River Brown

It is the day before I deliver a PD to a group of about 30 teachers.  It is raining outside, pouring hard so that I can hear thousands of raindrops hitting the window and creating that sound that we readers love: it is time to curl up in bed or on a corner of the sofa and read a book…

But I will not have such pleasure today.  My stomach is lurching, refusing food because it is the day before I deliver a PD.  My head hurts from the anxiety that my stomach continuously spouts like a broken fire hydrant.  I am restless, unable to just sit and relax to be calm to be at peace because it is the day before I deliver a PD.  My eyes already yearn to close to sleep to rest, but my eyes will have none of that, they already know this.  I will stay up late, I will read, I will write, I will fine tune the PPT until I feel that it is “good” enough.  Because it is the day before I deliver a PD.

The difference between today and all the other days that I went through just before delivering a PD is because I finally know what causes all that discomfort.  It is not because I hate delivering PD – no, that is not true.  There is something about it that is exhilarating, that fires me up, that gets my heart pumping.  It is like a moment where you must give the best that you can and that moment is short so you have to give yourself to it.

It is not the amount of participants.  All the pairs of eyes looking at me and that special group of teachers that must be present at any PD, that group that sits in the back, arms crossed, huffing and puffing with the might to BLOOOOOWWWW your house of sticks down, no it is not that which causes this torture the day before a PD.

Surprise! It is the fact that I will not settle for being just an inch ahead of my audience, I must be a mile in front.  I expect myself to know the content better than I know myself.  I demand that I stay up until I have learned as much as I can about the crumbs of the topic that I will present because I will not be satisfied with only knowing about the crust.  I over read, over prepare, over work simply to feel confident that I can stand in front of a group of my peers and know what the hell I am talking about.  And even after all that preparation that keeps me burning the midnight oil, I still have the humility to stand in front and to respond with, “Let me get back to you on that as I want to make sure that I get the best response to you,” when I am asked a question to which I don’t feel comfortable answering. TAH-DAH! There it is, that is why I feel like vomiting on the day before delivering a PD.