Too Much Perspective

A few weeks ago, I got an outside perspective on my personality (and it wasn't particularly flattering) and while I've processed it and learned from it, I wasn't quite ready to do it all over again, but just last week, I received another piece of the fascinating puzzle that I call "How the World Views Dave"; last week, I ran into an old student at the Wawa-- I taught her four years ago in Creative Writing class-- and after the usual stereotypical pleasantries, she said, "So . . . are you letting your kids watch TV yet?" and I told her that I was . . . a little bit . . . and so now I know that a bunch of students know me as "the crazy guy who deprived his children of video games and television" because once you're a few years out of high school, you only retain one idea about each teacher (because that's all your brain needs) and so once again, I've got to revise my view of how the world views me . . . I thought all my students remembered me as that "really fun guy who was also smart and taught us lots of valuable lessons, but in a totally creative and engaging way" but they actually just felt bad for my children.