I seem to have been in the grip of a strange habit most of my life. I have some kind of aversion to checking and accurately informing myself. If I am about to go buy groceries and I suspect that we need more cans of chopped tomatoes, I have a strong tendency to go to the store without looking at how many we have. I don't seem to believe in checking.
I saw a similar thing in myself when teaching. I often had an idea of what I was going to do and say but when I got off the track or became confused about where I was, I had a strong impulse to wing it rather than clearly and openly check my notes and lesson plan.
I seem to be big on positing, mentally selecting the number of cans of tomatoes to buy without looking at anything, or quickly deciding what would make sense at that point of the lesson. Since I have using that approach for years, I am pretty good at guessing and at covering up errors and non-sequiturs. Also, I am aware as I take the down-to-earth approach of looking at our canned goods or checking my notes, that I am doing what I normally don't. I seem to give myself a negative jolt for getting out of character.
When our daughters were in their teens instead of their 50's, the four of us took a long car trip. We did lots of camping and bought food on the way. I had a tendency to think of what we had recently eaten and mentally imagine a different food that would make for variety. Lynn had a tendency to look at what was on sale and what looked good. Our tendencies clashed several times.
