For those of you who work in a congressional office, you know March Madness doesn't refer to basketball in reality. It's the mad rush of lobbyists making their asks and constituents ringing the phones off the hook. For those who don't work in a congressional office, I thought this was a good pictorial analysis of what it feels like to be in D.C.'s March Madness. However, the jury is still out on whether staffers are the alligators or Rat. I'm pretty sure we're Rat.
If you live in the vicinity, I hope you got to experience the gorgeousness that was today. Technically, we’re just a week away from the official start of spring, but it seems D.C. has embraced the season with open arms. The yellow daffodils have lined the office building sidewalks with color while some bushes are beginning to show green again. The official bud watchers are predicting peak cherry blossom season the last week of March. If this weather keeps up, I wouldn’t be surprised if they came a little earlier. In celebration of the San Diegoesque weather, Sarah and I left work early (well, early in her case being defined as 5:30, and my early being defined as being willingly abducted by Sarah at 6) and headed over to the Tidal Basin. Many more people out than during my visit to
I’ve been trying to act like a responsible ESOL teacher by spending my Friday night completing my students’ evaluation for next week. Frankly, I’m more nervous about this test then they will be. I’ll feel responsible if anyone fails – not that the test will be faulty (though it may be), but that I’m not teaching them like I should. Having zero training or prior teaching experience, I don’t have any idea if what I’ve been doing is working, and this will be the first evaluation of what my students have absorbed. That is terrifying. Do all teachers feel this way, at least when they start out?
As I’ve been working on this, I turned on my “Random” playlist from college… wow. The songs that struck me most were the Mark Cohen tunes, the soundtrack of my trip to upstate New York and Niagara Falls with my big sistur, Bethy, who will be getting married exactly three months from today. By that time, it will have been two years since I’ve actually seen Beth and three since we took that trip – an excursion that seemed forever ago, and yet vaguely familiar to the relatively independent lifestyle I feel like I’m living here in D.C. It was a first step, one of many, to who I am today.
I guess everything in life is like that. Life is linear; there are some cycles, but like history, the Story is going somewhere on the macro and micro scale. Things happen, we change or are changed by circumstances, the experiences and devotion of today will shape how I live my life tomorrow. How much more astounding that makes the promise of God working all things together for the good of those who love Him… all things, God? That’s a lot of stuff. (How do you like that thoughtful analysis and careful word choice of this writer? Sometimes I marvel that I’m paid to do what I do.) It’s hard, perhaps impossible, to see all or any consequences of the processes of life. But that is the great part. I don’t have to; if I am a tool, an instrument in the hands of a Holy God, then what I perceive as a problem is only the half-done process of a Master Designer. In that case, is it even my problem at all?
And what does this have to do with March Madness? I have no idea. Ask me when it's not 12:30 a.m. after a long, long week.
2 comments:
Nice one Lee! March Madness I can definitely vouch for--maybe we can orchestrate a lobbyist vs. constituent basketball game, jousting tournament, or calvinball match. Or all three. The results are bound to be beneficial. :-P
when teaching, just go with what seems right, and after the class, think about what worked and what you need to do differently.
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