Be Careful What You Wish For

I worked a full shift at the Restaurant today. It was long. It's going to take awhile to build up my stamina for these shifts again, especially since it's all new, so I have to think so hard about everything while I'm doing it. I know it will get easier as I go, things will become second nature, and I'll just get back in the groove. But today was rough.

And then I had to teach a 3 1/2 hour class.

It was rough. Because my shift at The Restaurant lasted more than two hours longer than I was scheduled, I didn't have time for a nap between shifts. I didn't even have time for the full run through I wanted to do before my first time teaching. Ash was my hero, driving me into the center to pick up the diagnostic test results for the students, then to the wrong campus for the class, then to the right campus for the class (hey, thanks for the crappy directions, person who told me where this class is being held!), while I flipped through my lesson plans and got progressively more upset.

The mistake in direction meant that I was 12 minutes late to the class. Damn. That's such a bad impression, you know? But the students were pretty forthcoming, for the most part, so I didn't have to pull teeth to get some participation. There were two cutups in the back, but they didn't disrupt the class, so I mostly let them be. Several people hadn't bothered to do the reading ahead of time, but they were trying to make up for it, so... alright. Besides, what am I going to do? I just tried to emphasize the fact that the reading isn't just for kicks and that they won't get much out of the sessions if they're trying to figure the concepts out on the fly. It was very difficult to keep the class moving but also make sure that they were all staying with me. I also made several mistakes, but hopefully nothing too major, or at least nothing that will screw with their progress. It was the introductory class, so there was a lot of material to cover in a limited time.

The upshot? I was on my feet from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. My legs and feet and especially my knees are very, very painful right now. I have to be back at The Restaurant by 12, prepared for another detailed quiz on ingredients in a section of the menu. Man, am I tired. I've already had some interesting customers, but it's just too much to even think about writing about them tonight. The person who's training me tomorrow is... one of the more... ummm... fast paced servers. The other day I worked a shift at the same time as he, and you could literally feel the breeze when he passed you at times. I hope I can take it. No, I hope my knees can take it.