'Special circumstances'

I have to smile when I think about something that happened in my class, one day last year. As usual, the students traipsed into my classroom, in various stages of lethargy, and started jokingly complaining about how I always made them work, in my periods, and motivating why I should give them - "just this once" - a free period. As the individual gripes grew into a 'group moan', I took out a whiteboard marker, and began writing on the board, starting with the heading, "Special Circumstances".  

I listed all the reasons I'd heard students give for not wanting a lesson. Here are some of them:
- It's too hot.
- It's too cold. 
- It's too early.
- It's too late.
- It's raining. 
- It's Monday.
- It's Friday.
- It's almost break time.
- We've just had break. 
- We're hungry.
- We're full.
- We're having a test later/tomorrow.
- We've just written a test.
- All the other lecturers give us free periods. 
- We really need a break!
- We're tired.
- Public transport problems. 
- We have to finish our assignments.
- We've just handed in assignments.
- Lecturers stress us out.
- Lecturers are so unfair.
- No-one understands us.
etc. etc. etc.

I explained to them that those were all the special circumstances that students had alerted me to, over the years, and that we would be continuing with English, despite the circumstances. (I probably stopped the lesson a bit earlier, as a compromise, but there was no way they'd get a free period - our year plan is way too tight for that.) 

And so, having been such a pain with my students, I know exactly how to treat myself when I come up with excuses not to dance - and believe me I can come up with ALL kinds of excuses! Some of them are very similar to the list above - It's too cold, it's too hot, I'm hungry, I'm full, I'm tired, I've had a hectic day, It's late, It's Monday, It's Friday, I have a deadline for tomorrow, I've just survived a deadline, I really need a break, I can't do this anymore, No-one understands how hard it is......   

I calmly ignore all my gripes, put on my zumba shoes, plug my earphones into my phone, select Dance Playlist, tuck the phone into my money belt (what can I say, I had to come up with a way to wear the phone while dancing), and voila, I'm dancing, and that smile appears almost instantaneously. 

 Many people who know me today would be surprised to know that I love road running. Many years ago, I took part in a few fun runs. Not sure if I could achieve that level of fitness again, but hey, who knows... as long as there are no 'special circumstances', anything's possible. ;-)