I got slimed out by my psych teacher today
I seem to be a bystander in my life, watching everything fly by through my eye holes with a sense of constant exhaustion. The night before, my leg started aching painfully. It's odd--Usually, I don't experience anything like it. I fell asleep at 11:30 and woke up at 7:07. In a subconscious state, I was already questioning whether I should skip my first period for another thirty minutes of sleep.
I decided against it and rushed out the door and had my breakfast to-go style. Surprisingly, my low-sleep delirium made my sense of humor spike. I was cracking jokes with my friends left and right; whatever senior sadness I had was being mitigated by living in the present. However, I did accidentally interrupt the teacher once.
We talked about nothing in particular in class--senior thesis research proposals, our character presentations, etc. Then, we went outside. It looked quite beautiful, so I grabbed my tiny digicam and headed out with the class. The weather was much better this morning, a cool 84 compared to the usual 95 in the south.
Perhaps it was my burst of desire for living in the present and appreciating Senior year, but I felt especially motivated to take photos of all of my friends and the beautiful trees that morning. For context, my school has a phone ban. I didn't think the ban expanded to all electronic devices, such as cameras, since cameras have no game function or major distractive appeal.
The initial part of the exercise was walking around aimlessly--wherever you'd like to go in the parking lot connected to lawn and trees. I walked with my friends, taking photos to capture the moment and look back on them later. After taking a photo, I noticed that my teacher gestured to me with some sort of hand motion and noise. I assumed that he wanted me to focus on the walking exercise.
However, as my friend Josh and I walked, I took a photo for him near the edge of the parking lot.
My teacher called out, "Z, put the camera away."
I put it away as he instructed and completed the rest of the exercise which involved clapping, walking, and stopping. A sort of Simon says game. I felt a bit sad that he got onto me a bit, but I didn't think much of it and asked my friend to put my camera in his pockets because I didn't have any.
When we were returning to the classroom, I asked my friend to give me the camera back and I teased him a little. When I got it back and wanted to check the pictures, my teacher asked me to stay behind.
I joked to my friend about me being cooked, which in retrospect was not a great idea.
My teacher said, "It is disrespectful not to do something after I've asked you to do it."
I stared blankly, meeting his eyes, "Okay"
"You should not be taking photos in school anyway."
"Okay"
"Don't share those photos."
"Okay."
This conversation happened while the rest of the class was walking in, and it was slightly embarrassing. This haunted me for the rest of the day until now. I quite literally replayed this at least a dozen times in my head.
My friend who pocketed the camera knew that I might be feeling a bit down after that, so he walked with me a bit longer to class than he usually does and made me laugh. I noticed--he's really sweet and I truly appreciate the little things my friends do for me.
I feel better now that I have typed the event down.
To be honest, what happened happened. I won't pull out my camera again in his class. That's all there is to it. It felt quite bad when he got onto me, and I tried my best not to let it ruin my day, but I can't seem to quiet my mind.
This will not matter to me in 5 years, in fact, most people in my class probably don't care either. My friends know that I'm not intentionally disrespectful, and one event does not mean that I have to prove myself for some reason. I am still the same person I was before the event, still (I would like to say) kind, open minded, smiley, and intelligent.
This event does not make me less than who I was before, and I can't change the past. The best I can do is not pull the camera out moving forward.