In my rush to pretend to get everything together during the 10 minutes I call lunch break, I stopped by the teachers' lounge to check my mailbox for any flyers or papers that need to go home for the day, and I found an envelope with a return name and address I did not recognize. It turns out, one of my student's grandmother (in Japan) decided to purchase and mail some gift cards she found on my class wish list on our website. She wrote such a sweet little note in a nice little card, and I couldn't help but smile.
The past three days have been crazy, and even as I write this I'm wishing I can curl up in bed soon to get some decent amount of sleep tonight (even though that has as much chance of happening as Phoenix has getting cooler any time soon). But I've had some highs (as well as some lows) that have brought me to where I'm sitting and typing right now...
Do you ever have one of those mornings when you just wake up stressed? It's already hard to breathe and your head is pounding before you've even stumbled across the floor to turn off your alarm clock, which you let beep through till its back-up ring? I don't know why, but welcome to my morning. I never thought I'd say this, but thank God for my car ride. I first finished "Bud, Not Buddy" on cd (hilarious - highly recommend it!), and then put in a cd I made awhile ago, entitled "Time for a Pick-Me-Up". As the first song came on, I knew I was on my way to changing for a better day - how can "Siyahamba" not make you smile and know it's all going to be all right? I couldn't help it - I needed that then and there - and I just smiled all the way to school.
Mass kicked off the morning, and we had Fr. John K. While his homily was rather long-winded, it made a few really solid points:
1- What road do we take to get to heaven? Do we take the I-10? The 17? How do we get there? In the Bible it says we must change our ways...
2- There are 3 kinds of love: eros, filial, and agape. Eros is the kind you might use instead of "it pleases me" (he liked to use pizza in his example a lot). Filial love is between friends or even family (think "Philadelphia - city of brotherly love"). And agape is love that gives and expects nothing back, like we have with God's sacrifice of His son on the cross.
(Don't know how much the students got out of this part, but I absolutely loved it.)
I must admit, I think my favorite part from today came when I arrived at the girls' volleyball game across town - they were holding the game until I arrived (apparently they tried to schedule it earlier and we had miscommunicated), and when I got inside (yes, we were in a gym today), I felt like I had my own personal cheering squad - it was so cute! Poor Sydney ended up missing the ball during warm-up because she was waving hello, and then all of the younger siblings sitting in the stands were all excited, saying, "Miss Foyle's here!" Sometimes (but not often), I feel like a celebrity. And the girls did much better during the game - we lost in two, but they didn't look quite so afraid of the ball. Progress! We'll see how tomorrow's game goes...
Oh, and one piece of exciting news I just finalized - heading to Notre Dame in early November. No, it's not for a football game (I wish!), but rather it's for an ACE Advocates Regional/Area Leaders' Conference. While we don't have a branch of ACE Advocates in Phoenix, we're (well, I'm) working on it to get things off the ground, so Chuck extended the invitation, which I jumped at (obviously). My principal was very supportive - "just get the sub papers in right away" - and my flight is now booked.
Chicago marathon in 2 weeks and then less than a month later back to the Midwest for this conference...Amen!
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