Sunday, April 09, 2006

This is funny. I have started teaching Sunday School for the 3rd to 5th graders. Last week I showed up about an hour early to prepare my lesson. I had just read through the lesson when a girl walks in and then a boy. I had totally forgotten about daylight savings time. Ah! So we roughly went through the lesson and went on a nature walk. LOL, it was totally fine, but this week I was even more anxious about preparing the lesson. I went over it last night and got here an hour and a half early this morning. Now, it is 9.15 (it starts at 9.45) and I have nothing to do so I am posting. I am so silly!

On a more serious note... you may know that I have taken this quarter off completely. With all the family yuck and ensuing school stress of last quarter, learning was not fun. So here I am living life to the hilt. I seriously have been to Hollywood more this week than I have in the last year! I went to see the David Spade Show, Dah-veed at the Largo, and I went to the Rainbow Room (so not as cool as I thought). Anyway, it has been fun but challenging in very different ways. The most difficult part of it has been the comments by others (and my internal over-achiever). So many people respond to my break with a look of disbelief and just say, "So what do you do with your time?" As if time is hard to fill. I am doing all those things that you always want to do but never have time. Like organize your closet or scrapbook all your pictures. Look, I am trying to justify my break to the anonymous internet void. It just pisses me off because they don't know how I am feeling or what I am going through. Grrrr... and yet I also impose those expectations on myself. I find myself feeling guilty for not being stressed out or over-worked and sleep-deprived. Why can't I just spend an afternoon journaling and reading for pleasure or not reading if I don't feel like it? Stupid judgmental workaholics. Dammit I think I am one of them.

Concurrently, I have also realized how unfulfilling it is to gain your sense of value from achievement or success in the eyes of others. This quarter I am not catering to the demands of academia or professors or competition with other students, so no kudos to bolster Joy's self-esteem. And I feel totally crappy about last quarter. I took a PhD seminar with one of the most reknowned professors of philosophy (never my strong suit). Anyways, the first half of the quarter was spent rewriting papers that were apparently shit. And the second half I was dealing with family and fell two weeks behind in work. Add to it the incomplete I took in my other class and you get an overall feeling of failure. Blugh. I hate failure. It sucks. I know know your supposed to learn something from it but whatever. So, grades came out on Wednesday and would you believe it, I got a full-on A in her class!!! And she loved the last paper I wrote! Woohoo! So I felt great for about a day. And then the high left and I was back where I started from. Even the elation of an A in the hardest class I have ever taken was not enough to change my sense of confidence or self-esteem. All that to say, I am realizing how I cannot find my identity or value in what I do or what others think of me. And it is so easy to do because others always think higher of me than I do myself. Inside this bubbly, outgoing personality is a little girl who seriously doubts her worth. Just thinking about it I feel the tears. God, transform me. Let me see your beauty within me. May I live my life in the comfort of your grace and love. You are my audience of One.

1 Comments:

At 10:40 AM, Blogger Kevin Lewis said...

So, I am confused as to why an incomplete equals a failure. Life happens, and seminary is in the middle of it. I am proud of you Joy.

 

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