Hello!
So you are walking across campus to meet some of your friends for dinner. You leave a little late from your dorm because you get distracted by your phone. So you fast walk your way thinking that at this rate you will make it just in time. There aren't a lot of people walking around so it's pretty easy to weave around those that are going slower than you would like. However, just as you are heading up some stairs that you can't avoid, you see two girls casually walking along in the middle of their conversation. You see a little path next to them that will allow you to pass them without having to slow down. Then for some random reason the two girls decide to take up as much room on the stairs as possible, leaving some space around them, but not nearly enough you need to get around them without hitting one of them. You notice this just at the last moment leaving you immediately behind one of the girls, causing them to notice. Of course you're thinking, "great now I have to wait for them to get up this set of stairs before I can get around them." They of course must be thinking, "what is this girl doing creeping on our conversation"? You realize that this is a really awkward moment for them because they stop their conversation mid-sentence causing you to feel awkward. Finally, they get past that set of stairs allowing you to get on the other side of the stairs and get around them. Of course this puts you further behind schedule, and so you hope to make up some time by running up the rest of the stairs. Now that you think back on this, you realize that it must have looked like you were running away from them. Even more awkward, but nonetheless a moment in your life that you no doubt have to back on and think, "oh well, it really wasn't that bad actually. If anything I got some good exercise out of it." A good time, indeed.
Now why did I just describe all of this? Well because this of course happened to me earlier this evening, and as the title of this blog entails, I wanted to occasionally dictate the awkward moments in my life that turned out to be pretty good. This is the first one, not because it's the first awkward moment I've had in a while, but because it's the first one I've remembered in a while. I mean when awkward moments are as frequent as they are in my life, you kinda just learn to brush them off.
See you guys later!
Monday, February 13, 2012
Saturday, February 4, 2012
An 8 Year Old's Life
Hey guys!
I hope all has been well and I apologize for the lack of posts for a while. So recently I started volunteering at an after school program in an elementary school close to my college and at first I was really anxious about the kids and if they would respond well to me. Not to mention, I was doing all of this by myself even though there are other people from my school doing this, I'm just not able to go with them because of my schedule. Anyways, so as I'm driving to the elementary school, I get stuck in the car pick-up line and begin to stress about being late for my first day. Anyways, once I walked in, I realized that the school is really small, population wise, and that everything is shorter to accommodate the height of the students. After finally meeting the person in charge of the after school program, she's really nice and awesome, I discover that I'm going to be helping a junior in high school with a rowdy group of second graders. These second graders are also the largest group of kids in the after school program. It took them a while to quiet down and let her introduce me, but I was really shocked and relieved to discover that they took to me really quickly. They were supposed to be reading when I met them but they all kept calling my name and wanted to show me things in the magazines and books that they were looking at. After like 10 minutes of talking to me and showing me things, some of the kids instantly took to me and didn't leave me alone. When it came time for them to work on their homework, one boy kept trying to hug me because he loved the fuzziness of my jacket. Those kids were so smart and cute that I just couldn't believe that I was initially afraid of whether I would be accepted and liked. They were soon let out to play on the playground and the kids astonished me even more with just how creative and energetic they were. I really had to get going so that I could work on homework back in my dorm, but I just didn't want to leave the kids until they began to leave for home. One girl had found an old scrap piece of paper on the ground and pretended like it was a treasure map and was taking me around the playground in pursuit of a hidden treasure near a bush. I mean I probably had the same type of imagination when I was little, but right now I couldn't fathom just how she truly loved what she was playing. Even the little kids in K-5 took to me even though I wasn't really their "teacher." One cute little boy kept taking me around on the slides and climbing random things because he wanted to show me what he could do.
All in all, I found all of these kids just so entertaining, energetic, happy, and innocent. They weren't mean or deliberately hurtful to any of their fellow classmates and that just amazed me. I love how these kids are able to trust and view everyone as their friend and it really saddens me that these things are going to change once they get to middle school. This is going to sound very Peter Pan-esque but the world would just be so much better if we could view our fellow human beings as our friends even though we look different and come from different backgrounds. Sure things will happen and people will do things that will cause us to dislike people and things but just the way they viewed life was amazing.
I'm so excited to go back to these kids again this coming week even though I have a load of homework and tests to study for. But I feel like working with these kids and easing the workload of the after school workers will be such a better break then watching YouTube and going on Facebook or Tumblr. (Not that I don't find any of these sites bad or a waste of time in anyway.)
What are some things that have made you change the way you look at the world? I hope you all have a great week and enjoy some of the little things that happen to you during your day!
I hope all has been well and I apologize for the lack of posts for a while. So recently I started volunteering at an after school program in an elementary school close to my college and at first I was really anxious about the kids and if they would respond well to me. Not to mention, I was doing all of this by myself even though there are other people from my school doing this, I'm just not able to go with them because of my schedule. Anyways, so as I'm driving to the elementary school, I get stuck in the car pick-up line and begin to stress about being late for my first day. Anyways, once I walked in, I realized that the school is really small, population wise, and that everything is shorter to accommodate the height of the students. After finally meeting the person in charge of the after school program, she's really nice and awesome, I discover that I'm going to be helping a junior in high school with a rowdy group of second graders. These second graders are also the largest group of kids in the after school program. It took them a while to quiet down and let her introduce me, but I was really shocked and relieved to discover that they took to me really quickly. They were supposed to be reading when I met them but they all kept calling my name and wanted to show me things in the magazines and books that they were looking at. After like 10 minutes of talking to me and showing me things, some of the kids instantly took to me and didn't leave me alone. When it came time for them to work on their homework, one boy kept trying to hug me because he loved the fuzziness of my jacket. Those kids were so smart and cute that I just couldn't believe that I was initially afraid of whether I would be accepted and liked. They were soon let out to play on the playground and the kids astonished me even more with just how creative and energetic they were. I really had to get going so that I could work on homework back in my dorm, but I just didn't want to leave the kids until they began to leave for home. One girl had found an old scrap piece of paper on the ground and pretended like it was a treasure map and was taking me around the playground in pursuit of a hidden treasure near a bush. I mean I probably had the same type of imagination when I was little, but right now I couldn't fathom just how she truly loved what she was playing. Even the little kids in K-5 took to me even though I wasn't really their "teacher." One cute little boy kept taking me around on the slides and climbing random things because he wanted to show me what he could do.
All in all, I found all of these kids just so entertaining, energetic, happy, and innocent. They weren't mean or deliberately hurtful to any of their fellow classmates and that just amazed me. I love how these kids are able to trust and view everyone as their friend and it really saddens me that these things are going to change once they get to middle school. This is going to sound very Peter Pan-esque but the world would just be so much better if we could view our fellow human beings as our friends even though we look different and come from different backgrounds. Sure things will happen and people will do things that will cause us to dislike people and things but just the way they viewed life was amazing.
I'm so excited to go back to these kids again this coming week even though I have a load of homework and tests to study for. But I feel like working with these kids and easing the workload of the after school workers will be such a better break then watching YouTube and going on Facebook or Tumblr. (Not that I don't find any of these sites bad or a waste of time in anyway.)
What are some things that have made you change the way you look at the world? I hope you all have a great week and enjoy some of the little things that happen to you during your day!
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