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A life honestly lived is capricious. Life cannot be controlled-- no matter the institutions constructed around us in an effort to do so. No, life is unpredictable and therein is where all the pleasure and the pain can be found. Both feelings--pleasure and pain--and all those in between, are what must be navigated when one is alive. There are no shortcuts, no cheating, no matter how much of a semblance of stability you have constructed.
Anyway, right now I'm on the positive receiving end of this dichotomy (although, dichotomy is such a bad word, cause it suggests duality, and in reality, it is much more than that, but I like using dichotomy, cause it shows that I have read Kuhn, and that was my attempt at having a sense of humor...) But back to the subject: Life is great right now and I am experiencing that fleeting feeling called happiness and I am enjoying every second of it while it pulls up a chair and warms my soul...
Friday I was supposed to take my 7th graders to The Royal Library, The Black Diamond. One of the things I love about Denmark is its library system. It is without want. I can spend hours and hours in there and not least of all, The Royal Library, which is serene. That is the best word to describe it. I'm not a fan of architecture...I mean I can appreciate a beautiful building, but most of the time, I reckon with buildings as the inanimate objects that they are, but to be inside The Black Diamond...
When I arrived the kids had something else in mind. "Let's take the water bus." They start in on me. I hadn't even been there long enough to sit down..."We just took it and the bus drivers were soooo nice." They continued. Oh, I hated it when they got like this, when they want me to change plans. The adult in me freezes up and I get that distinct feeling of indecisiveness that I thought was only reserved for my personal life...but they win (of course) and we board the water bus and take a tour up and down the canals and wow. We had an amazing trip.
It's so important to see your students as the human beings they are and that they get the opportunity to do so with you.
What's even cooler were the two men working on the bus and the openness in which they received us: going against all of the prejudices I am sure some of my students and even myself may sometimes harbor against Danes. All in all, it was a stellar human experience and I am besides myself with joy to think that I get paid to hang out with these incredible human beings. Life doesn't get better than that...and yet it did!
Wow.
the lab