Disorientation Meeting

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Disorientation Meeting

Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader,
Thursday, August 10, 2006 – Page 3

“Doh!!” I said to my self, sounding just like Homer Simpson when I remembered what I had forgotten. I had forgotten to remember that I had a meeting to attend. The adrenaline rushed into my bloodstream. Did I miss it, was it this morning already? What if I did miss it, will I be reprimanded? What will the repercussions be?

My anxiety eased, “wait a minute…” I reassured myself. That wasn’t on a Tuesday, it was on a Wednesday- so even if it is this week, I’m pretty sure it’s tomorrow, not this morning. Sure enough, I looked at the calendar in my DayRunner and the meeting was 9-Noon, but it wasn’t Tuesday the 1st. “Whew.”

It’s not always easy being a scatter-brain. I’m not sure what else to call myself. I’ve never been formally diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). As a teacher I’m faced with students every year with ADHA (Attention Deficit & HYPERACTIVITY Disorder) some diagnosed, some not, some treated, some not. I’m definitely not ADHD, even with enough coffee. At worst I may have ADLD (Attention Deficit LETHARGY Disorder- I just made that one up). Whatever you call it, I can remember every Vice President since the Eisenhower administration, but I can’t remember the names of people I live next door to or work everyday for years. I certainly can’t keep track of meetings scheduled months in advance.

I tried reading a book on ADD once, but I couldn’t finish it. (that’s a joke, in case you missed it). After a few years of teaching I did try reading Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” I’d like to think it made me more effective, but it certainly didn’t make me any more efficient, or attentive, focused, organized, linear, proactive, punctual, handy, mechanically inclined… or anything else my wife needed.

Finally we decided I should get organized. That’s when I bought a DayRunner. Only here’s the thing. An organizer is only as organized as the organizer who’d organizing it. So my organizer has my scribbles all over it and is constantly filled with a variety of scraps of paper from Post-It notes to gas receipts. I don’t know what day anything because I’ve got the calendar that came with it, plus a school sports calendar, plus the school-year calendars from Boyer Valley, where I teach, Maple Valley, where my wife teaches, and Charter Oak-Ute, where my kids attend.

It’s got loads of addresses and phone numbers for people I never call or write. It would probably get a lot less beat-up if I only kept things I actually used in my organizer, but then I might not even keep an organizer if I did that. You see, in order to remember things, you have to remember to refer to your organizer. For that matter, you have to remember where you left your organizer. Too often, I’m just not organized enough to be able to keep track of my organizer.

My wife as an electronic organizer. I figure, spending money on a Palm-Pilot or other such PDA would be like buying expensive sunglasses for me. Why pay more than $15 on something that you’re probably going to lose, sit on and break, or drop in a lake? That’s why I look for the $6 pair of sunglasses whenever I can. That way, when the baby bends the frames playing dress-up with her big sisters, I’m only out six bucks. By the way, a PDA is a Personal Data Organizer- I know, how do they get “PDA” out of “PDO?” I don’t know either.

Back to my story. Once I calmed down, I simply planned on attending this meeting. Here’s where it got complicated. I looked all through my briefcase and couldn’t find the email that I had printed out with the specifics. It was to be an orientation for teachers who will be offering dual-credit courses through Iowa Western Community College. Avid readers may remember that I took a course at IWCC in web page design, which Boyer Valley hopes to have me teach to kids.

I couldn’t find the memo anywhere. My anxiety again began to mount. No problem, I thought, I’ll just open the original email message and print it off again. This was about ten-till five in the afternoon. Nope, not in recent messages… hmm… okay, how about “sent” messages, maybe I replied to the email, just to say “thanks, I got it.”

Nope…hmmmm…okay, how about the “trash,” I never empty my trash, just incase I need to un-delete a message that I had mistakenly deleted. Mmmmm-nope. 30 days worth of things I read or deleted without reading, but no original from IWCC.

Okay, okay, this is okay, I knew it was 9-Noon, I’d just try to get there about 8:30 so I could ask around for what building and what room. Okay, problem solved.

So I barely sleep that night.

Once down to the college I try three different offices and two lecture halls in two buildings before somebody figures out that my meeting is Tuesday, August 8th, not Wednesday, August 2nd. That can’t be right, I open my DayRunner to prove that I wrote it down correctly on my calendar, I am ORGANIZED, after all.

And sure enough, Tues, Aug 8.

I didn’t want it to be a complete waste of a trip. So I sat down and wrote this column about it.