Day 259: I heard my heart today. // I select my sphere.
How can a semi-sick day be sooo-ho-ho sweet? It was so great to be back at work today. Grading more tests and editing Mr. Chang's final exams this morning felt like Christmas presents after the boredom of two days off.
A few hours of work and catching up on the last two super eventful (not really) days with Mr. Chang were followed by lunch and a visit from the always-adorable Rachel Kernodle! Then it was time for my class with the Latin II Honors students.
I gave them time to work on the English-to-Latin composition exercise they have been completing, circling around the room to give them input, and also furnishing feedback via Google Docs. When they had all finished this long-term assignment, we raced through a review of their homework with enough time to skim a trouble spot on their unit test before I handed this assessment back to them.
After this period, Mr. Chang and I had a debrief on today's teaching, before branching out into a general discussion on my aspirations and cogitations for college and beyond. Our conversations have neither roadmap nor limits, so it would be difficult to delineate their track! This chat slowly slipped into the after school extra help period, when Mr. Chang helped me plan a meeting I will be having with a parent tomorrow.
The bus ride home was bliss. Back home, I photographed Mama's new lampost-additions before realizing I had lost my voice, dodging a duo of dinner invitations, and attempting to meditate.
One question Eckhart Tolle asks his reader in The Power of Now is "in this moment, what is missing?" He posits that one can never be discontented if she is truly in the present, because there is never anything wrong with the particular moment one is experiencing. Stop reading this post. Look around.
I think the theory is a really powerful one -- even if it works in practice only a few times out of ten, because as people who are raised to be unhappy, we can usually answer the question with, "coffee," "love is missing from my life," or the like -- but if taken seriously and strictly, the question (and lack of answer) can work wonders.
I felt this no-answer profoundly when I got home yesterday, rolled over to pick up a phone call just before settling in for meditation, and just felt like there was nothing I wanted that I didn't have.
All good feelings are impermanent, however, and I unraveled my zen by proceeding to mis-administer NyQuil to myself instead of DayQuil, thereby knocking myself out for the rest of the night. I think I've said all I need to, and will just go finish up some grading now, before I conk out permanently. Bottom line: today rocks.
A few hours of work and catching up on the last two super eventful (not really) days with Mr. Chang were followed by lunch and a visit from the always-adorable Rachel Kernodle! Then it was time for my class with the Latin II Honors students.
I gave them time to work on the English-to-Latin composition exercise they have been completing, circling around the room to give them input, and also furnishing feedback via Google Docs. When they had all finished this long-term assignment, we raced through a review of their homework with enough time to skim a trouble spot on their unit test before I handed this assessment back to them.
After this period, Mr. Chang and I had a debrief on today's teaching, before branching out into a general discussion on my aspirations and cogitations for college and beyond. Our conversations have neither roadmap nor limits, so it would be difficult to delineate their track! This chat slowly slipped into the after school extra help period, when Mr. Chang helped me plan a meeting I will be having with a parent tomorrow.
The bus ride home was bliss. Back home, I photographed Mama's new lampost-additions before realizing I had lost my voice, dodging a duo of dinner invitations, and attempting to meditate.
One question Eckhart Tolle asks his reader in The Power of Now is "in this moment, what is missing?" He posits that one can never be discontented if she is truly in the present, because there is never anything wrong with the particular moment one is experiencing. Stop reading this post. Look around.
What is missing?
I think the theory is a really powerful one -- even if it works in practice only a few times out of ten, because as people who are raised to be unhappy, we can usually answer the question with, "coffee," "love is missing from my life," or the like -- but if taken seriously and strictly, the question (and lack of answer) can work wonders.
I felt this no-answer profoundly when I got home yesterday, rolled over to pick up a phone call just before settling in for meditation, and just felt like there was nothing I wanted that I didn't have.
All good feelings are impermanent, however, and I unraveled my zen by proceeding to mis-administer NyQuil to myself instead of DayQuil, thereby knocking myself out for the rest of the night. I think I've said all I need to, and will just go finish up some grading now, before I conk out permanently. Bottom line: today rocks.
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