I bet you didn't know that some people working on their PhDs have lots of money to go to conferences all over the country, did you ? Well, we don't. I have, however, been traveling quite a bit lately--Chicago, San Antonio, and New Orleans in the past two weeks--and my experiences have been those that need to be documented---to you people---so hang on to your hats for this one...
I'll start with my TWILIGHT ZONE of an experience last week coming home from Texas. I was on American Airlines and I tell you what, folks, this was one flight attendant who was READY to end her trips for the week (or her life, I wasn't quite sure). I've been on flights before where they crack a few jokes on the speaker, but it's very rare (I often wonder why this is, actually. If I was on there and had a captive audience, I'd be rollin in the jokes, personally, and they'd all probably be about the people on the plane...but that's a different story). Well, THIS American Airline lady was OVER IT! And I mean over it.
I can imagine that it's got to be tough sometimes: people ringing the damned bell when they know the flight attendants damn well don't want to do anything for them but mask it as "the captain has requested that we remain in our seats because there might be turbulence" statements; people not buckling up; stuff not being stored correctly; fat arms and legs hanging over arm chairs when they're trying to deliver drinks and the cart rams into you; crying babies; drunks; old (and young) dirty men hitting on you all the time...it's not the job for me....BUT as I tell those who are burned out in the classroom, if you're over it, get another job. Don't freakin' take it out on me....
SO, the lady comes on the mic and starts out with, "I can't start the safety talk until everyone has buckled their seat belts." and she pauses....but she's still holding down the clicker thing, so we can hear her breathing and angry. No greeting. No, "Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to flight 765 going to Atlanta." Nope, instead, we hear again: "I WON'T start the safety talk until everyone has buckled their seat belts." More dramatic pause over the mic with angry breathing. No one could see this omniscient voice, but we could ALL visualize her staring the look of the devil into this poor soul who was obviously sitting somewhere near her and had NO CLUE that his seat belt was undone (I chose a male pronoun here, because we girls follow the rules and do what we're told...for the most part....Stacey Brown....). Finally, she says ON the mic, "You need to buckle your seat belt. You're holding up this flight. We will not taxi until EVERYONE's seat belts are buckled." I thought, well, here we go. I'm never coming off this flight alive. She'll have me for dinner.
It's one of those moments that reminded me of classroom when we teachers do ridiculous things because we're over-tired and pissed that we have to give standardized tests, and we don't get paid enough, and we've just had it out with our principal, and some kid in the next class takes out the wrong book or crosses his feat the wrong way and we GO OFF and say something dumb like, "Well, we're ALL waiting on YOU...." and then just stand there and stare at them like we could shoot laser beams and burn holes in their heads...then we wait so long, the other kids start whispering, "Man, come on, dude, put it away" because they fear for their classmates life....and nothing's really happened. The kid hasn't done anything wrong except come to our class that day....yeah, it was kind of like that....
The rest of the talks over the mic were frequent and scary. She would explain something we had all heard a million times, but then she'd say, "I know you all think you don't have to watch us demonstrate because you think you've heard and seen this a million times, but would it hurt to take three minutes and stop what you're doing and show us that you appreciate what we do for a living? If you think you can do that." Then she'd say stuff like, "We're about to bring the drink cart down the isle. For those of you who think that you can still put your arms, hands or feet out in the aisle because this doesn't apply to you, we'll simply run the cart into you so you will know it applies." I was CRACKING UP by now. The weird thing was, as I looked around for others to laugh with me, no one in my area was laughing, smiling, or even--it seemed as she said----paying attention. (insert Twilight Zone theme music here)
The lady barked on the whole flight. At one point, about five seconds after the captain turned on the seat belt sign, she got on and said, "I imagine some of you saw and heard the signal that the captain has just turned on the seat belt sign; for those of you who got up right after it came on, you were either ignoring it like half of you do, or you weren't paying attention, like the other half of you do." Oh, and then when she told us we had to turn off our electronics--this was a good one-- she said, "In preparation for landing, please turn off all electronics. This means that you actually stop listening to your iPods, stop playing your games, stop typing on your laptops, and you take your finger and either poke the button "off," click a switch, shut a lid, or push stop on your iPods..." and some other stuff I can't remember now. It was a hoot! She kept me laughing the whole flight. The best part was the obnoxious twenty-something next to me who had three beers in our hour and a half flight and got up to go to the bathroom EVERY TIME the seat belt sign came on. Too much!
