From Hostage to Jedi · 17 October 2020
I hope that a new blog post about transforming from hostage to Jedi is evidence enough of my existence.
(By the way, what happens at school does not necessarily stay at school. But not to worry, I rarely mention names. And my stories are usually innocuous. And sometimes even entertaining. Oh. You might want to read the post called Move If You Are Alive to get a little context.)
The other day, I went from hostage to myth to something like the Jesus and the Holy Spirit to a hologram to a Jedi to a con man then back to a Jedi. Oh yeah. And the new person on staff said that she did not have enough evidence to know that I am real person to begin with. Like I already said, I hope this blog post is enough evidence to prove my existence. Even if people still think I am a hostage.
I am sure that I have said it several times, but I love my job. And I love the people I work with. I even love that they show their love to me by teasing me. Which brings me to my story.
Teaching can be a lonely profession under normal circumstances, but not seeing our colleagues on a daily basis makes it even lonelier. Some people are teaching from their computers at school. Some people are teaching from their computers at home. But everybody is by themselves. So we need something to keep us together while we are apart. And sometimes we need a distraction to keep up morale.
Which is where I come in. Or at least where I came in the other day.
If you read about the way I attend staff meetings, you know that one of my colleagues said that I looked like I must be a hostage in some bleak lonely room someplace. He said the other day that maybe it was Gitmo or some other godforsaken place. Somebody else said that the hostage takers must have good internet because my feed has been pretty good. Then, it started to digress.
Somehow I got to be a myth. Yes. A myth. Somebody akin to Santa Claus. All good and nice. Giving Cs to all. Or something like that. Well, I must admit that I added fuel to the fire. I made an obscure reference to The Muppet Movie, that surely only a few would get so I sent a link to the clip. Okay. Maybe it was not so much fuel as permission (as if our staff needs permission to pipe in about me). Everybody seemed to chime in about who or what I am.
Somebody said that me being a myth was not exactly right. “Miyoshi is more like a consciousness. I even have a wrist band with the letters WWMD, which helps me stay on course.” Or something like that. I liked the comparison. More a combo of Jesus and the Holy Spirit than myth or legend.
Then came the hologram. No myth. No spirit. Just a hologram. That reference came with a picture of Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi watching the hologram of Princess Leia asking for help. I had to take exception to that one too. Not only was I now a hologram, but I was Princess Leia! Oh the insanity.
But a couple others saw the hologram a different way. They likened me to a Jedi. Obi-Wan Miyoshi. “Obi-Wan, I haven’t heard that name in years.” I felt much better. Me. A Jedi. Imagine that.
Of course, I probably should have heard Darth Vader’s voice saying, “But you are not a Jedi yet.” After all, the next person called me a con man. Apparently I have been setting people up for the long con just to disappear. I am not sure what long con I have been trying to perpetrate, but apparently I have been doing it, and am ready to disappear without a trace. The funny thing is that I had conversation on a different day about the imposter syndrome. The imposter syndrome is where an individual does not believe he or she has the requisite skills to perform his or her job. Individuals suffering from the imposter syndrome are always wondering when people will find out they are imposters and get rid of them. I suppose that the long con was impersonating a mediocre teacher.
Well, I am happy to say that the email thread ended on a positive note. I returned to being a Jedi. However, it was not the happiest thought. After all, the thread went full circle. I was a Jedi hostage. “We don’t need to pay the ransom because if they strike him down, he will return more powerful than he was before.” Full circle indeed.
I hope that this blog post is enough evidence to prove that I exist. And I hope that it has brought a little sunshine and hope and morale to an isolated group of educators trying to do the best they can in a crazy situation.
(Now I can get back to living the life of a kidnapped mythical Jedi spirit.)
© 2020 Michael T. Miyoshi
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