Humiliation

The bittersweet taste.

Perhaps it is nothing, and I'm reading too much into it. But the online class I teach has been having low attendance lately. I can't help wondering if it's something I've done or not done.

I dearly want to be a good teacher. I'm ok being a poor teacher on the journey to that. But being a poor teacher who is not even told they are a poor teacher is worse. If I know what I'm doing wrong, I can change it. But when nobody tells me what's wrong and how I can improve, It makes things a lot more difficult.

I know, from studying learning, that the best way to get better is to practice in a carefully thought out and structured way, practice a lot, and get immediate feedback. Learning to teach this online values and morality class, There is no carefully structured training curriculum (and even if there was I'd have zero time for it in addition to my Masters degree), I don't get to practice that much, and I get little to no feedback, except that which I collect myself, which is obviously biased and untrustworthy, since I'm not a mind reader.

But humiliation is a bittersweet taste, not purely bitter. It reminds me that I still have attachment and ego left to deal with, and it means I have something I can be learning, if I choose to humble myself and learn it.


In other news, I'm trying for the second time to get a Nadi Leaf reading via Skype tomorrow morning. Last week, I waited 4 hours, after calling twice to check on what was going on, and with my third call discovered that they had left the office. Needless to say I was quite angry. And felt disrespected. More bittersweet flavor to my life. We will see if they actually call tomorrow, and how late they are. And we will see if they have anything remarkable to say. I googled my own name to make sure they're not just doing the same and feeding me that information. Also, I'm not getting my hopes up. I got my hopes up the first time. Now I'm just bracing for a second disappointment.

I can't afford to be disappointed, or get hung up on something. I have work to do. And I've already gotten one bum Nadi leaf reading, that I should have been more discriminating about during the process and called them out. I think I can safely say that reading has turned out to be totally inaccurate in any predictive way, now that I've had a few years to look back on it. But I likely could have called it halfway through. And should have, and then demanded my money back.

Well, you'll get the skinny one way or another next time, if I remember.