Part Two:
I went to New Orleans on Thursday with the team I'm on from the business school (the MBA guys) whom I went with to San Fran last month, because we were in a competition at Tulane with our charter school plan. We were competing in the not-for-profit track for ten thousand dollars. Now, in education, we all go, "Ooooooohhhhh, ten thoooouuuuuuussssaaaaannnnnddddd dollars..." but in the business world, they go, "Oh, just ten grand?" One of the other teams that came with us from UGA just won FIFTY thousand last week at a competition--and they're starting a roach killing company. Go figure...
So I'm the fifth on a team with four other guys: our team leader went to New Orleans the day before us to interview for some job, and I was on the same flight as one other team member. In the airport when we walked up to our gate, we saw another team member who missed his flight that morning and was trying to get on ours. We walked up to him to chat, and as the three of us stood talking, this man in his late sixties/early seventies with greasy gray hair--a bit mullet-ed in the back and bald in the front, about 5'9 and 200 pounds, wearing a pair of Docker-looking khakis up to his chest with a tucked-in short sleeved shirt, stood up and invaded my space as I was talking. He stood about two inches from me and started in on our conversation. His teeth were about the color of mustard and he mumbled incessantly about this and that, piping in here and there about my seat on the plane and if I was on this flight or the next. It was SO weird. Creepy mustard-teeth man!
I climb on board and guess who I'm in the middle of? I'll give you 8 chances. OK, not really. It was the creepy mustard-teeth man who space invaded. I was in between him and another rather large guy who was very friendly. As I sat down, the creepy old man started talking away about something related to me, so I assumed he had been chatting with our other team member since he missed his flight and that was why he knew some stuff about what we were going to New Orleans for. Thankfully, as we started to taxi (with a nice flight attendant who wasn't angry at the passengers on the plane) the old man conked out for the flight. Or, maybe not-so-thankfully, as it turns out. If any of you remember the old school cartoons when the rooster or Elmer or someone would snore and suck things up while he was snoring, that's just a pinkie nail's worth of this man's roar. It was so loud and startling that it would actually make me jump when it came out.
At one point, I looked over to the guy on my other side and he was holding his Bible down tightly on his tray. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "I'm holding it down because I'm afraid he's going to suck it up in a minute." I then told him to make sure I was in my seat at the end of the flight because he might suck me up, too.
Good thing our flight was only an hour. When we landed, the old creepy man got his bag and seemed to be WAITING for me as we got off the plane. I was utterly confused. As I stood waiting for the other team member, the old man told me that we were the only three on this flight from our school and that it shouldn't be that expensive to get cabs and what-not...all in this really weird way of speaking---kind of mumbling to himself, but talking to me, but grunting loudly and clearing his throat and sinuses ALL at the same time. When the other member joined us and we started walking, everything started coming together. I mouthed to the other member, "Who is that?" and he told me that it was their professor from the business school who was coming to the competition. THANK GOD---maybe... this dude has a degree in theoretical physics, was supposed to go study under Einstein at Princeton (?) for his masters, but Einstein died that year, so he ended up at Harvard where he completed an MBA as well as a PhD--one in business, one in physics. If that gives you ANY clue to his social capabilities.
So I just had one of the most well renowned MBA professors in the country falling on me while he was sleeping (I forgot to tell you, as he would doze off, he would fall to his right...which was basically on my shoulder...) and almost snort me up into his nasal passage.
Long story longer...that dude was WEIRD, but AWESOME and brilliant, so I loved talking to him for a few days....
AND our team WON!
We won first place with our charter school business plan and won TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!
I'm exhausted. I have more to write, but I've now typed myself into needing nap because of just returning from our big win two hours ago. The business world amazes me. The money that flows freely simply makes me sick to my stomach. But I am going to figure out a way to fuse the business world with the education world without having them try to make any decisions; just give us money. I think I can do it. I started the process last night at the awards cocktail hour.
I hope all of you are well. Cheers to the last week of classes during my first year of college!
HEH
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