Daily Dish: May 20, 2020

Good morning and welcome to the Daily Dish. Today is Wednesday, May 20th, and it is a gold day.

Last night I hosted a live town hall meeting. LIVE as in front of hundreds of people. Exciting, right?

During the day, I had two run-throughs to make sure the slides and dialogue were in perfect sync. I made sure the lighting was good and told my entire family to gather in the basement and play board games, so I was the only one using our wifi. I get the countdown to showtime- 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and I am live! I start to welcome everyone with “I want to take a moment and welcome our entire community tonight. It is a historic moment for Atlanta Academy as it is our first, live Virtual Town Hall. I want to share my gratitude..” and at that moment, I noticed the zoom window closed, and my computer disconnected from my wifi. Yes, my computer no longer recognized my wifi and there was no way to quickly log back on while hundreds of people were waiting to hear me speak about next year.

I could have freaked out, but I took a deep breath and thought: what is another option for me right now? I pulled out another computer and got online to jump back on the call. I will confess I did have a small freak out, but I knew it was going to be okay. Sometimes no matter how much we prepare, things do not go as we expect them to. From these experiences, we have to take away a lesson. What did I learn from last night? Take a deep breath instead of getting frustrated because you will find the solution you need much faster when you are calm. Have a sense of humor about the situation. And finally, always have a back-up nearby.

Today is the last day of exams, and tomorrow is the awards ceremony and talent shows. We have a lot going on in the next two days. It’s all so exciting!

Good luck to our middle school students today. Take a deep breath. You have got this!

Stay Healthy. Stay Safe. Stay Gladiator Strong.