Come Sail Away With Me...

Those of you who follow such things know we've had some rather severe winter weather over the last week. Monday it was easily below 2 degrees at its coldest during the day. This left a lot of ice on the road. Ice which caused quite a few accidents. Including mine.

I wasn't hurt and my car was fine. I was on my way to work when I went sailing off the road. I was NOT speeding. In point of fact, I was driving very slow because there was already another accident up the road a ways and I was in the passing lane slowing down to give it space. In fact, if I had been driving at a normal speed I might not have even had the accident, because it was applying the breaks on a patch of black ice that caused me to fish-tail, then spin off the road into the grassy median between the north and south bound lanes on highway 65.

As I said I wasn't hurt, but I couldn't get my car back on the road without help. A deputy working one of the accidents up the road came down and talked to me. He said I was one of many accidents he'd seen on the highway that morning, the most severe of which was a 5 car pile up earlier that morning that resulted in the complete destruction of two of the automobiles. Thankfully, all injuries were very minor. It wasn't long before a tow truck came along and pulled me out of the ditch for $20. I'd left early for work so I didn't arrive too terribly late and was able to get in most of the lesson I had planned for the day. The worst part was that I had to pee literally the ENTIRE time, and since I was on the side of a very busy highway I couldn't just go off behind a tree. I didn't get any relief until I reached the school.

While I was sitting there, I noticed something interesting. I'd spun almost completely around when I sailed off the road, resulting in me facing the opposite direction at oncoming traffic. That meant everyone who drove by was treated to seeing me head on in the window as they passed. Everyone, and I mean everyone, stared as they went by. At first I was a little embarrassed, but then I decided to have fun with it and started staring back. As soon as someone looked at me, I made direct eye contact and turned my head to follow them as they passed, not taking my eyes off them until they were either out of sight or looked away--which, most did. It was kind of fun. But no one stopped and offered to help other than the deputy and the tow guy. I don't know if this is just something people don't do anymore, or if they figured there was nothing they could do to help me and didn't want to get in the way. I'm just glad no other cars were involved in my accident. As it stands, the only thing that got hurt was my pride.

Other than that, and the adjustment to the late start schedule at the school on my first day, my first week of teaching went by pretty smoothly. I had two students leave the class and two more join. They seem to be interested in the material. Some of them more than others, but it's only the first week and it's a brand new subject to many of them so hopefully as the semester goes on they'll become more engaging in class. If not, well, I'm capable of talking enough for everyone.