Tragically Close

I'm trying my best not to lose my temper with my children, my students and my soccer teams (and this is a tough task, because I'm simultaneously trying to drink less beer during the week) and for the majority of Tuesday, I was successful -- I had a smooth soccer practice with my U-9 team, despite the cold weather and the fact that my older son was in attendance -- but he didn't fight with his brother, and the team listened better than usual, and I was patient about explaining the drills and getting things organized (plus I had a lot of help from the other dads) and my kids were rewarded with hot cocoa once we got home, and then my older son showered and the younger one got into the shower, and I figured I was home free: I had navigated an entire day without raising my voice . . . but fifteen minutes later, when I went to check on Ian in the shower, he was just standing there, doing absolutely nothing -- his hair wasn't wet, there was still hot cocoa on his face, he was just letting the hot water run over him while he daydreamed, and while in retrospect, I can see the appeal of this, I couldn't deal with it at the time, and I may have done some yelling and banged a bathroom door and washed his hair rather briskly, so that some soap got into his eyes . . . and it irritates me that I was so close to making it through the day without losing my shit, but this one little incident, because it happened so late in the day, when my patience has worn itself thin, was my undoing . . . but I will take solace in what Hamlet says to his buddy Horatio, when he realizes that his fate is out of his control: "when our deep plots do pall . . . there's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will."

Paradoxical Activity

When we begin Hamlet in my English classes, I like to assume the role of the skeptical scholar Horatio; I force my students to ask me if I believe in ghosts-- "Go ahead . . . ask me if I believe in ghosts . . . ask me!"-- and when they comply, just to humor me, I chastise them and reply angrily: "Of course I don't believe in ghosts! I'm a teacher! A man of logic and reason! Not a purveyor of fantasy and superstition!" and in a sense there's a grain of truth to my schtick, as is evident here, but an old student pointed out an apparent contradiction in my outspoken doubt of all things spooky: the fact that I found this movie incredibly scary suggests that my words may not accurately reflect my subconscious.