And he keeps cropping up in the weirdest places!

Waaay back in 1993 (or maybe early '94) my fabulous current issues and geography teacher, Mr. Kelly, had a student teacher named Aaron Doering. All of the girls in the senior class were flipping out for the hotness of him. I didn't find him all that delicious, but whatever. Many girls in my class figured he was fair game because though he was a teacher, our very own Mr. Kelly had married a student (as the rumor went) so clearly it was possible and, some girls thought, quite likely. But, when he was done we sent him off to the island of Lost Student Teachers. Please note: I have *never* seen a student teacher again after their student teaching experience. Not when I was a student, not in the time I've been a teacher. With one exception: see below.

So I graduate in 1994 and head off to college, Mr. Doering promptly forgotten. Until I run into him walking down the hallway of Mankato State University in the fall of 1994 when I'm there for a speech tournament. I'll admit it, I squealed. Whatever. We chatted a bit, blah blah, and I went to my round and he went on his way. I figured that was the last time I'd see Mr. Doering.

Four years later, in the fall of 1998, I'm student teaching in Rochester, MN at Century High School. I'm walking down the hallway when who should I run into? You got it--Aaron Doering! He teaches there--social studies, of course. So we do a few jokes about how things come full circle, he was a student teacher in my school, now I'm a student teacher in his, yadda yadda. I leave student teaching and, again, figured that was the last time I'd see Mr. Doering.

Can you believe there's another paragraph to this post? It's ten years later...October 20, 2008, and I walked in the door from yoga and flipped on the news. I go to the kitchen during a commercial to get some water and I hear "I'm Doctor Aaron Doering" coming from my television. 'What?' I ask myself. Surely I heard this wrong. Aaron Doering teaches high school social studies in Rochester, MN. This guy on my tv is all up in the Arctic talking about how the world is his classroom and I'm all "DUDE" this is too much.

Of all the people in my life who have come and gone....through the towns I've lived and the places I've been, I'm more stymied than anything else at the consistent recurrence of Aaron Doering in my radar. Seriously--Fergus Falls, Mankato, Rochester, and now the Twin Cities. I know it's a small world, but this is getting a little crazy. It's a good thing he's a well educated, balanced individual and not some crazed psychopath.