my college student's journals - the usual stuff, "my teacher sucks," "these kids are poor," blah, blah, blah. Ok, it's not that bad - and some of these students will probably make great teachers.

I'm out of Gardner by noon. Walk back to bus stop. Catching the 57 bus back to BU is always hit and miss - there's either one coming every 2 minutes, or every 2 hours (that's how it feels like).

Get back to school. I've got a meeting with a soccer player at 12:30. He doesn't show. Kind of normal actually - we made the appointment before Spring Break and I know he lost the reminder card I gave him. Run into Dr. D. in the hallway. Dr. D. is a counseling faculty member and a great teacher. We talk for awhile. He's just come back from a really long faculty meeting. "These things are bullshit - I swear if you can't tget it done in 2 hours something's wrong..." Wow, that happens in college faculty meetings too? I thought that was just high school faculty meetings.

Take the T up to West Campus where the Athletic Department is located. The doors on the T are merciless. Oh, you're standing at there when the doors shut? So sorry, there's another train coming...sucker. I can type this cuz it's happened to me. Get to the Sport Psych clinic in time for a 2pm meeting with a player. The fact that BU has 2 offices for sport psych in the athletics builidng is pretty sweet. Meeting goes well. I used to be uber-conscious of every thought I had in a meeting, but more and more it's coming more naturally. Teaching was like that.

Walk over the locker room for a meeting with the whole soccer team. Today's topic: commitment. Players are going to sign this big poster with their team goals for the Spring. I want to talk about the difference between "being involved" with something and "being committed" to something - these are males, so I use an example they would all understand - food. "Commitment is like a ham and eggs breakfast," I tell them, "the hen is involved, but the pig is committed." They get it.

Walk back down Comm Ave and then cut over to the Fenway T stop. Ride the Green Line into Brookline Village where Laura and Jack are waiting to pick me up. Another Wednesday in the bag.