It's a good thing I got fired from a job. More than once, actually, especially if you count being fired by my dad, though that was different because it was really personal.

I think my outlook on things would be warped had that never happened. I sometimes wonder if my outlook on relationships is warped because I was never broken up with. I'm serious. Somehow, I got through the whole dating thing while always being the one to initiate a breakup. Part of this was because I was pretty shy with girls when I was a teenager and didn't go out much, and of course I sometimes asked girls to go out with me and they said no. But I never had the experience of immersing myself in a relationship, only to have it torn away from me, so I can only imagine what it would be like.

I bring this up because it's Groundhog Day, and that movie makes me think about the importance of getting out of one's comfort zone from time to time. I'm not knocking comfort zones, they're, well, comfortable. In fact, they're probably the most comfortable of all zones, hence the name. And it certainly makes sense to stay within them much of the time. But at the same time a comfort zone is a trap, because all of the best stuff as well as all of the worst stuff can be found outside of it.

I think that's why I like winter and going for walks in horrid cold weather. It's just so intense it makes you feel alive. Chilled and uncomfortable and maybe even miserable at times, but very much alive, and whenever I have a day where I don't have something like that I feel cheated. Doing something, almost anything, for the first time has that same kind of intensity.

This explains quite a bit about the way I teach. As I've gotten more experienced, I've become less dependent on lesson plans. Not because I think lesson plans are bad. When I'm teaching a new class, like AP Calc, I need lesson plans, but not for anything else I'm teaching this year. This means that the classes are for the most part improvised, which is exciting because I never know quite how they're going to play out. I know that there are very good teachers who have everything planned out to the tiniest degree, and that works for them. I'd be ready to slit my throat after a week of it.

I'm sure being broken up with would be awful. But an awful lot of great art has come out of brokenheartedness, so it must have something going for it. Oh well, too late for me on that one,  I think. I'll have to draw my inspiration from a frigid wind, or trying to answer some kid's out-of-left-filed question, or even from the process of trying to create an original thought. Yeah, that'll work.