Move Me

Patience is a virtue

I don't have

Give me a plot that moves

A conversation that brings up something new

Or lose me

Make characters change

The world

Themselves

The inner workings of my brain

Or I'll move on

Grow

Or help me grow

Beyond the confines I am used to

Or I will finish up your book

(If I finish it at all)

And sigh

Well

That was

Okay

But

Nothing

Really

Happened.

New Year?

Resolutions abound at this time of year. You could Google the word and find all sorts of them to choose from, including statistical analyses of the most common ones, instructions on ways to accomplish them if you make one, blah, blah, blah.

And, just as with every January, people will set out to be different "this year." They'll join gyms, give up coffee, give more to charity, eat healthier, complain less, spend more time with their kids, blah, blah, blah.

But the gym parking lots won't stay crowded. Churches won't be, either. And kids will go on being ignored or brushed away. Fat lost will be regained. Cigarettes will creep back in. Blood donations will drop before the need lessens. Soup kitchens will feed more people with fewer donations. Initiative for initiative's sake won't last. It never does.

So don't do it. Don't make a resolution for the year. You likely won't keep it up, and when your stamina or endurance falters at the end of January, you'll find it harder to keep going, to pick up when you miss a few days because life gets in the way. You'll give up. You'll feel guilty. You'll feel defeated. And nothing will change.

Instead, take just today. Not the year, not the month, not even the week. Just one day, today, or one hour--this hour--or even just one minute--and choose to act. Tomorrow doesn't matter. Next month doesn't matter. Only now matters right now.

If you're reading this, right now, choose. Choose what you'll do.

It's a small choice, yes. It's a short minute, or few minutes, or hour, yes.

Will it make a difference in the long run?

Yes.

Light is Coming

Two more items to grade for class, both due today, and I will be finished... so happy, I can hardly express it. My students will no doubt find their blood pressure lowers as soon as they have turned in the assignments. They will return home to study for Chemistry or Calculus, and I will tuck myself into the desk chair with some cheese and crackers and get to grading.

Funny to think about the end of term like this. My profession suits me, for it offers me an ending every few months, a moment of change, a chance to do things better. Classes end, and I can choose new textbooks, moved due dates, and modify how I work through an upcoming class.

New students will enter the class next term, if only because those students who do not earn a C or above will not be able to get into my courses to retake them (since mine are filled and have huge waitlists). I love meeting new students, and I love how a class changes because the student body changes. I also love seeing students again, but in a new setting, with different tasks set for them.

Change is probably one of the greatest blessings of my life. I love changing my furniture around (and have since I was very young). I love moving to new places. I love meeting new people. I love the adventure of trying new teaching methods, mixing things up, reading new books. I love the changes my children undergo on a daily basis, the growth my students manage in a single semester.

I love that I'm forty now. It's a nice change, and it seems to whisper that more change is coming.

I can't wait.

Moving Stuff Around

Besides my little cup of coffee in the morning, I am not a creature of habit. If you want to bore me to death, make tomorrow exactly like it was yesterday. Even if yesterday was fabulous, I probably wouldn't have fun with it the second time around.

This tendency of mine came to me when I was very young. Once a month, my bedroom grew boring, so I'd spend an afternoon moving around every single piece of furniture, changing out the blanket for a different colored one, even switching around the clothing in my closet so that I could feel like my room was a "hotel." I especially liked it if my head faced a different way while sleeping, so that I could wake up to find myself not where I was used to being. 

I can't say I move furniture around still, but I move everything around. I'm fortunate to be a college instructor, so that every semester brings a new schedule, a new set of students, some new subject or textbook, or a new way to approach the subject matter. I was working on this semester's syllabi, and a friend asked me why I didn't just plug new dates into the old syllabus. That's when I realized I had never, not once, taught a class the same way the second time around. Every semester shows me ways something doesn't work so well, or ways it might work better with a different textbook, a new set of requirements, or some other major modification.

Maybe that's why I'm so happy. Two classes have ended, and while I face a mound of final papers to grade, and I'll miss many of the students, I still smile at the thought that this pattern is over. And I'm beginning a new set of classes--and several of the enrolled students have yet to check in--but the newness is exciting, especially since these are courses I haven't taught formally, complete with new textbooks, new students, and a completely new online teaching system?

It's not just teaching, either. I love restaurant dining--but I order something new off the menu whenever possible. More than the seasons, I love the change in the seasons, when leaves glow and fall to the ground, when plants spring out of frost, when days of rain are succeeded by days of sunshine--or snow. I can pretty much love any kind of weather, as long as it's different than it was yesterday.

Will I ever get tired of the new? I don't think so. 

How about you? Are you a creature of habit? Or does newness invigorate you like a fall chill, like the leaves changing?