More daily life

The mundane is taking up my mindspace lately. Today feels like an excellent day for ironing. It's coldish and damp and Prairie Home Companion will be on the radio this evening.

I'm keeping my mind away from worry about money. Last week's sermon was on worry and Pastor Martin had a string of great quotations which I'll post here if I can find them. Meanwhile Philippians 4:6 is the best:

6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

I avoid tv news and I follow current events with comedy shows - The Daily Show on TV and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me podcasts (NPR). WWDTM is good dishwashing entertainment and it makes me laugh out loud.

Last week I was enchanted by adolescents. Now this week if I see an adolescent, I will probably cross the street. Last week a student's cruelty to another brought me to tears and reminded me of the hurt I inflicted on another kid when I was in the seventh grade. I can remember vividly how mindless my act of cruelty was. (Thanks to the internet I found the kid I hurt had died recently after raising a family and receiving honors at work.) I can also remember the hurts I had at that age.

I picked up some information about playing guitar in other tunings. I guess I'll listen to some music on Pandora today as I do weekend type home chores.

If I'm really industrious today, I'll water my three plants.

life

I left a message on my landlord's phone this morning. No hot water. That is very inconvenient. I'll have to heat bath water in my electric frying pan. Too bad my coffee maker isn't bigger!
Well, this will inspire me to get to the pool this week - free shower.

I had a lot of fun with adolescents yesterday. K. bought a friend and I taught her how to play Go while S. trounced K.. S. was being his extremely shy self. The girls were self-conscious and inane ... true seventh graders. In response S. was trying to be mature. I told him that he would have to become self-conscious and inane someday because that was part of getting to maturity.

At game night a man was interviewing on film people sharing reflections on our church. (It is the 300th anniversary of Church of the Brethren.) I made sure that my "Got Fruit?" shirt got into the picture.

Seventh graders in my life

An eventful past few days. I was rushed to the hospital yesterday on the recommendation of my school nurse and vice principal. I'd had a stomach bug and felt "faint" after 7th grade lunch duty. While they were calling 911, I was barfing breakfast and lunch and by the time I was riding to the hospital to ruin my son's day, I was feeling fine. 5 hours of tests later the hospital was convinced I felt fine too. I'm grateful that everyone was concerned enough to worry about me.

I used to get out of work by saying "I don't feel well" and then everyone would say "you look pale". That's because I'm naturally pastey and if people focus on it, people can convince themselves that I'm really really ill when I'm not. So yesterday that backfired on me.

Today I was back at work to get get well cards from kids which was nice. I wore my "Tell me I'm cool" button and really enjoyed getting kids to read it and when they told me I was cool I enthusiastically thanked them. This made them smile and for a moment they thought I might really BE cool! After work I went to a county wide picnic for mentors and mentee families. I saw lots of people I know... probably because I associate with really good folks. I really did my walking and standing in line muscles a work out.

Then as I left I realized I was just in time for choir practice which charged me up some. I found out our pleasantly geeky drummer is a seventh grader who loves anime and manga. I said "you're the girl for my grandson". He is really not interested in girls, so K. and I are going to pretend she's a boy (I thought she was a boy when I first saw her) and let him get used to the idea. I'm taking him to my church this Saturday when we're having a board game night and my grandson and I are bringing Go which K. knows how to play!


After music I went to the supermarket to buy a block of swiss cheese for a coworker's birthday tomorrow. I was cheerfully greeted my a seventh grader from my school. Seventh graders can be quite pleasant when they are out of the crowd.

When I got home I got my "Got Fruit?" T shirt which I look forward to wearing on game night!

Simplicity

As I crawl through Foster's Celebration of Discipline I'm thinking about simplicity. Yesterday I was substitute teaching sixth grade students and had the chance to think about driving at or under the speed limit.
I didn't tell them my first reason - it's a spiritual excercise to combat two of my character defects. When I obey the law I am letting go of being defiant and arrogant. I do NOT know better than the law makers and I comply with what they would have me do. I didn't tell the kids this because it's personal and more than that, complicated.
My second reason is that it saves petroleum. My mileage is quite good. It was 40 mpg last time I took a long trip. I'd like to do my bit to conserve non-renewable resources and to give my country a little less reason to rationalize war. This I discussed with the kids. I showed them the math.
Another thing that came up with the kids was to respond to "it gets us there faster" with "WHY?" I'd like to bring up the question because it seems we all hurry without any reason.
I found myself doing an Eddie Izzard mime of driving along with the wind in my hair. The kids were in stitches (and I'm pretty sure they've never seen Eddie Izzard.) They probably think I'm just loony. I like to think they think I'm cool. It's possible they just think I'm foolish, but as long as I act like I think they think I'm cool, they suspect I may really be cool.

Back to the "mission field"

I opened shop for ESL class today after having taking a year's sabbatical. I figured I'd enjoy it if I had a couple of dedicated students, maybe five or six adults. I had two terrific volunteers show up and no students at first. Then Mrs. Kim came. She has been a faithful student (and a prayer warrior!) for several years. Then things went into the realm of the inpredictable. Pastor Kim arrived with twelve adolescents age 11 to 20. I think the 20 year old was supposed to be the chaperone. I'm here to say that 13 year olds are the same all over the world! The picture's not my class. I just found a google picture so you can picture Korean adolescents. Add two and you have my class.