Anyone who knows me well enough can imagine my reaction when I realized I was in the wrong room for a session at the homeschool convention yesterday.
I was planning to attend one on self-control. I happily helped the speaker move all of the chairs to the outside edges of the room before hand because she said it was going to be interactive. Ok, a little outside of my comfort zone but I'll roll with it, I thought. Then the session began, with all six of us attendees waiting attentively, when she announces how she's so happy we were there for her talk on PHYSICAL EDUCATION. I'm sure my expression was twisted, something akin to that of extreme abdominal pain, as I tried to smile through the abject horror I was feeling. An interactive session on PE is about as fun for me as having a tooth drilled. No, actually, I would rather have a tooth drilled. Yes, I do exercise. In private. In my home. And I encourage this in my children. Not that public exercise is bad thing. Some people really seem to enjoy it. Most of those people, however, are actually good at it. Anyway, as I turned about 17 shades of crimson I (not very discreetly), trundled my pull along book cart and high tailed it out of that room at a cardio building speed. I snuck myself and my bulky cart into the fully packed self-control room next door with the high decibel party sounds of the PE room seeping through from every section of the flimsy room partition. As this speaker announced that she was a retired preschool teacher, I began to feel slightly uneasy. She talked about how we are supposed to be in the present, quiet, focusing on the here and now, rather than being rude and thinking about which church service we would be going to the next day, or what we were having for dinner. As I closed my shopping list app on my phone, I tried to focus. Truly I did. I even got out the notepad and pen I had brought to jot down the pearls of wisdom this woman was going to impart upon me. The blank lines stared back at me, mocking me. I looked at her bullet points. Or tried to, but I kept wondering when she would get on to something relevant, practical. Finally, a suggestion on how to teach patience! Wait...what? Reading story books at bedtime about the bunny who didn't like to wait? Apparently I missed those as a child as I finally lost all self control AND patience. I could feel the room of heads shaking in disapproval behind me as I left.
As I waiting for my friend to finish her session, one that I was convinced I would have been better off selecting (even though it was on homeschooling boys) my cart and I navigated the escalators to grab a mocha. I found a nice, quiet corner and sat on the carpet to muse on my experience. I thought perhaps an epiphany would seep into my mind. However, all that was seeping was whatever liquid had been dumped onto the carpet I was sitting on. I sighed, stood up, wrapped my sweater around my waist and went to wait on my friend.
My lessons learned:
- I have trouble with listening to people when the content is irrelevant to me.
- I love homeschooling and am completely confident in my abilities to do so.
- Test the carpet before you sit on it.
- Text your friend in another session as she may be just as miserable as you are.
