whip lash.

My internship schedule is simple, in theory: Monday and Tuesday, I work with ninth and tenth graders at the high school. Wednesday, I start off with high school and go to the elementary school at lunch. For the remainder of the week, I'm the elementary school counselor's intern.

It's a nice, routine way of doing things. Same thing every week. Pretty much exactly what I've wanted for years now.

Except.

(and isn't there always an 'except' when we get what we want?)

Except that the difference between high school and elementary school is astronomical. My head spins for the entire afternoon on Wednesdays as I acclimate to my new surroundings, looking down at students and not up.

The height difference is the least of my concerns, though.

This past week my high school made the news at gun threats ran rampant (and mainly rumor-fueled) on social media forums. We had several fights on Monday, most driven by racial tension, and it all peaked with a few threats on Facebook and Twitter that were then blown way, way out of proportion. Even so, proper safety precautions were taken. So on Wednesday, I left a school swarming with police-- teenagers checking out every minute, supposedly because they were scared but more likely because their friend checked out-- and arrived at a school where I played Candy Land for an hour and a half and taught a lesson on playing fair and being a good sport. 

Now it's not always this dramatic. Most weeks it's just a leap from scholarships and career counseling to stranger danger and not breaking in line. It's using a completely different vocabulary for the first half of the week than the last. It's remembering things like, "First graders won't understand this reference to Katie Couric." (She penned a children's book I read to the second grade last month, and my first comment was, "How many of you know who Katie Couric is?" Cricket... cricket...)

But then again, high schoolers didn't get my reference to Gossip Girl. I can only be so hip, I guess. 

At the elementary school, I only have to tell the first graders that "I want to see all my good leaders," and they immediately close their mouths, face the front, and give me their undivided attention... desperate for my approval and the coveted label of "Super Leader" (that even comes with a cape). These tactics don't work with high schoolers. For that matter, nothing really works on high schoolers. 

So I'm living in parallel universes and considering seeing a chiropractor for the whip lash.