It's 5:15am, and it is my day off. Some usually delightful tune issued from my iPod has turned sour, disrupting my slumber. The melodious cacophony prompts a grotesque smile as I rise from my bed, though I dare not stand. I know perfectly well why I have chosen to be awake at this most unpleasant hour. I can taste some formless messages being emitted (either by my own body or an otherwise unpleasant demon of the unconscious dream world) which are inducing a mild euphoria at the prospect of returning my head to the comfort of a pillow. But, the sweetness is also alarming, and its allure is akin to what I imagine addiction lusts for me to experience. I vaguely remember a public service announcement about a frying pan, eggs, and a brain on drugs. I try to avoid things that could be addictive. Apparently, my logic has defined sleep as "addictive", so I indulge only in moderation.
The frying pan reminds me that the burners on the stove in my apartment are still issuing pathetically useless yellow flames. I dismantled it a couple days ago, checking valves and pipes and tubes, then reassembled the stubbornly cool fire utility. I haven't figured out how to fix it.
The grotesque smile creeps back as I take the full two steps necessary to cross my room. I have committed to being awake, which makes me happy. Not enduringly happy. More like the kind of happy I am after spraining an ankle and realizing I can "walk it off". It is relative happy.
Although I have only traversed a couple feet, my right calf is already issuing protests to remind me that it has been strained. I look down at the calf disapprovingly and in reproach. My calf lacks sensory mechanisms (such as eyes) to receive the full effect of my ire, although this doesn't stop me from imagining that tiny hands within the muscle fibers are clapping together in apologetic embarrassment.
I stand over my little bookcase, taking in the nuisance which woke me up, mildly amused by how something so cathartic can be circumstantially manipulated into an annoyance. Enough of my alarm-set music. iPod: You are honorably discharged for the morning. Sleep demon: Pathetically dispatched for neglecting to understand psychology. I am much more likely to succumb to flattery than to a simple assault on my sleepiness. Sleepiness has little effect on the fact that I am training for a half-marathon. Awake or not, I feel compelled to run so that my body won't fall apart in 3 weeks on the day of the race.
I sit back down on my bed, ready to lace up my minimalist Adidas running shoes, and I remember yesterday. It quickly flashes through my mind. Yesterday was horrible. I was teaching Mohammed about time, and we were focusing on minutes. These are new to him. So, I took a little foam clock and put braille on both sides. One side has the numbers for the hours, the other has 5 minute increments. The plan was to feel his tactile watch, and then arrange the hand on the model clock to the equivalent number of minutes. Mohammed didn't grasp the correlation, and set about to simply wait for me to help. I told him to do it by himself, which he did, somewhat defiantly, by simply twiddling around for a couple minutes without really setting out to solve the problem which was before him. Looking back, I think this is approximately the time in which he was already mentally checked out.
I helped him to arrange the clock, and then asked him to read the number. He was way off, so, we decided to focus on reading the numbers. My impatience was already brimming over, but I wanted to try to go slow. He stumbles on "0", but then correctly identifies 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. His grasp of quantities is improving, as is his braille reading. Then, we get to 35....he hasn't memorized this far. He guesses, wrong, and I help. We move on. He gets 40, he gets 45....then comes 50. Mohammed is initially wrong, and then just doesn't care. No longer interested in actually reading the braille number, he is simply spewing out random numbers to show that he hasn't saved this data into his hard drive of a brain. He is protesting the thought process which I am subjecting him to. As he feigns focus, putting up 3's and waiting for my response, my inexperience once again takes hold. I slap his hand down, and tell him to read. To focus. To think. But, he would rather just keep aiming blindly at whatever the target answer is, using buckshot from his database to hopefully cover the possible answers while I wait. I repeatedly slap his hand down, asking him to show me where he is seeing a 3. He doesn't know, nor does he care at this point. I show him that it is a 5 and a 0, together. His mind is already in the kitchen, ready for lunch. I am fuming. He finally mirrors me, acknowledging that it is 50. It wasn't even school at that point, just an infuriating power struggle, which Mohammed only moderately understands the dynamics of. We go to lunch, Mohammed's father shows up, and he goes home for the weekend. I feel rather pathetic as a teacher. Yesterday was horrible. Today is better, I have already decided.
I look back down at my laces. I am not a masochist. I do, however, feel like a poor performance at works provides a little bit of motivation to push myself to be better at whatever I do. I step out my front door, and take a deep breath, in anticipation of 8 grueling miles. A sense of accomplishment comes over me as I realize that I have beat the sun in rising. I take off.
The running sends me through a wormhole. Time passes without me actually experiencing more than a few moments. An interested pedestrian says, "Good morning", with a smirk. His intrigue stems from my exposed lower legs (!عيب), blond hair, strangely attractive beard (I'm fairly certain he thought I was quite a looker), and the fact that I am running mindlessly around Salt this early in the morning. I tumble across an unknown distance. I am pulled back into the normalized time continuum by the honking of some admirers. They are shabaab, young men with their own culture (of which volumes could be written to detail the precise mannerisms and general behavior they often exude). They are cruising around, packed into their blinged-out green Hyundai, even more mindlessly than the manner in which my now jellified legs are carrying me. Back into the wormhole.
The sun shoots unpleasant rays into my eyes from around a hilltop. I feel as though I might have died. I realize that it wasn't the sun which did this to me. It was merely the luminous burst that prompted an awareness of my current state, as induced by too much running. The sun is a powerful thing. I cannot fathom the energy it produces by thermal fusion, but I appreciate it in the same way I appreciate good friends or a plate of spaghetti (not to say that friends and spaghetti are the same thing...I can distinguish the two on most occasions). I finish running.
