The Tics

Last week I cried a couple of times about my dissertation and my job and my tiredness and the whole overwhelming all of it. But this week I don't feel like I'm one breath away from a coma after a morning of working. Maybe it helps that I finally broke it down for the students today and explained to them that when they slam books down on their desks or tap their pencils incessantly or make distracting noises with their tongues or use their scissors to break down their erasers to a near molecular level, I get distracted. And I develop nervous tics and twitches in my eye lids and my neck. Plus all thought flies out of my head and I lose my place and need to be redirected. After I explained, a few kids still did the tapping thing, but when my face started twitching, they apologized and stopped. Then someone else reminded me of my last sentence and the lesson went on. I think we're getting a system going that might work for all of us.