I love my job.
I wheeled through dog poop on my way to get groceries this morning.
These things can coexist, and I’ll still choose to say that my life is wonderful despite the (literally and metaphorically) crappy moments. Yesterday, two students came over for tea, and we were talking about how I remember my high school experience simultaneously fondly and with chagrin. They both reflected 2016 had overall been really rough but for both of them also included the highlight of acceptance to BFA. I love that I got to process through that with them.
I really love my job, but the crappy experience of cleaning dog crap out of my wheelchair is not one of my favorite things. In fact, there’s a lingering stink as I write this because I’ve got other more pressing things (I’m teaching next period, I forgot to write this over the weekend because I was grading quarter projects and planning my next two months of lessons and assessments…). I genuinely wish this blog could be a celebration of new physical achievements each week, and, honestly, there are those through each week, but the past few days have been full of my professional life as I assess the learning of my students through a major project, plan out how I will engage and educate them through the rest of the semester based on this learning, and, impossible to forget, look for possible placements for me during my totalization year.
Fortunately on that final front, I have a really positive lead, and I’m praying for the possible placement in the southern hemisphere for the direct benefit of not having to deal with any winter leg spasm increases. Please pray with me for that ongoing search to move forward quickly so that I can focus my time and energy on my cold calves that are starting to tighten up as the temperature drops in Germany.
Remember how I love my job? One of the things I love is the chance to have a positive impact on my students. My day may have had a crappy start, but then when I wheeled onto campus today still trying to wash off crap through the little puddles along the way, a student came over to chat with me during her break between periods. She brightened my day, and I can’t minimize the meaning of her brief positive words to counteract the crap. My coworker did the same once I came into the office and he heard about the dog poop.
Last Thursday, I decided to email nice things to three people I really respect to let them know I appreciate them. I realized there was a lot of negativity in my work environment, and I wanted my supervisors to know how much I value the hard work they do. I encouraged some of my students and even a couple alumni to do the same. One of the alum sent me a screen shot of his nice message to a current student and the response, “Ms. Hewett is making you do this too?” Well, as a friend at church pointed out yesterday, I can’t make them do anything. All I can do is encourage you to contribute some positivity to your world. Find five people you value and tell them why they matter to you.
I’ll start with a public one. My friend and co-advisory teacher Michele is a rock star. She and I are probably two of the most positive people on the planet, and we slogged through a quarter of super negative attitudes from students, but her encouragement, patience, and levelheadedness helped me to persevere in the face of incessant complaints. Shout out to her for being the sweetest person ever who, when our students asked to give “highs and lows” as “happy and crappy” of the week, drew a poop emoji on the board so there was no evidence of her using that word.
After wheeling through some literal crap this morning and metaphorical crap through this month, I’m not even going to feel ashamed saying I can be one of your five people if you’d like to say something nice to me. Every positive comment really does mean a lot. I read them all, and they encourage me to persevere through the crap as I clean off my wheelchair and keep learning to walk.
