Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Just when you think you've got it all together . . .

I amaze myself sometimes I am at being humble . . . or, more accurately, being humbled.

I was tutoring yesterday, for the second time, and things were going okay, I mean not stupendous, but good enough that I was starting to feel like I knew what I was doing, when a student I was tutoring informed me that my shirt was inside out! At first I thought she was mistaken because my shirt had a thick seam running across the chest, but when I looked down I realized that, although the seam was still there, it was definitely inside out. Worse yet, I had somehow managed to put a tutor pin on, help three or four students, and talk to several staff members without noticing that it was backwards or having it pointed out. Whether they didn't see or didn't have the heart to tell me, I don't know. (I must have taken the shirt off backwards last time and when I dressed in the dark that morning -- in an attempt not to wake up my two brothers who desperately needed their beauty sleep j/k -- I had missed that minor detail.)

Anyway, talk about a letdown! I had just spent the last hour explaining math to this particular student, acting like I knew what I was doing and thinking that she was following my brilliant instruction, and then I find out that she was probably sitting there the whole time thinking to herself "And how am I supposed to trust a tutor who can't even put his shirt on the right way?"

When I realized that there was indeed something wrong with my shirt, I almost laughed. I probably would have if it wasn't slightly embarrassing and if I wasn't still in shock that I could still miss something so obvious. I did laugh later, but at the time I just tried to act like it was no big deal, that I had known about it the whole time, and I even told her that this was the new style. I don't think she believed me.

Oh well, I learned two lessons out of it. First, it's best not to take yourself too seriously, and second, if someone looks at you strangely when you are explaining something to them, don't assume it's because they are interested in what you are saying and how brilliant you are . . . they may just be trying to figure out why your shirt is inside out.