B from High School and Sky walks

I've been thinking about a couple of different things lately. I have always struggled with my academic discipline and preparation, time management and all that. Procrastination, distraction and other variations are where I've spent a lot of my potential study time in the past. Fixing doorknobs, cleaning, fixing my bike or my car, shopping for stuff, and more have been favored alternatives to getting my assignments done. I've learned to use this trait to clean house, make improvements and also get my stuff done - eventually. For a great deal of my time in school, things were somewhat easy to grasp. Or at least, with some effort I could usually figure out what was going on. Studying Filipino or Spanish as an adult has been different. It's been one class a week at night over time. Studying here and there...
I remember a girl from High School Chemistry class. She was a nice person and active in government got good grades generally and I remember her struggling with the concept of balancing equations in class. It just wasn't coming to her, long past the time that I had spent with it not coming to me. She kept working though. She struggled and kept going, and she kept working at understanding it. For the test on that section I think that she got a B. I think I got an B also, but mostly because I was working out authority issues at the teacher and not doing my work, or not able to do it. We both understood the concept and I remember thinking that it seemed tough that she didn't understand for such a long time, but it also seemed kind of cool the way she applied herself. That in and of itself would be more significant than the grade. That memory has stayed with me and now I get to live out the struggle of something challenging and take joy in my own efforts to understand a body of information, regardless of the grade. That reminds me I definately need to sign up for the pass/fail grading option for these Filipino academic credits.

And the thing about Sky.... Sky is the small boy that was babysat at our host families place. In the month that we were then he went to walking on his own. It was beautiful to watch as I went through the first month of this program. I often say that if toddlers where as tough on themselves and self conscious as adults when it came to learning new things, they'd never learn to walk. Well, I had the chance to learn new things and take baby steps. Baby steps are hard footsteps to follow in, and I'm glad to celebrate some for both of us.

jason