At
one stage I had to connect my laptop to the power supply; which forms part of
my daily routine. Today, while I was
bending over to enable the connection, the pressure was way too much for my
suit pants. Within seconds the empty
lecture room echoed that familiar, embarrassing, tearing pants sound and I felt
a mild breeze almost instantly.
I
started laughing uncontrollably with my elbows on my thighs in an attempt to maintain
my balance. The laughter paralysed my
movement for a few seconds, which felt like an entirety. Eventually,
I regained my composure, just in-time, because the students were slowly
entering the room.
My
spontaneous reaction, to my surprise, was to share the embarrassing moment with
my students; their reaction after sharing, can only be described as unexpected. After a quick chuckle they gave me permission
to keep my jacket on; the lecture continued without any further wardrobe
malfunctions. So, the incident did not
consume any unnecessary energy or possible stress of the underwear becoming
outerwear.
The
flipchart activities where carefully planned to avoid movements where my back
is turned towards the students. Nogal
effortless!
Instead
of over-reacting by elevating the incident into a crises, my decision to be
upfront with the students, affirmed what we all knew; incidents such as this, occur
almost every day; most importantly, it is not such a big deal. Honesty has no substitute…
Eight
years ago my reaction would have been different…
If
someone asked me today how are you doing, my response in Afrikaans would have
been: “dit gaan broekskeer”.
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