f.i.a.t.

We had an especially painful staff meeting on Tuesday. As usual, the agenda was kind of random, unrealistically timed, and basically abandoned after getting off track within the first ten minutes. All the terrible tension between co-workers was floating around unacknowledged in the room. A lot of people can't stand each other right now. As always, I coped through doodling. I doodled hard. I regressed to a time in my past when I could get through anything via sketching. Math classes were made tolerable in this way.

I now feel really bad, by the way, that just that day, I had repeatedly gotten on one poor kid's case for constantly drawing when he should have been doing other things. I understand why he was doing it, but I don't want to accept that he was as bored in my classroom as I used to be in other people's classrooms. Shouldn't he perceive my classroom as a smorgasbord of enthralling activities?

So, Tuesday I found myself drawing this Fox in a Turtleneck (F.I.A.T.) series. Some of my co-workers seated near me were interested in this bold new concept, and wondered how they could be part of it, too. Some wanted me to know that the acronym forms a word that's also the name of a car. Just to be clear, these foxes in turtlenecks don't have anything to do with any cars. They are above/beyond such a mundane, everyday thing.

Remember: Fox in a Turtleneck. Don't get left behind.