Today marks my last week of summer employment. As I sit in my wheelie teacher chair that is not actually my own at summer school monitoring my one student I contemplate that the summer is pretty much over.
He's taking a test. He's fine.
A week from today I will be enjoying my last bits of summer freedom in The Big Apple. As a treat to myself and the hectic summer I signed myself up for with summer school tutoring and trying to haphazardly string together a novel, I enrolled myself in a UCB improv class in New York City.
Treat yo'self.
UCB, Upright Citizen's Brigade, the comedy school brain child of Amy Poehler and home to the world's best comedians, is the stuff of legends.
It's the big deal, the trifecta; Emerald City, if you will.
And like Dorothy, perpetually confused but always fashionable, I will be trying my hand at the big leagues. During this week long intensive course I will be testing my improv chops with the best of the best. Or at least the best ones who could afford to be here. I myself can't actually afford to be here.
Thanks, Mom and Dad, I owe you like a thousand dollars. But really. I'm sorry I'm so poor. But have faith. My degree is being put to good use, I promise.
The class includes five days jam-packed with improv theory, training, and a final performance on Saturday to showcase how awesome we'll all be at improv. I mean some of us, present company included, are already awesome at it.
But we'll get awesome...er.
But no matter how awesomely awesome this New York trip will be for me, I can't help but feel like my summer is over. As I sit now in my sweaty and filthy bedroom and listen to Lana Del Rey's Summertime Sadness, I question what became of the months of March, April, May, and June.
Seriously. What became of them?
My guess is that they're sitting in some hipster coffee shop that moonlights as a puppet theater trying to avoid humanity. I can't make this stuff up. I actually had a kiddie scoop of gelato yesterday at a small Denver coffee shop that closed at 3pm for a children's puppet show. Who knew things like this even existed?
You're drunk, Denver. Go home. Anyway.
I'll never know what became of the spring or much of the summer, but I do know this:
A storm is coming.
The tidal wave that is the coming school year will soon hit the mainland and I will likely find myself clutching to my deflated life rafts and arm floaties. I have a confession. I can't really swim all that well.
My mother tried relentlessly every summer of my childhood to get me into swimming lessons and I always ended up shivering and crying in the pool and pissing off my instructor. I mean don't get me wrong, if put in a situation where I was forced to swim for my life I would certainly put up a good fight.
But I would also be the first one to die.
You know, like in those survival movies. It's usually the character that everyone loves the most, too. The endearing map expert. The hopeful youth with a gal back home. Yeah, I'd definitely die first.
I use this hilarious and all-too-real metaphor because teaching is a lot like swimming for your life in shark invested waters. Especially in your first year. No one can really prepare you for the shit-storm, you just gotta' kick and hope yuh don't feel something graze your foot.
Speaking of those majestic creatures, excuse me I have a date with my television set to binge on Shark Week programs for the rest of the evening.
Ta!
