Tuesday

Billy did wonderfully on Tuesday.  His performance was a real opportunity to notice how much power success has over a student’s performance.  Because Billy was successful at the beginning, I think he built a lot of confidence that carried over into the part of the route that he was nervous about.  Success really builds confidence.  Because even though Billy didn’t blow through that troublesome section, he did soooo much better than before, and he looked so much more confident and comfortable.  

Then, it was my turn, and at first, I was feeling great navigating the first leg of the trip.  I kept moving even though I wasn’t really sure what was going on.  But once I crossed over MLK, I got off my stride and turned around.  I stood there a long time, and now I’m thinking I waited too long.  I wanted to be very sure of my decisions before I moved, but I think I ended up getting frustrated that I couldn’t figure it out, so the frustration just kept building.

Through most of my lesson, I was in that disorienting mental state where you’re getting lots of input, but you can’t seem to organize it to fit any reality you know.  I couldn’t sort out the information and I was mad at myself.  There were a few times that I tried to “restart” myself by casting out everything and then moving forward, but I was so disoriented that I couldn’t seem to leave the frustration behind to make good choices.

So, by the end of several bumbling blocks, I was very frustrated, probably more frustrated than I’ve ever been in O&M.  It was a fairly quiet, slow burn, but it was definitely there.  Thing after thing just seemed to be in the way.  I could tell I was really reaching my limit when I made some short responses to prompts from Lauren and Mickey.  I think I was just frustrated for such a long time that it built up to be more than it should have been.  As Mickey pointed out, I did figure everything out eventually, so that helped my feelings some in the end, but I still couldn’t help but be disappointed I couldn’t complete the route faster or more efficiently.  I suppose, though, that if the end goal is for me to be a teacher, not a cane traveler, then I’m doing okay.