...when you're away from home.
The beds here are comfy...really comfy...maybe trade them for my own comfy?! And I love blackout blinds because you get really good sleep.
But I miss silly little things about home:
- the coziness of my condo
- listening to the radio as I drive to my morning workout (even though I'm 1/2 asleep) and then on the way to school
- fixing my dinner each night and then hot chocolate before I go to bed
- my students, colleagues, teammates, and friends
- my normal routine and all that it holds
When did I get to be such a homebody?! Yes...it's sad, I've only been gone one day and yet it feels like a really long time. Probably because today in and of itself was loooooooong (okay, there's something that makes it feel longer when it's not my normal routine, which I realize is long on any given day). On the bus at 7:00 a.m. and not back at the hotel until 9:00 p.m. I need to find more relaxing reasons to be away from work! As I questioned all of this today - "why did I sign up for this?" - I had the sweetest answer appear to me in the form of one of my former students.
She's a senior at SMU and led us on a great tour (I wasn't the only one who thought so!). She's dynamic, thoughtful, well-spoken, in the top of her business class at SMU, and just a wonderful person. But what most people don't know is that she was diagnosed with cancer about a year and a half ago, sat out one spring semester for treatment, made up the courses in summer school, will graduate on time in May...and is in remission waiting for the magic 5-year mark when it comes to cancer remission. As a member of the admin team at SMU said, "She's my hero."
I've never before been moved to tears on a college tour but as I spent time with her this morning, as I gave her one last hug (she had no idea I was going to be there so it was a lovely surprise for both of us), and as I watched others thank her I just felt terribly proud. Not proud that she was a St. Andrew's alum (although there's a little bit of that, naturally!) - really, we can't take credit for kids like her, they come to us pretty amazing and we just try not to screw them up!...but proud to know her.
Yes, 14 hour work days are sometimes worth it...
1 comment:
Elizabeth, you are such a great person, I'm glad that you had this experience yesterday. Sometimes it's little things like this that make your job worth it.
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