Saturday, May 2, 2015

"Time keeps on slipping...

...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! 

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