J! Dust Settles & More Kicks Up

Phew! Glad that's over. Well, sort of. At the very least, it's good to finally be able to talk about most of my Jeopardy! experience. After tonight's game, almost all of the cats will be out of the bag and we can watch the Finals without too much fear of spoiling. By Friday the 13th, it will all be over. Ominous, huh?

There's not too much I can say about my Semis game only that I went all out, taking far more risks and waaaay over-thinking that FDR question. I'm also hoping none of my Quebecois brethren will disown me for not recognizing Old MTL. Eric threw me when he answered Saint Petersburg. As for Rock of Ages, well, I knew it wasn't the right answer. My boiling hatred for that show is an inside joke between me and Andy, so that was my way to shout out to him. He had been sitting in the audience going on multiple hours for the second day in a row and he deserved a chuckle.

At lunch today, I was scrolling through some comments on the J! Facebook page. I stuck to posts connected to my games and just wanted to get a sense of what folks were saying about our match-ups (and, okay, me). No one will ever encourage the matinee idol response that my pal Colin O'Grady summoned from the female (and male, actually) viewers. Adam's animated reactions, Jay's cool character and "Detroit Lean" on the podium, and Lydia with the one-two punch of brains and beauty were also memorable players who got big reactions from the viewers. One woman had nothing good to say about any of the folks in my Quarterfinal game (Adam, Jay, and I). Her feedback for me was that I was too silly, with all of my "jumping and jiggling." In her mind, this made me a lousy teacher. Another viewer commented and he went to the other two players' defenses but not mine. He agreed that I shouldn't have carried on so and vaguely connected it to my abilities as an educator and the inappropriateness of being boisterous in the classroom.

I have a thick skin, so I am not going to shed any tears or lose sleep over two people's assessments of my entire persona based on 19 minutes of my life as filmed on a national TV game show. What it did get me thinking about was how many people in America feel this way? How many people proffer such baseless ridicule? What percentage of people in this country really have no idea what it means to work with children? Does anyone realize how important joy is in doing that work? A feeling person could argue that, for kids (and adults), going somewhere to be happy and feel safe for seven hours a day is better than going somewhere to take tests under the thumb of some heartless battleaxe for seven hours a day.

When I think about some of the students who have passed through my transom, even in the six short years since I have been working in schools and with children, I can think of many young souls who could use a silly adult in their life, some laughter, a bit of joy. If I am the person who does that for them, if I am the light in their day because I jump and jiggle, then so be it. I won't ever stop being that person and I don't much care if someone thinks that there's no place for a big grin and some exploding fist bumps in the classroom because I know different.

These internet trolls sound like they could use someone jumping and jiggling in their lives and the irony of it all is that, if they knew me behind the scenes, as some of you do, they would know that I am not a feckless nitwit who fritters away her time giggling and smearing a big, dopey grin across her face as she jumps and jiggles around. I'm pretty serious, I'm pretty quiet, and I don't really like to make a big scene. When I am happy, though, I smile and laugh. Being on TV to fulfill my lifelong dream and teaching kids are things that make me happy.

So sue me. I'm going to keep jigglin'.