Shuffle

I've been thinking about life lately in terms of an ipod (since I've been listening to it so much lately on my sunny afternoon walks). I think sometimes your life is just on shuffle and that's okay. Sure it's good to have a playlist - a plan of what you want and where you're going with it (I come from a hyper-planning, stability-driven family) but that's not always how life works. Sometimes you just don't know what it is you want until it comes up on its own and then you say "aha" that's what I wanted and I didn't even know it. Hence the value of shuffle, even in life. Sometimes you've just got to do the shuffle. So that's my wisdom this week.
So now that I'm 29 it's not as bad as I thought (I can't let it be.) I'm still shorter than all the kids at school am sometimes mistaken for a student, especially when I bring a backpack with me, so at least I don't look that old. In the Los Angeles school district this last week one class thought I was an alien because of my freaky double-jointed arm, two kids thought I was Jodie Foster in the movie Sommersby, and another kid said his dream was to be a right bench warmer in the NBA (hmm...are kids getting more realistic or just forgetting to dream?) I also lost my temper on Friday after two long days of teaching six classes of disrespectful (and that's actually a euphemism)kids at school who wouldn't listen to a thing I said. Two kids kept laughing as I yelled cause they'd never seen me angry. That made me even angrier and then they said they wanted the old Ms. Cook back. Needless to say it was a tough day. By the end of the period one of the kids asked if I was going to cry. Yeah, but on my way home.
To end on a positive note, one of the highlights of my week was finally seeing the musical "Wicked" which I loved. I'm not a ridiculously over-the-top musical fan but this one had a great story to go along with the stimulating visual sets, music, and costumes that characterize musicals. This story had a lot of heart and depth of meaning and to me that makes all the difference. I liked it so much I even put the some of the songs on my ipod. Hmm...