The Juggler's Identity

No one cared who I was, until I dropped all the balls...

The Juggler has exited their gig for the night. The frigid air hits their face and a hood comes up over their head. The darkness cloaks their existence. They will reappear at dawn. Please wait.

I am surprised to see you again. I see you renewed your complimentary ticket. Between you and me, I don’t know BIGS. I am already having an identity crisis and I just introduced myself to you. I do not feel as though I have ever known the real BIGS this semester. BIGS was elusive and held my hand once...I think I might have a chance. 

I have entered that point in the semester where balance feels impossible. I’ve been learning how to juggle, with minimum success, and the objects I juggle nearly knock me out when I accidentally drop one. They attack me for letting go. I wish, I could get the pattern right, but once I do, a new ball is added in. But, I’m alright. I think. Don’t mind the knot on my head. 

“The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. If I am willing to look in that mirror and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge— and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject” (Palmer, 2007, pg. 3) 

The problem is, the mirror always breaks. Alright, well, maybe it was already broken once I got up to it. This blog feels a bit like a confession, but also quite weird: 

Maybe they can see it,

I don’t know who I am

My voice is chaotic 

“Hello”

“Hello is the microphone on”? 

You may find this in disarray,

But please stay 

Just give me...five minutes, okay?

I feel my lack of strong identity makes it harder for me to be a good teacher. I am continuing to learn more about the subject by attending classes and reading. I know all of my students names. Yet, I feel I do not know myself well enough to be a good teacher. My hope is that the only place that I will go will be up, in the future, but we shall see what fate has in store for me. 

Teaching has been an enlightening experience, especially COMM 2060. I find elements of performance, especially the vocabulary, sinking deeper into my everyday life. It almost has become a way of breathing for me. It is breathing, but we won’t talk about that as a performance. Of course, the performance in everyday life along with monitoring and dual perspective are always at play for me, but I have begun to be able to more effectively articulate these things. Performance has begun to slowly be something I am interested in beyond the classroom. I recall starting to have some hesitations about it, early on, especially after learning that it was very different from theater. What did that difference mean? Would it mean that I would be ill fit for the work because of that. Would I dislike it? Would performance dislike me? Oh no, had I offended people in my introductions by mentioning my background and interests in The Wicked Witch of the West (Theater)?

Even so, I find my coursework in my performance classes to be engaging and I love to see the crossovers and overlap that exist between COMM 2060, COMM 5560, and COMM 5260. I feel the most excited when I can see things from one course crosspaths with another. It is a small finding, but chips away at a bigger picture that I’d like to hang on my wall.