People do this for a Living?

I can't imagine being a writer who got paid in advance. I think the pressure would kill me. What if I took money for a writing assignment and then had a series of days full of this kind of moment I am experiencing now? I am anxiously glancing bank and forth between a blank entry and the time. I have had a wonderful day, but I don't feel inspired to type an entry. Tonight I am thinking I was absolutely crazy to commit to writing everyday. Self-improvement? Self discovery? Weren't those my reasons? Blah, Blah, Blah! What about getting to bed early? Being lazy? Watching TV? Yes, I'm in a real mood tonight. But, commit I did, so I have to plunge ahead. I suppose I can follow the stream of consciousness and see where it takes me tonight. And I'll bet that tomorrow I will go back to believing this is a fabulous thing I'm doing.

I am reading a great book. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert was given to me by a student. It is fabulous-I am amazed at how the author is so comfortable writing about her flaws, insecurities, and dreams. The book is honest. When I'm reading it, I feel like I'm with a sister and we are being 100% real with one another. Oh, and she got paid before she wrote the book. That is brave. She gets a divorce, heads to foreign country because she wants to learn a new language, and takes money on the promise that she'll write about her experiences. She gets the WonderWoman award from me for her fearlessness.

I went to a Rotary meeting today. I am the Interact Advisor for my school, and today we presented the program at our sponsoring club. Two of my officers presented the year in review. I was so impressed with them, and amazed at how much we have done. No wonder I feel so busy in the school year. These two girls were with me in Haiti, and we talked for a long time today about how they can get back. It was a miracle that anyone wanted to go to Haiti with me, and here these girls are trying to go back.

Well, the stream just hit a dam.

Blessing #55, June 21, 2010

I am thankful for my resolve. I do not want to be writing, but I believe it is good for me. I knew if I promised to cyber space that I would do it everyday, that I really would. And here I am. Most days I love it...but today is not one of them. My resolve is seeing me through and I know that tomorrow I will be glad it did.

Focusing on the Task

I've hit a wall tonight. I had a fabulous day, but nonetheless I am battling writers block this evening. It's the first time during this lofty endeavor that I've feared sitting at the computer and staring at the screen without being able to produce a single coherent, much less inspired, sentence. I think when I started this exercise over 2 weeks ago, I had avoided writing for so long that the words just poured out of me. In fact, this has been a very cathartic process for me, and I feel better in so many ways. However I should have known the words wouldn't flow so easily forever, so now the real work begins.

To overcome this hopefully temporary drought, I am going to focus on the task. While it may be hard to write, it is most certainly not hard to find a blessing. Today I got to see light bulbs go off in my students. In my 9th grade biology classes we are doing a fairly tedious lab investigating evolution. The exercise takes a couple of days, and the students get a bit frustrated in the beginning. But, today we were wrapping it up, and sure enough, one after another I saw the students making the "Aha" face. It is a face that as a teacher I work so hard for, and when I see it I feel fabulous. There is something magic about seeing young people learn, and that magic keeps me excited to go to work everyday.

The Blessing, #15, May 12, 2010

I am blessed with a career that is rewarding. It feels more like a calling than a job, in that I couldn't imagine myself doing anything else. I feel like I am in a position to make an impact on the world everyday, and that my work really matters to the future of my world. Thank God for my work.