...slipping, slipping/Into the future." ("Fly Like An Eagle," Steve Miller Band)
Today marks 4 weeks before I fly to Pennsylvania for the
East Coast summer months. The remainder of the school year is shot full of
holidays…leaving me with less than 10 instructional days with each of my
classes. Oh, how can time be so short?! Squeezing out transformational sections
of my Night (by Elie Wiesel) study
with 10th grade is driving me crazy!! Yesterday, I sat down at my
desk wracking my brains for a way to fit it all in—what happens when you simply
do not want to cut ANYTHING out?! Well, you cut it out anyway. Time provides
some limitations that can’t be overridden.
How often does time provide sweet, unexpected moments…like
the 3 minute interaction I had yesterday as I bought chicken pate from a woman I’d only bought it
from only once before. Time can bring to mind past experiences and interactions…create
the space for relationship as interaction after interaction is repeated or
added to.
Then there was the 10 minutes I lost when I scrolled down
my Facebook home page in the midst of trying to finalize my lesson plans for this
semester. Geez. Sometimes I reconsider the age-old temptation to quite my life
on Facebook. I can make it into a huge time waster. *Click.*
Counteract: the 1-hour long Skype conversation with my
older sister who makes fun of me as I explain my spider-fears and empathizes with
me as I share my struggles.
Afterwards, there’s the 15 minutes I indulged in online
shopping before reading my book, before settling into bed last night. I rarely
do so, but now I’m wondering if I really need to go through with ordering that
dress??
Today, my to-list is marked with writing a update about
my life. J
Check! Also, the returning item: write down my week-long hour-by-hour schedule.
I want to be more accountable with my time. My friend who challenged me to get
back into the habit of doing this, had her schedule ready to share with me 3
weeks ago. I, on the other hand, still haven’t accomplished the task. My to-do
list has many items now crossed off but this item returns again and again. Why
is it so difficult to set an accountability schedule for myself? Of course, it
must include margin. A lesson I totally missed for the better half of one year
of my life. Time is precious, and it is limited, so the value I have placed on
this task is huge. However, somehow it keeps getting knocked down in the
priority list in my head. Maybe it’s just a daunting task?
Wasting precious 15-minute increments on Facebook after
classes have finished for the day. Checking my email and online communication
programs repeatedly to find out the latest updates and to keep in touch with friends
on other islands, in other parts of the world, become impulsive priorities.
Kreyol lessons that I want to invest time and mind space into fall off the
cliff of my to-do list day after day.
It’s time to buy back. Hourly-schedule for the week—here I
come!
As this school year proclaims its closure, I want to
fully indulge in being fully present in each hour of each day. I don’t want to
look back at half-finished projects, half-accomplished goals, and
half-completed conversations. Father, help me to do everything with all of me
and the best of who you’ve created me to be!
Mesi Jezi!
