3 to 5 Minutes
I sit in trepidation. Have been all year, or at least the last quarter. Sitting for weeks knowing it was coming. Leading all up to this. For nothing but a few moments I've been commanded to endure. Same as its ever been. You'd think by now I'd be used to it, even skilled. Done it too many times now, so many points prepared and rehearsed. A man can get good at anything after all. Like skydiving or jumping off a cliff. Things that strike terror in most people embraced by those whose joy comes from nearly dying. But this, somehow, is different. Stood apart as the thing most abominable; a fear even surpassing death. Something that requires no real danger, no chance of physical harm. Only your nerves are at stake, your status in the eyes of others. What fragile arrogance. Please like me. I'd rather you kill me than not like me.
So I sit. That morning I remembered to bring a shirt reserved for special occasions and wear pants with a modicum of formality. The bare minimum required. It is a costume worn for a grade. Business casual. I scoff but it does make a difference, however psychosomatic. I am shielded in my collared armor with its buttons and tucked-in shirt tails. The instructor starts speaking and asking for volunteers. He jokes and calls them victims. I'm already sweating. Blood pressure precipitating. He's steady-spoken, calm, and eloquent. Good, but not the best I've had. Still, he has the oratorical comfort that all (capable) teachers posses. The kind that a person who chooses to do this for a living has or develops by necessity. A job definitively not for me or one I can even understand. I know it's simple, in a sense universal. But the reality of it as a profession. To be judged to your core at every turn, by every face. Everything about you picked apart and weighed in mind and in voice. How you talk, dress, move. Your habits, your skillset. All of what you are under scrutiny and persecution by a revolving choir of skeptics. A seat of power in which the student, not the teacher, sits. To pass, to be liked is to be allowed to mold and prod willingly; the contractual strings forgotten and the exchange accepted like an eager participant at a magic show. But if you come up short they will rue every moment they share with you. Mocked and scorned. I know because I've done it. My grade is on the line you see. Not to mention an obscene amount of money.
Time quickly gets away. One after another raises their hand and jumps head long into the stage. All eyes on them. I wonder how nervous they are. Try to gauge it, ambiguous as it may be. A stutter in their cadence, how natural the diction and body language is. An anthropological study. I can't be the only one, surely. But many appear effortless, even enjoyable. That is not what I feel now. The practiced lines and the clinging structure to them run through my head. Memorize the points, check them off, say and show what needs conveyance then finish. Not too fast, not too slow. Overthinking. Just raise your hand and get it over with. Like a shot. Think of the relief when it's over. Another hurdle behind you, one of the last. And after much anxious tumult I eventually do. Next among the final handful of contestants, all bating down to the wire. It's late into the night, eight or eight-thirty. A wise move, I surmise. Everyone will be too tired and bored to care about my performance. Not that they would anyway.
I stand and explain myself to the instructor, a placid and forgiving man. I cue up what I'm to present and use the keyboard and monitor like stationary props. More barriers to comfort me. I start into the dialogue. My name, which many don't know, my subject matter. The disinterest is palpable. First point, first vacant image on the projector. I'm conscious to measure my cadence but it's still going too fast. It feels awkward to say. No looseness to it, no veil of false improvisation. My mouth gets drier as I trundle along. I have to smack my lips like an old man, like my father does. Second point, third. I feel greasy. My forehead shimmering in the florescent wash. They see the seams, I know. There's not much else to see. But I feel as though I tried to prepare and when it's over I'm able to sit down again and be satisfied, if only because it's done. Later I discover it was indeed my last bout with involuntary scholastic presentation. Maybe my last ever. Maybe, but probably not. Such odious tasks seem to necessitate themselves every so often, sometimes when you least expect them. What we hate and fear is so much of what we're forced to do. Against our will the glass refuge gets violated and broken and what is left is in our hands to rebuild and fashion as we please. Mine's restored and I sit ensconced in it once again. But its walls might be a little thinner now; a little more easily shattered and a little less painful when they are.
So I sit. That morning I remembered to bring a shirt reserved for special occasions and wear pants with a modicum of formality. The bare minimum required. It is a costume worn for a grade. Business casual. I scoff but it does make a difference, however psychosomatic. I am shielded in my collared armor with its buttons and tucked-in shirt tails. The instructor starts speaking and asking for volunteers. He jokes and calls them victims. I'm already sweating. Blood pressure precipitating. He's steady-spoken, calm, and eloquent. Good, but not the best I've had. Still, he has the oratorical comfort that all (capable) teachers posses. The kind that a person who chooses to do this for a living has or develops by necessity. A job definitively not for me or one I can even understand. I know it's simple, in a sense universal. But the reality of it as a profession. To be judged to your core at every turn, by every face. Everything about you picked apart and weighed in mind and in voice. How you talk, dress, move. Your habits, your skillset. All of what you are under scrutiny and persecution by a revolving choir of skeptics. A seat of power in which the student, not the teacher, sits. To pass, to be liked is to be allowed to mold and prod willingly; the contractual strings forgotten and the exchange accepted like an eager participant at a magic show. But if you come up short they will rue every moment they share with you. Mocked and scorned. I know because I've done it. My grade is on the line you see. Not to mention an obscene amount of money.
Time quickly gets away. One after another raises their hand and jumps head long into the stage. All eyes on them. I wonder how nervous they are. Try to gauge it, ambiguous as it may be. A stutter in their cadence, how natural the diction and body language is. An anthropological study. I can't be the only one, surely. But many appear effortless, even enjoyable. That is not what I feel now. The practiced lines and the clinging structure to them run through my head. Memorize the points, check them off, say and show what needs conveyance then finish. Not too fast, not too slow. Overthinking. Just raise your hand and get it over with. Like a shot. Think of the relief when it's over. Another hurdle behind you, one of the last. And after much anxious tumult I eventually do. Next among the final handful of contestants, all bating down to the wire. It's late into the night, eight or eight-thirty. A wise move, I surmise. Everyone will be too tired and bored to care about my performance. Not that they would anyway.
I stand and explain myself to the instructor, a placid and forgiving man. I cue up what I'm to present and use the keyboard and monitor like stationary props. More barriers to comfort me. I start into the dialogue. My name, which many don't know, my subject matter. The disinterest is palpable. First point, first vacant image on the projector. I'm conscious to measure my cadence but it's still going too fast. It feels awkward to say. No looseness to it, no veil of false improvisation. My mouth gets drier as I trundle along. I have to smack my lips like an old man, like my father does. Second point, third. I feel greasy. My forehead shimmering in the florescent wash. They see the seams, I know. There's not much else to see. But I feel as though I tried to prepare and when it's over I'm able to sit down again and be satisfied, if only because it's done. Later I discover it was indeed my last bout with involuntary scholastic presentation. Maybe my last ever. Maybe, but probably not. Such odious tasks seem to necessitate themselves every so often, sometimes when you least expect them. What we hate and fear is so much of what we're forced to do. Against our will the glass refuge gets violated and broken and what is left is in our hands to rebuild and fashion as we please. Mine's restored and I sit ensconced in it once again. But its walls might be a little thinner now; a little more easily shattered and a little less painful when they are.
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