A day of ungracefulness

Just a few minutes ago, I fell onto the floor…I went to go sit in my chair and completely missed! Ka-plop! My bum and my wrist hurt now. Oh when oh when will I cease being clumsy? At least it provides some amusement to me (and usually others).

And today, I walked into a crowd of students and they completely stopped talking and stared. I wish I could say it was my stunning beauty, but it was the exact opposite. At least this, I did on purpose. It was “mix & match” spirit day at school and I went all-out and wore the ugliest combination of clothes I could find and even two different shoes. Unfortunately, none of the students remembered it was a spirit day so I looked like a clown all by myself. A lonely clown. silly…
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Actually, what’s been really exciting is that I haven’t felt loneliness in a really long time. For the first time in my life, I’ve been discovering this fascinating thing called my “introverted side.” Yes, it’s amazing – but I have one! =) It’s the strangest feeling for me to crave alone time, but many a-nights I’ve spent in my own company and really enjoyed myself doing odds-&-ends. How weird.

Other things that surprise me in my 27^th year of life:
-I’m still making NEW life-long friendships!
-I really love leading worship and bible studies for small grp
-I still have acne! arg…

Some recent treats in my life:
-On Monday, I had two guest speakers in my classroom. They both had HIV/AIDS, and I was sooo blessed by their stories. The man was very promiscuous when he was younger, contracted HIV, knew it, but still continued to sleep around for the next 6-12 months w/o a condom. He was just scared and desperate for affection. Now, he’s survived 20+ yrs and quite aware of the miracle of his life. He’s really knowledgeable about current health issues and so open about his story so that kids are aware of people like him who might not be honest.

-The woman who spoke came from an abusive home and was put into foster care because her mom wanted to get revenge on her dad. This way, her dad could never find her. Despite that, she became driven to succeed after a middle school teacher nurtured and cared for her. She, herself, became a teacher but had to quit working when she became HIV+ from her fiancé who never told her that he was infected. She quickly left him and many years later met a man who didn’t care that she was sick, and they were married 2 years ago. Since then, she became a believer and has such hope and encouragement about this life. We had such a wonderful talk during my conference period!

-The last story has to do w/ my China trip. There, I’ll be working at an orphanage for the first week and then helping out at an orphan summer camp for the second. Our program director gave us most of the information we needed to know through conference calls, and during one of them, one man asked a question about a little boy to a teammate who’s already in China working at the orphanage. I was a little annoyed that this guy was taking our conversation off-topic, but he was actually asking about the boy he’s adopting! It was so neat to hear the love & joy in his voice. It’s going to be so neat to be around people like that!