Daily Thoughts

Funny story to start school off right away today: one of my 2nd grade girls came up to me before Mass this morning, gave me the video Marmaduke, and said, "Here Ms. Halstead. You can watch this tomorrow!" I looked at her, chuckled a little, and replied, "I don't know what you are doing tomorrow but I'm coming to school silly girl!" She just insisted I watch it tomorrow so I took it and told her to get ready for Mass.  My kids are so funny!

We had All-School Mass again today and I struggle with a few things that go on during church like none of the students genuflecting going into the pews or doing the sign of the cross the correct way but one part that is extremely different for me is the priest asks all the students to come up to the altar with him.  Oh my it makes me nervous.  I'm not even sure if they are paying attention when they are up there.  Then my thoughts went back to the middle schoolers and what they were thinking about while they were up there.  Notice that I was not even focusing on the fact that I was about receive Jesus.  So many thoughts during Mass today.  I also started thinking about my prayer life and how it hasn't been as strong lately.  I need to get back into a schedule of adoration and/or daily Mass.

The school day was a little hectic since Mass was today and not on Friday like normal but it is/was Mary's birthday so we celebrated today.  One of my students, she is actually my magnet, celebrated her birthday today and at that moment, I started to develop a love/hate relationship for birthdays at school. Love because it's a birthday and who doesn't love birthdays but dislike (hate is a really strong word that I actually try not to use ever) because boy were our kiddos wired after that cake she brought.  They also became very ungrateful.  I made them wait until she had her cake, was sang to, and had the first bite.  The rest of the class was not too pleased but they did it.  We had the cake at the end of the day thank goodness otherwise the day would have been finished.  There is no recovering after small children eat cake.

After school, I had been wanting to go to one of the churches I looked up so I went to go find the church as well as go to the library close to try and find some 9/11 books for my students.  I went to the library and they were able to hold the books for me but I had to go get proof of residency in order to get my library card.  I left the library and decided to go try and find St. Bernadette's and sit in adoration for a bit. I found the church and school but the church was locked and I could not find the adoration chapel.  I was very distraught because I had been looking forward to some Jesus-Lauren time but I guess that has to wait for another day.  I got back to the apartment, made myself a salad and then realized I should probably go back to the library to finish getting my library card.  I got there and the lady wasn't the kindest to me but I got my card and books regardless.  I stopped by this cart of children's books on my way out though and was talking to this lady who was looking at books for her grandkids.  She teaches English at one of the local colleges here and I told her I was teaching 2nd and 3rd grade.  We were talking and then a group of women about this lady's age walk out of a room next to me.  One of the ladies verifies that the lady I was talking to teaches English and informed us that she teaches ESL (english as a secondary language).  The women and eventually a man start talking and turns out they are all from the same area in New Jersey! One of the women that came from the room dated the cousin of the lady I had been talking to originally.  I just thought it was all so neat and beautiful how small the world can be sometimes.

After the library, I got on Skype and am currently talking with Julia.  We are both kind of lonely sometimes, she in Olathe doing rotations for her sono program in Hays, and me here in FL so we just sit on Skype some nights so it feels like we have company.  And I forgot to mention yesterday that I am getting a visitor in October! My other friend from Carroll, Julia Morgan, is coming down for about 5 days to visit me! I am so excited!!! She also went to ESU for a little bit and we became very close while she was there.