Wednesday, February 6, 2013

An Errant Errand

This story happened to Dana's mother-in-law a couple weeks ago:

Dana's mother-in-law, whom I'll call Ms. B, works in an office as a secretary.  One Wedesday, her boss gave her a series of instructions, including mailing a certain document that was signed and ready to go.  She ran the errands, and when she returned to the office, everyone was in somewhat of an uproar because nobody had any idea where she had gone.  When she explained she had just been running the errands the boss had told her to, the boss claimed to have never given her any of those instructions.  Worse, the document she had just mailed wouldn't be signed and ready until Friday, so she had mailed an incomplete document.

The mystery remains unsolved, and this poor lady has only her memory as a witness.  It upsets her so much, in fact, that she refuses to talk about it.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Time Displacement in the Classroom?

[originally written Wednesday 11/28/2012]


I am a high school teacher. Today, in one of my classes, something kind of interesting happened: First of all, we are on block scheduling in the school where I teach.  That means that we have periods 1-4 on one day, and 5-8 on the second day.  And it always rotates like that. So the kids I saw today I hadn't seen since Monday.  However, when the kids in my second class began showing up, I felt like I had just seen them yesterday.  I don't think I said anything, but when the kids from my 3rd class began showing up, one boy walked in and said, "I feel like I was just in here."  I told him I'd felt the same way.  Then another student walked in, unaware of the first student's remark, and she said, "I feel like I just had this class."  The first student and I were sort of mystified at that point.  Then, another student walked in and said, "I feel like I haven't had this class forever."  Well, that was odd.  It was odd that he felt the opposite of what three of us were feeling, but perhaps odder that so many of us seemed to feel displaced in time.  Then, another student walked in, stopped suddenly, and said, "Something feels different in this room."  (Now, not to dampen the intrigue, but he had missed the previous two classes and during that time I had some new things up on one of the walls.)  I then exclaimed, "What is going on..." and proceeded to review all the strange comments.  One of the students replied suddenly, "We might all be dead!"  Of course, that was hilarious, but it was still intriguing.  

Who knows?  It's one of those things that can't quite be categorized, but really interests me.  Maybe there was some upset in the time/space continuum.  lol.  

- Naomi West

Monday, October 8, 2012

An Arresting Experience

This one hit a little closer to home.  And I'm still questioning my sanity/memory.  This evening my friend K. texted me that a former student of mine had been arrested for a certain misdemeanor.  It was a real surprise to both of us, who'd have never expected such a thing from this particular student.  We texted back and forth a few minutes, and this was while I was in Austin with my husband.  We had just finished up at one place and were heading to another when K. and I were texting.  I said nothing to my husband until a few hours later at a friend's house when the general subject of crime came up.  I turned to, my husband and said, "Oh, yeah, one of my [identifier] students --" before I could finish, he said, "I know; he [insert specific crime]." 

"How did you know?"  I asked.

"You told me," he said.

"When?"

"Last week." 

I tried to explain I had only just learned about this, even showing him K's text.  He insisted  that not only had I told him last week, but the two of us had even gone online to see if it had made the news yet.  He even knew that it had happened in the very location that it had happened -- a detail he couldn't have guessed at. He said we did this search from his office in his study.

We haven't found any trace of our alleged online search on any of our computers.  I have no idea where this memory of his comes from. I only know that if I HAD known about the incident, I'd have told K. before going home and telling my husband.  The fact that she was the one that told me proves to me I didn't know until then. Furthermore, I wouldn't have known about the incident UNTIL it made the news.

Naomi West