What up Geek Rockers?,
Things have been crazy lately in the world of the Poetic Gigolo. Since I last wrote I have been working as an Academic tutor at New River Community College. I must say that I absolutely love my job. As I look back on my work life since graduating from the Land of Milk & Honeys in 2011, the difference in job environments is like night and day.
Things have been crazy lately in the world of the Poetic Gigolo. Since I last wrote I have been working as an Academic tutor at New River Community College. I must say that I absolutely love my job. As I look back on my work life since graduating from the Land of Milk & Honeys in 2011, the difference in job environments is like night and day.
The night looked something like this:
Working for Community Services, I remember going into my work shift and feeling completely drained from the lack of being able to sleep during the day. I was regularly scheduled for the 12 hour shift from 8pm-8am usually on Monday nights and by 2 am I was ready to call it quits. No shift was ever the same. I could never get in a routine (with the exception of some mandatory chores) with the clients. One night could be smooth sailing and the next night I would be racing to the phone hoping that the 911 call didn't go through in hopes that I could calm a certain person down enough so that the voices in his head would quiet down enough for him to sleep. After giving medications at 8am I was supposed to get off at 8am and try to go home. That almost never happened. If it wasn't car trouble, or child trouble, for being late it was another co worker running on "CPT-Colored People Time". I would have to turn a 12 hour shift into a 12.5 or a 12.75 hour shift due to either motherly circumstance or in the case of another just downright laziness and unprofessional behavior...on a very consistent. I was worn out constantly with no sense of rest or recovery. It didn't help things that I was starting a third phase of liver treatment. Mad props to anyone who's ever had to do that while having a full time job. This guy barely handled it. There comes a time in everyone's life where you have to realize that no matter how hard you push yourself, no matter how hard you work, and no matter what kind of progress you make, you are human and you have limits. Limits with people, limits with things, limits on abilities, and talents. Humans have limits. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective), reached my limit in almost every aspect of life after working with Community Services for 9 months. My breaking point came when I contemplated throwing myself down a flight of concrete stairs. As stupid as it sounds now, harming myself in that way felt like the only way I could get the relief I was looking for, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and most importantly physically...after seemingly a lifetime of having limits be the fine print definition of life what hurt the most was having to admit to the man in the mirror that I couldn't do what this job required. I was in a way heartbroken because like Moses could relate to the Hebrews, I relate to people that live with disabilities. And the life of the clients I worked with/for were almost defined by disabilities.
Working for Community Services, I remember going into my work shift and feeling completely drained from the lack of being able to sleep during the day. I was regularly scheduled for the 12 hour shift from 8pm-8am usually on Monday nights and by 2 am I was ready to call it quits. No shift was ever the same. I could never get in a routine (with the exception of some mandatory chores) with the clients. One night could be smooth sailing and the next night I would be racing to the phone hoping that the 911 call didn't go through in hopes that I could calm a certain person down enough so that the voices in his head would quiet down enough for him to sleep. After giving medications at 8am I was supposed to get off at 8am and try to go home. That almost never happened. If it wasn't car trouble, or child trouble, for being late it was another co worker running on "CPT-Colored People Time". I would have to turn a 12 hour shift into a 12.5 or a 12.75 hour shift due to either motherly circumstance or in the case of another just downright laziness and unprofessional behavior...on a very consistent. I was worn out constantly with no sense of rest or recovery. It didn't help things that I was starting a third phase of liver treatment. Mad props to anyone who's ever had to do that while having a full time job. This guy barely handled it. There comes a time in everyone's life where you have to realize that no matter how hard you push yourself, no matter how hard you work, and no matter what kind of progress you make, you are human and you have limits. Limits with people, limits with things, limits on abilities, and talents. Humans have limits. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective), reached my limit in almost every aspect of life after working with Community Services for 9 months. My breaking point came when I contemplated throwing myself down a flight of concrete stairs. As stupid as it sounds now, harming myself in that way felt like the only way I could get the relief I was looking for, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and most importantly physically...after seemingly a lifetime of having limits be the fine print definition of life what hurt the most was having to admit to the man in the mirror that I couldn't do what this job required. I was in a way heartbroken because like Moses could relate to the Hebrews, I relate to people that live with disabilities. And the life of the clients I worked with/for were almost defined by disabilities.
