Currently I am taking two classes, EDTS 523 and LITERACY 601, while I am a full time teacher and a full time parent. This past week, I reached a point where I tried to find relevance and balance with school work, parenting and relaxation due to having a week off of teaching. For the most part I finished all of my grad work weeks before, so I didn’t need to work on anything during my week off and I could enjoy it with my son. My problem is that I continue to look at something and change it while it is still in my hands. I reached a point where I couldn’t think anymore. This is the reason why this blog is late. I did think about it, but didn’t know how to put my thoughts down on the keyboard. All week I told my son that I needed to do a paper or a project as he wanted to go outside and play catch. When he asked me Saturday, while I sat at the computer, I finally realized what “balance” is. People need to first, be honest with themselves. If you can not be honest with yourself, you will be unable to be honest with people that you come in contact with. Many people think that they have balance, but if you ask someone around you, their opinions may be different. Don’t get me wrong, I put a lot of effort towards everything I do; but if you don’t take time to enjoy life with people you love, your life won’t be long and definitely won’t be fulfilling. My advice is make a list of what you need to do every day. On this list you must have individual time and family time on it, then list the other events in order of importance. This isn’t a way to procrastinate, but rather to see if you are spending too much time in one area. This is just my advice.
So as for Saturday, I stopped looking at my PowerPoint for the 15th time and put my son in his car seat and drove to St. John Fisher to watch to watch my alma mater play baseball against Ithaca. For those of you who don’t know, I played there for 4 years. Since then I have been a high school baseball coach for the past 10 years as well as a summer tryout scout for the Minnesota Twins. I also help run a baseball camp for kids 3 separate weeks in Penfield during the summer. While teaching is my job, baseball and kids are my passion. So as I took my son to a baseball game, I got to go enjoy a day with my son and show him a little bit of my past and answer many questions that he had for me. As we did this my headache and stress level decreased. But most important, I saw a smile on my son’s face that will last forever, or at least until the next time he walks though the dining room with mudding sneakers on. In this fast-paced technological world you must have balance. Enjoy life!!
3 responses so far ↓
nureles // April 25, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I know what you mean. I think that my kids will be about a foot taller when I finally disengage from this computer. I fully expect to come out of my office and no one will recognize me. It’s hard to find those moments when I can put the stress of graduate school and all of the other things that need to be done (and that I ridiculously told everyone I could do), and enjoy going to Wegman’s with my son. Or having a nice cold glass of wine with my husband. Or being told by my teenage daughter that I should change my outfit because I look pretty lame. Oh well, you can’t pick and choose. But I do look forward to looking into someone’s eyes instead of at a blinking cursor. So yes, a baseball game sounds really good right now. Especially if the Yankees win!
Kristin Merman-Smith // May 1, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I have to say that this is the point in the semester when the gas starts to run out. I can not relate directly to you because I am not a parent yet, but, I understand the importance of needing to breath and relax for a minute. I am wrapping up my first semester here at Naz (12 credit hours) and am fresh out of Undergrad. I have class Wed and Thurs night from 4-10 and between Friday and Saturday I work 26 hours. So, when I get home late Sunday night that last thing I want to do is blog. I can not tell you have many times I have woken myself up at 4:30AM Sunday morning because I realized in my sleep that I haven’t blogged yet…I have even had nightmares about it being my wedding day and I had to blog before I walked down the isle! (This has to do with my mother breathing down my neck to set a wedding date). So, yeah- I feel your stress, but we are so close to the end…and then we can breath and blog on our own terms…is it something you are still thinking about doing?
chinchilla1511 // May 4, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I completely agree with you that we need to “stop and smell the roses” (sorry for the cliche). Too many times we rush through the day without taking our time to just relax and enjoy life. Recently, I have found myself “wishing” my life away. In high school, I couldn’t wait to start college and live on my own. In college, I couldn’t wait to graduate and join “the real world.” Now, as a graduate student, I can’t wait to finish my grad work, get a real professional job and start my life as a teacher. I’ve been looking ahead so much that I have forgotten to live in the moment.