Word Fits

Today while my APUSH buddy and I were working on cleaning up and organizing our game plan for next year, he said the most true thing ever. Before I explain, let me give you some back story...some broader context, if you will. That was incredibly nerdy, even for me. I still like it, though.

So we were talking about Natives and how one particular group, the Iroquois, were very opportunistic as a means of survival. They sided with whatever settlers were going to be the most useful to them. The problem is that we were putting together bullet points on slide so we needed to be succinct. He says, "So what I want to say is..." and proceeds to launch into this incredibly detailed and fascinating overview of the gist of what he wants to say and the points he wants to convey. It goes for a long time. A really long time. I'm doing a good job not laughing because...I get it, man. I get caught up in stories or random pieces of knowledge and I just GO, especially if I have a captive audience. So, he's still going and going and finally he says, "You know...but shorter."

Y'all, I burst out laughing and said, "Sooooo, self-preservation?" and he said, "Yes. That's much shorter. I think I just had a word fit." I looked at him, puzzled, and he went on to explain that it was from some Lonesome Dove prequel and basically it was a term that was used when someone went on an impromptu monologue, and I felt that because I word fit ALL.THE.TIME. (You know, like on blog posts.)

Once again, we got a ton of work done in a few short hours but what I think I enjoy the most is that we talk about other stuff, too. We go off on tangents and wind up telling stories about other stuff and the end result is that I learn a lot and understand him a lot more. I think it's like that for all people but they have to let you in and it took a long ass time for him to let me in.

We agreed to take tomorrow off and then resume working on Thursday and Friday and, ideally, we should be done in about a week or so. By the end of next week, we should be at least through the vast majority of the curriculum. It already feels like we've been "off" for so long that we should be back on the planning wagon. And, hearing him talk about how he was thrown into the APUSH ring, I was hit with the realization that I was him this year and he was his "veteran" teacher...and then he got it. It was a moment.

Speaking of moments, my blue-eyed boy claims he's coming over next week and that makes me happy. He hasn't been over since January because precautionary measures. I'm beyond excited to see him and I hope my brown-eyed boy is able to make an appearance, too. It's been a long time since we've all been together and my mama heart could use a refill.

Aubs