Good day, thank you universe!

Yum...

I hope you are able to enjoy life on this day.  I must say, I've felt so lucky on the train the past couple days.  Ya see, students have to write their essays on laptops, and then I have them e-mailed to me.  So I was able to read them on my phone on the train last night and this morning.  It's amazing to see how each student interprets the question, and how each answer is a window into whatever they're dealing with in their lives.  The first time I lived in this city I didn't read profound thoughts from a variety of real human beings hailing from Egypt, Senegal, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Ukraine/Russia, Czech Republic, Taiwan, Colombia and Brazil.

One mother writes about being inspired by another woman who broke free from her mundane life of duty and started pursuing her true passions, whereas another mother writes about how children can't be comfortable all the time and won't learn the value of work or food or money if they are completely cut off from those in the world who suffer.  Young men/women/teenagers write about seeking new experiences, while another writes about how his best friend had to convince his father and his family to give him permission to study abroad in America and overcome their fears that he would die in an auto accident just like his cousin.  When you sometimes get pampered rich kids who are fixated on their smartphones and don't appear interested in learning, you can sometimes forget what a big deal it is for some of these students to be able to come here at all.  Some students talk about how NYC has been their lifelong dream, and things that are normal for me are incredible milestones in their lives.  Regardless of where they come from or how cushy their economic situation may be, they often have their own stories of tragedies overcome.  On a lighter note, a 20 something guy writes about how his sister has always gone clothes-shopping with him and now that she's not here he's had to call her to find out his own pant size (I took delight in informing him that it should be on the tag of the pants he's wearing).

Truth be told, I really enjoyed reading these essays, and I have to say, I can't always say that about student writing.  Responses to test questions tend to be generic and slightly robotic, but this one was different.  Maybe it was because it was an independent task, but the first one they'd written about friends and family didn't light the same fire in my soul.  Perhaps the strength of the second batch of essays was related to that impromptu speech I gave right before they started writing.  We've been having difficulties with a human being, is all I can say.  So I had a bit of a pep talk with my class.  Morale had been soaring as we'd journeyed through this test that is very important for their future success in obtaining jobs or attending various levels of higher education, but the past few days had been very rough, with relief nowhere in sight.  So I told them they are going to continue to deal with difficult humans throughout their lives (especially if they stay in New York), and that they've each got one life to live, so they can't let one human being ruin their experiences.

I then gave them a quick version of a story about Billy Palinski and how the awesomeness of his life was the essential nudge that pushed me out of my comfort zone into a series of adventures abroad and made my life infinitely richer in the process.  Without his bravery and the legend of his personality, I wouldn't be reading the work of people who have incredibly different backgrounds and life experiences.

As I've learned from their essays, these types of experiences improve myself and the building of a better world depends on people continuing to pursue them.  Now, please, it's a nice day.

I think you should go play in the magical mysterious moving universe