September 8, 2010

Humor

Written by: Lee Bullington, Media Instructor, Education Resource Center

Like everyone on this planet life can be lots of things… fun, challenging, horrifying and stressful. But one thing that’s universal, is Humor.

By the time I graduated from high school I had gone to 18 schools. Eighteen different schools across rural Alaska. For whatever reason, my parents decided to always relocate in the middle of the school year, sometimes twice a year. Was this a big joke?

I never found the benefits of always moving and found it challenging most of the time. I spent the first 18 years of my life always making new friends, saying good-bye to old friends, packing, unpacking and constantly trying to catch up with the class curriculum. Ugh.

Early on, I discovered many people were like me, they also didn’t like change. Students were always fighting with me because I was the “new” kid, the “white” kid, the “cops” kid or the “big city” kid from Kodiak.

I graduated from my class (all nine of us) and headed to college. I decided to attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in the Fall because, why not, I was used to moving across state and it was my big chance to start off the school year at the beginning of the semester and not the middle.

Those first couple of days were amazing. The new faces, buildings and all the options. It was something. I was used to it after all but the great thing is that everyone else was experiencing it at the same time. I began to worry what I was doing moving again though… was I continuing the “loop” of always moving and it would never end? Would I want to pick up and move in the middle of the school year?

I was still in the process of moving into my dorm room when I stepped into the elevator. It was crowded with other students doing the same. I was last on and the elevator was full, I couldn’t see anyone behind me. The doors closed. All of a sudden a tiny voice from behind said, “Are you Lee Bullington?” I couldn’t turn around because the elevator was packed. So, staring straight ahead, I replied, “Yep”. The voice then said, “I thought so, I used to sit behind you in second grade!”

People in the elevator chuckled. I smiled.

That’s my experience with humor as I lived it in an elevator at UAF.