Early Release, Snipers & Patience

A good five minutes have ticked on by, and I have sat here staring blankly, reviewing my week for funny, witty, inspiring anecdotes to post. Still, nothing comes to mind.

My yoga teacher advises us to meditate for at least five minutes a day, but something tells me this little slice of time doesn't fit her idea of meditation.

Somehow I have got to get my funnyback. The fact that I misplaced it somewhere is a bit disconcerting, and from hearing from quite a few of you out there, you're having that kind of year, too.  You know, the kind of year that makes you feel like you've been ridden hard and put up wet.

The start of my work week promises to be interesting. We have an early release day which means the kiddos only come for half a day. Then the rest of our day is supposed to be allotted for that fun-filled extravaganza we refer to as "teacher inservice"  or "professional development." (And, we all know how I feel about that.)

We actually have an interesting one planned. Former Navy Seal Chris Kyle is coming to talk to us. Called the "most lethal sniper" in American history, he penned the bestselling book called "American Sniper." He just happens to be a graduate of the school I teach at.  Thus, the invite to talk to us.

And, no, I was not teaching there when he was a student. And yes, I'm reading the book. And yes, I have the highest respect for our military soldiers. But no, I'm not quite sure what the correlation is between being a Navy SEAL and a high school teacher or being a sniper and a high school teacher.

I was hoping that perhaps the invite was some sort of precursor to a newfangled security system, and that maybe, just maybe, we'd all be issued tasers or something. 

But no siree, Missy, sadly, that apparently is not the case.

Naturally, all of this buzz about Mr. Kyle coming to our school got me to thinking a lot about his talk, and what--if any--similarities there are between the two jobs. Well, here are my best list of possibilities…

•Emotional Detachment… SEALs and snipers have to perform their duties without letting their feelings get in the way, and teachers can't very well call someone a big fat stupid head in their classrooms, now can they? Hmmmm, although now I'm thinking that Navy SEALs can pretty much call anyone anything they want at anytime, so maybe we should strike this similarity off our list.

•Paperwork… I don't need to explain the paper trails running through schools across our great land, but I certainly was surprised that even snipers, according to Mr. Kyle's book, must fill out paperwork justification. Really? How crazy is that?

•Danger… My hall buddy Rhonda recently got beaned in head by a wayward rubber eraser someone threw during a passing period and the art teacher injured her leg when some art stuff fell on top of her.  OK, OK, OK… so being a SEAL is way more dangerous, so that can't be it.

•Patience… Ah, now this might be the real correlation between being a sniper and a high school teacher. No one can argue that both require an inordinate amount of patience. I'm hoping Mr. Kyle can give me a few pointers there. 

I'm thinking this should be a pretty interesting talk after all.