Comfort Zones

I went to the Fantasy Football Draft today after training.  I had a couple of my wonderful work brothers on my side, and they promised to kick me under the table if I did anything overly dumb; I was nervous about being perceived as "just a girl" at the all-boy draft.  My shins escaped unscathed, so I suppose I did okay.

I don't typically join activities where I could lose or fail due to a lack of preparation or information, so I was a little hesitant to join. Looking foolish is one of my biggest fears.  But the chance to gloat week-to-week was too fun to pass up.

Also, I completely (and cartoonishly) fell down in our training session today in front of a large group of strangers.  Flip-flops and balloon bounce combine to create near catastrophe.  So, I figured things couldn't be that much worse.

Tomorrow, I'll present (along with a fellow teacher) a session on integrating technology into the English classroom to other teachers in the district.  Speaking in front of a room full of other well-informed and highly-educated adults gives me the sweaty palms, so I'm not sure how well I'll sleep tonight.

But I'm willing to step outside my comfort zone in order to represent my school, I suppose.  I want our district to be accepting -- maybe even slightly impressed -- at what my school is working so hard to do.  This is the hard part about comfort zones.  They're really, really comfortable and therefore difficult to leave.

Two days... two opportunities to face my fears.

At this rate, I could be tandem skydiving with a circus clown straight into a tattoo parlor by Friday.