yesterday went pretty well after all. tiring, as expected, but i was able to keep my composure for most of the day.
There was a particularly trying time in the morning, during social studies, when i started to get really hot and clammy. i couldn't really figure out what the teacher wanted the class to do, so i tried to talk around it but ended up going around and around in circles instead. so i started to panic at this point. all my anxious thoughts started to come back, like "oh my God i can feel myself getting uncomfortable again" and "the kids are gonna think i'm a bad substitute" and "well there goes my reputation at this school" and so on.
thankfully i had recess immediately following the exercise, and so i had some time to regroup. during recess, i felt really guilty about not being able to do a good job during social studies. so i started to get really self-conscious as well. the thing that saved me, however, was one of the kids asked if i wanted to play a game with him. at first i said no, since i was too busy worrying about what the next scheduled activity was, and also i felt really uncomfortable as well.
in the end, though, i said "what the heck" and thought it might do some good to just let go and play with the kid. so i did, and noticed some of the other kids started coming up to us to watch. at this point, i realized that perhaps i hadn't "lost the class" after all, and i felt better.
amazingly the rest of the day from this point on was fun, although in the beginning it didn't seem like this would be the case.
