The Runner Stumbles

First of all, I LOVE LOVE LOVE teaching! The students are just delightful, full of enthusiasm and charm. I think it's mostly because we tend to communicate at a childlike level that the conversations are clean - free of politics, sarcasm, cynicism, humorless humor, bullshit - it's all just pure desire on both our parts to understand each other. Quite beautiful, really.

It reminds me of when I was in Amsterdam years ago. I'd sit on a barstool in this gay "coffee" house all day, talking with Amsterdammers who were glad for the opportunity to practice their rudimentary English, the study of which is mandatory for fifth and sixth graders there. Conversations went something like this:

Ridiculously Sexy Man from Amsterdam - "America has much treasures."
Me - "You mean like the Grand Canyon?"
SM - "No, no, Disneyvorlt."
Me - "Ahhhh, I liked Disneyworld."
SM (huge smile) - "You go there?"
Me - "Yes! It was a happy place and FUN!"
SM (thoughtful) - "Yes, I want go to Pirates of Caribbean sometimes."
Me - "Oh, you would love it. There are pirates and a big fire at night."
SM (another huge smile) - "And Goofy is all the time there, eh?"
Me - "Yes! Goofy and Mickey and Donald Duck."
SM - "It being great day when I be there."
Me - "I know you will go there someday and feel happy."
SM (sigh) - "Yes."

Okay, it may not seem like the most scintillating conversation. I have brilliant, interesting, eccentric friends for that. But the simplicity of it and the emotions shared (joy, yearning, wonder) are a far cry from the usual conversation between strangers.

It makes my heart glad.

My ESL classes are sort of like that. The students are from Costa Rica, Malaysia, China, and the Philippines, and most are very well educated - engineers, technicians, and managers. Some classes are one-on-one, and I also have groups of up to four students at a time for the two-hour sessions. The classes are held in the students' apartments, so I'm on the road, darting from complex to complex, from eight in the morning until as late as nine at night. I usually have a half hour between classes.

Now, this is the difficult part - the apartment complexes are all located in an area of town that's been turned from barren high desert to suburban sprawl in just the last five years or so. About 50,000 people now call this part of the city home. And so do about a thousand fast-food joints.

I've given up fast food. It doesn't work for me. But the sheer visibility of the places coupled with my new on-the-road schedule has started to pull at me. "Why not get a salad or something?" the brain says. "It won't hurt you." "Go ahead - just a diet beverage." "You know you're thirsty." "Use their bathroom and buy the cheapest thing on the menu." And so on.

Yesterday, I had a class that went pretty well but that I felt I could've done a better job. The student seemed a little bored, and I wasn't too good at engaging her in a conversation that interested her. Instead of the two-hour lesson flying by as they usually do, it became just a tad tedious. By the end, I felt tired and a little blah. On my way to the next lesson, almost unconsciously, I pulled into a McDonald's drive-through and got two McChicken sandwiches. They weren't very good.

Afterward, during my last class of the day, I felt bloated, uncomfortable, a little light-headed, unfocused, and (most tellingly) quite shitty about myself. I couldn't enjoy the lesson or my delightful students. I was depressed when I got home and, although I tried not to be, was pretty cranky with my housemate. I also was hungry - starving, in fact.

Here's where the light dawns.

I realized that making the decision to eat the McChickens was not so much about going off the food plan, but about how my insecurities as a new teacher triggered the "not good enough/inevitability of failure" core beliefs which had laid dormant for the last few months. It's interesting that when I'm in this time of success, when I'm embarking on a new career and having lots of pleasure, that the old negative core beliefs make an appearance. Why? Because they're threatened by MOST of the evidence. How can I keep believing I'm not good enough if, clearly, I am? How can I keep believing that I will inevitably fail if there are no indications of that? So when the insecurities open the door, the false core beliefs assert themselves and, in an innocuous way, take me by the hand to a very simple, cheap, and readily available way to prove they're right. "See? You went off your plan. You ARE a failure. See? It's inevitable. Just face it. You're not good enough and that's that. The bread crumbs on your face are uncontrovertable proof. I rest my case. Verdict: guilty. Take him away!"

Well, I'm not buying into it.

I KNOW I'm good enough.
I KNOW that failure is NOT inevitable.
I KNOW that these negative core beliefs are false.

And . . . . . . . . I forgive myself completely for eating the McChickens.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to see that some false core beliefs still remain.
I love and approve of myself.

Yes, I will arm myself with tupperware containers full of brown rice and veggies, and have a huge water jug in the car from now on. But that's not really the point.

I will remind myself that a little insecurity when starting a whole spanking new career is par for the course. There's room for improvement (as with any neophyte) and with time and effort, I'll be a better teacher. In the meantime, I'll do my best, keep believing in myself, and ac-cent-u-ate the pos-i-tive.

Suddenly I have a need to see a DVD double feature: "Up the Down Staircase" and "To Sir, With Love."