Vignettes I

- We fear change, don't we?  Except for when it's change that we want...

For example, I had no fear at all for my first day on the job at Madison.  Actually, I didn't fear my first day at Sterling Heights for student teaching either.  Work and interviews have never worried me.  Why? 

Being alone = fear.  Branching out/vulnerability = fear.  So that's a form of discomfort, and yet I want to embrace discomfort?  How do I do it?  How can that be done?  So, then, what is it that I want?  And, further, what do I need?

- Check it out.  Let's assume that I get one year with these kids.  And now a quarter of that is gone.  I have 75% more of the year.  Seems like a lenghty period of time - but I'm already done with a quarter!  And what have I done?  How have I changed lives?  Have I?  Can I?  Teach the way I want to teach.  Teach what I'm most passionate about.  Love.  Compassion.  Transcendentalism.  Nature.  Exploring.  Traveling.  People.  Society.

- I contemplated the sunrise today.  It was absolutely tremendous.  The air was still.  The trees were stiff and bare.  My breath floated away into nothingness.  People were moving.  Cars were out and about, spoiling the beauty.  Or were they?  Perhaps the beauty lies in the movement.  Every single person in the city was doing something different.  They were all interdependent.  We were all interdependent - I'm a part of this too.  I was moving as well.  The gas station attendant is essential in this society.  So is the construction worker, the line operator, the repairman, the driving instructor, the electrician, and the police officer.  We all play a role.  We all affect each other in a unique way, ways that we can't even link together half of the time.  The brilliant nectarine color of the sunrise reminded me that I am not the only person in this world.  At the same time, the sun was rising in Peru.  It was setting in China.  It was dark in Kenya.  This world is huge.  I am so small and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.  But I'm going to strive to be of consequence in the small scheme.  I can affect one life at a time.  Yes, that's 1/7,000,000,000 of the world, but so am I.  Each person is important.  We are all so different, and yet we share the same sunrise.  Different religions, different languages, different desires - and yet we share the same respiratory system, spinal cord, and ventricles.  We are all members of the same earth.