Thankfully after 6 long months, things started to change. I was finishing up the last few weeks of my liver treatment when I got a call from my old Community College. They were in need of an Embedded English tutor and they'd decided to see if I was interested. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? OF COURSE I'M INTERESTED! In the back of my mind my thoughts race through the logistics of it all: I am familiar with the campus. I know the faculty. I would be involved with material that I studied in college...and I am less than 7 miles from campus. Sign me up Scottie!...and once I got acquainted with the routine (YES! There is routine to this job and I can establish one!)...The day looks a little something like this:
I would be able to sleep through the night and be at work Tuesday and Thursday before 9:30 am. SLEEP!...CHECK! ROUTINE!...CHECK! I would make sure the computers were up and ready. It was my role to assist the students when writing papers. It was my job to help them tighten their writing skills with the end goal being that that their writing would be at a Freshmen Composition level. To make things even better, I realized that I had been in their shoes some 11 years before so it was very easy to relate to them. While I didn’t get to do much at first I found myself trying to stay busy. I’d do this by typing a Word file that had the notes from the lecture on it. They were then sent via email to the students. Although it wasn’t technically my responsibility to type out the notes for students, I found that this kept my mind busy when there weren’t papers to help with. After a while the professor saw what I was doing and appreciated my efforts…so I continued doing this for the rest of the semester. Being the “officially unofficial” note taker for class seemed to give me a sort of extra purpose and drive to want to be in class. And it did. Then something strange happed. I started seeing student behavior…and it was less than professional. There were very few people in class so you’d think that they would pay more attention to what was being said by the professor. But that was not the case. Almost the entire class was “secretly” on Facebook or browsing the internet or even holding conversations with someone outside of class through some sort of electronic message system. I tolerated it for a while but like I said before I have my limits. I sent what I consider a scathing email to the students and the professor asking/demanding that they (the students) ‘step their game up’ and pay more attention to class. This worked for the most part. I saw a significant improvement in behavior. Class seemed to settle down from there. Granted there were some students that passed…and others that didn’t. I did the best that I could to help the students but I realized that the grades they received were a reflection of the effort they individually put forth in class…
As spring gave way into the summer session I volunteered to tutor a developmental math class at night. Boy was that an adventure! I have often heard it said that ‘the things you truly know are the things that you can effectively teach’. That phrase couldn’t have been truer than in that class. Naturally as an English minor in college I enjoyed writing papers, dissecting my native language and constructing sentences that became excellent expression of thought mixed with research through the correct use of vocabulary. But this class seemed like the exact opposite. In my mind the exact opposite of expressive language is concrete (and not so concrete) numbers being manipulated to form a problem while you seek to find a concrete answer to the problem. That’s exactly what math class felt like. My job wasn’t to help students work with verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and commas to form sentences, but to read the concrete sentences interpret graphs and pictures to calculate information and hopefully come up with solid answers. And this was accomplished…s l o w l y. I noticed that my brain went through sort of rewiring process overtime. But I enjoyed knowing that after an adjustment period I did well at being a math tutor. What was more encouraging was the fact that both the math professor and the other math tutor were people from my past high school life…It has been a very interesting summer.
I am looking forward to what the fall semester has in store. So tonight the summer officially comes to an end…but not without a bang. A bang you ask? What type of a bang? A professional wrestling bang. My friends Travis Lane, Robbie Viars, and I toasted goodbyes the summer of 2013 with a local professional wrestling show in Hillsville, VA. There we had the chance to root for the bad guys, boo the good guys and bear witness to a classic form of entertainment that we all three enjoy. Here’s to ya Summer of ’13.
The Poetic Gigolo & Ricky Morton of
The Rock-n-Roll Express
The Rock-n-Roll Express
Until next time Geek Rockers,
THE POETIC GIGOLO
THE POETIC GIGOLO
