I Didn't Project That

My principal came to perform eir first unannounced formal evaluation of me yesterday. As soon as ey walked through the door, I panicked and questioned whether the lesson I had prepared was impressive enough. My students were unusually well behaved, unsurprising considering the presence in the classroom. I plugged the overhead projector into the wall and rolled it to the center of the room. I hadn't used the thing before, not even to test it out, so I worried that it might not work or have some kind of technical difficulty. Fortunately it powered on just fine and I nervously began my lesson. Just as I noticed that a funny smell was permeating, a student in the front row announced, "The thing's smoking!" I turned and saw that, indeed, the overhead was dispelling copious amounts of smoke. I feverishly tried to find the problem, ultimately discovering that there was a piece of foam attached to the light bulb (I presume to protect it during shipping), which had caught on fire. Quickly, I yanked it off the machine and clapped the flame out, though smoke continued to billow. "Mr. [Kevin] made a boo boo!" I awkwardly apologized to the class, avoiding eye contact with the principal out of embarrassment. More on the edge than ever, I continued with my lesson, pushing through the numerous complaints about the burning odor. And no, I'm not sure whether the principal was one of the gripers.

Ah, there's nothing like a good first impression! Only a truly competent teacher like myself could start a fire in eir classroom with the prinicipal watching.