Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Archangels and Undergrads

Happy feast of the Archangels!

Today, I returned to my observation school on the other side of town. I was up early enough to take time to pray our Lauds for the feast and even sit in reflection on a reading about Archangels from my Benedictine breviary. The morning proved to be such that I am very glad that I took the time to remember God surrounds us with His TLC via angels every day.

The commute to my observation site was fairly smooth for 8:15 AM (no one honked today, I'm proud). I even hiked up the five flights of stairs without stopping (woo-whoo)! When I reached the resource room, I learned how to continue to be flexible. Today was "star" day and not "B" day which means school ends early and all 14 or so modules are shorted down to like 14 minutes.

The first four mods I assisted with various ALGEBRA II assignments and tests; this consisted of helping some ADHD kiddos keep time on task and no actual math knowledge was required (thank God). Then I worked with an essay assignment, but backed up the kiddo from writing her introduction to reading the two articles she printed off and preaching the benefits of prewriting her ideas before starting the actual essay. Then one the aforementioned ADHD math kiddos returned with a religion assignment the needed to be read aloud or not read at all...at the same time an easily distracted freshman with a month late biology paper was placed on the other side of me.

As I headed out the door, the cooperating teacher asked if I was 'okay' from the onslaught of the fast paced morning. To her surprise (and mine), I smiled and told her I couldn't wait to be back next week. Oh, of course I was frustrated at the quick turn over and short mods that left me with only about 10 minutes once the kiddo was settled and found his/her books and a bit frazzled at helping out with math (soooo out of my comfort zone). However, the students themselves reminded me why I'm here at university... So you can decide for yourselves, who were the angels sent with a message by God (no dramatic lighting effect cues were included)? Me? (probably not) or the Kiddos? My money is on the kids.


Now to the undergrads...if there are other college folk/students/professors out there, please help me with this riddle! Why were they all in my half the library today? I do quite a bit of my reading in the book-half of the library where the only sound is the whir of the air system and the hum of the bubbler (actual Milwaukee word for water fountain). Today, there was a major influx of undergrads not only flooding into the study cubicles but also looking through (hold on to your hats) BOOKS. Hmmm...is it mid-term already?

Blessings,

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