Preface

Now, this is a story all about how My life got flipped-turned upside down And I’d like to take a minute Just sit right there I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air The first time I tried to learn the Renegade, a dance challenge that was making the rounds on the video-sharing app Dubsmash, I was immediately obsessed. Who wouldn’t be? It was set to a sick beat, had a catchy hook, and the lyrics were easy to remember (“wait,” “renegade,” and “go”). The dance was both familiar and unrecognizable. Sure, I had seen most of these moves before in other viral dances, but never in this way and certainly never at this quick speed. Now, I can usually learn a dance challenge with ease, but Renegade intimidated me. A lot. This dance was something else. Two of my high school students, Reagan and Rian, introduced me to Renegade on Saturday, November 2, 2019. That day was one of those special days that reminded me why I got into education in the first place. We had met at Discovery Green in Downtown Houston to attend LEGO’s Rebuild the World event. We spent the morning making LEGO creations, being interviewed for the official LEGO YouTube channel, and, as we did whenever we were together, dancing. It was a gorgeous fall day, the kind of day that Houstonians don’t take for granted, but there was one problem: I was in pain. The previous day I woke up with a bad crick in my neck and I could barely turn my head. At. All. Any slight movement sent a shooting pain from my head down my shoulder through my back.