Sparta's Fortunate Break, My Unfortunate Fall

So I am recovering from a fall I took last week where I inured my leg, elbow and ego. I tripped in front of the class. It wasn’t a little shoe scuffle either, it was a full fledge, limbs flying through the air, thud producing trip. It was mortifying.

We were in the middle of our third Olympic event, which I called “Olympic Trivia”. It acted as a group comprehension assessment of a couple of articles we read earlier in the week. The class was broken up in their city-states and in different sections of the room. I asked the class 15 questions and they worked together quietly as to not give away answers to neighboring city-states.

When I asked the seventh question, “Pheidippides ran the first marathon from the city Marathon to which neighboring city-state?” I realized that an extra copy of the Pheidippides article was sitting on my desk across the room, which at the time, was acting as Sparta and was hosting the Spartan Olympic Team. I watched to see if the Spartans realized the answer was next to them. As soon as I saw Walter’s eyes migrate in the direction of the article, I panicked. I yelled, “Walter, don’t look!” as I started to walk frantically in his direction. He smirked because he knew he stumbled upon Olympic Gold so I picked up the pace on my power walk.

The next thing I know, I am on my knees, slumped over a chair and the room is silent. I slowly looked myself over and then turned to look around the room. All of their eyes were on me and for once, it wasn’t because I was begging and pleading or clapping or dancing or some other type of refocusing technique. They just looked horrified.

I slowly stood up. I needed to use the chair to support my trembling knees. Apparently, the force of my trip propelled the chair into the wall resulting in a small hole through the plaster/dry wall. The whole in the wall managed to make me even more embarrassed. I finally said something to the class, “Oh jeeze. That sucked.” I am sure that using the word “sucked” is entirely in appropriate, but I was still in shock. I am lucky I didn’t curse!

I knew I had to let them react, because I am sure the act of tripping itself looked entirely goofy. So I also told them that I was alright and I gave them an opportunity to laugh. **On a personal note, I am one of those people that can’t help but laugh when someone else trips, but absolutely HATES it when others laugh when I trip. I realize this is entirely hypocritical but it is the way it is. So, I let them laugh because I knew I had to, but I was also completely uncomfortable for just about every second of their laughing fit.**

I was anxious to move on, so we refocused and continued with our Olympic Event. While reading question nine, “Nancy Bobofit threw pieces of her sandwich at Grover on the bus on the way to the MET. Name the two ingredients in Nancy Bobofit’s sandwich.” (from The Lightning Thief), one student raised their hand and said, “Um, Teacher Eve, I think you might be bleeding,” and she pointed to my elbow. Blood had soaked through my sweater. I guess I had been so anxious to end the moment, I hadn’t actually noticed if I was injured.

Looking back, I should have just let Walter use the article. I mean, he and his teammates were representing Sparta and out of all the city-states, they were the only ones willing to steal, cheat and lie to win. It just would have added to their team character.