never a dull...

Internally cringing as I rushed to my Thursday morning office hours, I knew that in a mere half an hour I would face the class I've come to think of as the primate house at the zoo. What else would you call being locked in a room for an hour-and-a-half with twenty-five high octane boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen? Squirrel cage describes the energy, but doesn't take into account the hormonal ozone or the sheer body mass involved. And did you fully grasp the fact that there is not one girl in this class?

Just as I got to my room, one of my little monkeys arrived, and something seemed to be going on with his feet, which had become huge and yellow, like giant marshmallow chickens, but no...they were slippers...in the form of.... Homer Simpson's head. And immediately after this revelation, came another equally alarming one. He was still in his pajamas. He was wearing the requisite backpack, which looked thoroughly ridiculous over his pajamas, and carrying a kleenex box decorated in moons and stars. Seems he's sick, you see, but he arose from his sick bed to rush in and finish the video project due tomorrow, and to pass along his icky little germs to all of us so that we can all come to school wearing PJs and Homer Simpson slippers.

More monkeys flooded into the room, flinging backpacks hither and thither, scratching themselves and making noises. With their usual foresight and planning, they had all figured on being able to use one of our three cameras today, because certainly the other twenty-one boys would have finished their videos by now. So naturally, since every last one of them had waited until the very last minute, a certain amount of squabbling and squalking had to happen, followed by whining and other variations on audible self-pity.

Mr. PJs seemed to be making a video starring several stuffed animals, behaving in ways I didn't want to imagine. I'm hoping he edits those parts out so I don't have to deal with it.

One student announced triumphantly that he had finished his video, and I went to have a look. He had managed to create a video totally lacking in plot, people and premise, the three required elements. It was just shots of a pool table, and some unseen person playing rather badly. The end. We had a gentle little talk about story-telling.

I'm not good at this. To paraphrase Scotty from a long-ago Star Trek, 'Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a zoo keeper!'