Back to fusion. Although the time is still far off, I am already contemplating what is will be like to leave this place. To have invested so much of my time as a service worker primarily into a relationship with one student...well, that does not make for an easy transition. I feel like I have stepped into a process of fusion. Rather than two atoms fusing together in a gracefully exothermic ballet, it is me and Mohammed. We are interacting in very rewarding ways, which impact not only ourselves, but those around us. Apart, we are what we are, but fused, we do a lot more. The form of my service work is impacted by Mohammed. It transforms who I am, and who he is. It shapes me, Mohammed, and many others, in direct and indirect ways. Our exothermic equivalent is the vitality that we receive, the things we learn from each other, the relationship that is formed, and the changed perceptions on deafblindness.
Fusion. Clever analogy in what could have been an uneventful, rather forgettable morning run. Thank God for faithfully providing me with such moments of reflection. If you haven't yet, go out and look at the sun. The luminous burst is captivating. And may you remember God as you think of the fusion present in your life. Peace.
The frying pan reminds me that the burners on the stove in my apartment are still issuing pathetically useless yellow flames. I dismantled it a couple days ago, checking valves and pipes and tubes, then reassembled the stubbornly cool fire utility. I haven't figured out how to fix it.
The grotesque smile creeps back as I take the full two steps necessary to cross my room. I have committed to being awake, which makes me happy. Not enduringly happy. More like the kind of happy I am after spraining an ankle and realizing I can "walk it off". It is relative happy.
Although I have only traversed a couple feet, my right calf is already issuing protests to remind me that it has been strained. I look down at the calf disapprovingly and in reproach. My calf lacks sensory mechanisms (such as eyes) to receive the full effect of my ire, although this doesn't stop me from imagining that tiny hands within the muscle fibers are clapping together in apologetic embarrassment.
I stand over my little bookcase, taking in the nuisance which woke me up, mildly amused by how something so cathartic can be circumstantially manipulated into an annoyance. Enough of my alarm-set music. iPod: You are honorably discharged for the morning. Sleep demon: Pathetically dispatched for neglecting to understand psychology. I am much more likely to succumb to flattery than to a simple assault on my sleepiness. Sleepiness has little effect on the fact that I am training for a half-marathon. Awake or not, I feel compelled to run so that my body won't fall apart in 3 weeks on the day of the race.
I sit back down on my bed, ready to lace up my minimalist Adidas running shoes, and I remember yesterday. It quickly flashes through my mind. Yesterday was horrible. I was teaching Mohammed about time, and we were focusing on minutes. These are new to him. So, I took a little foam clock and put braille on both sides. One side has the numbers for the hours, the other has 5 minute increments. The plan was to feel his tactile watch, and then arrange the hand on the model clock to the equivalent number of minutes. Mohammed didn't grasp the correlation, and set about to simply wait for me to help. I told him to do it by himself, which he did, somewhat defiantly, by simply twiddling around for a couple minutes without really setting out to solve the problem which was before him. Looking back, I think this is approximately the time in which he was already mentally checked out.
I helped him to arrange the clock, and then asked him to read the number. He was way off, so, we decided to focus on reading the numbers. My impatience was already brimming over, but I wanted to try to go slow. He stumbles on "0", but then correctly identifies 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. His grasp of quantities is improving, as is his braille reading. Then, we get to 35....he hasn't memorized this far. He guesses, wrong, and I help. We move on. He gets 40, he gets 45....then comes 50. Mohammed is initially wrong, and then just doesn't care. No longer interested in actually reading the braille number, he is simply spewing out random numbers to show that he hasn't saved this data into his hard drive of a brain. He is protesting the thought process which I am subjecting him to. As he feigns focus, putting up 3's and waiting for my response, my inexperience once again takes hold. I slap his hand down, and tell him to read. To focus. To think. But, he would rather just keep aiming blindly at whatever the target answer is, using buckshot from his database to hopefully cover the possible answers while I wait. I repeatedly slap his hand down, asking him to show me where he is seeing a 3. He doesn't know, nor does he care at this point. I show him that it is a 5 and a 0, together. His mind is already in the kitchen, ready for lunch. I am fuming. He finally mirrors me, acknowledging that it is 50. It wasn't even school at that point, just an infuriating power struggle, which Mohammed only moderately understands the dynamics of. We go to lunch, Mohammed's father shows up, and he goes home for the weekend. I feel rather pathetic as a teacher. Yesterday was horrible. Today is better, I have already decided.
I look back down at my laces. I am not a masochist. I do, however, feel like a poor performance at works provides a little bit of motivation to push myself to be better at whatever I do. I step out my front door, and take a deep breath, in anticipation of 8 grueling miles. A sense of accomplishment comes over me as I realize that I have beat the sun in rising. I take off.
The running sends me through a wormhole. Time passes without me actually experiencing more than a few moments. An interested pedestrian says, "Good morning", with a smirk. His intrigue stems from my exposed lower legs (!عيب), blond hair, strangely attractive beard (I'm fairly certain he thought I was quite a looker), and the fact that I am running mindlessly around Salt this early in the morning. I tumble across an unknown distance. I am pulled back into the normalized time continuum by the honking of some admirers. They are shabaab, young men with their own culture (of which volumes could be written to detail the precise mannerisms and general behavior they often exude). They are cruising around, packed into their blinged-out green Hyundai, even more mindlessly than the manner in which my now jellified legs are carrying me. Back into the wormhole.
The sun shoots unpleasant rays into my eyes from around a hilltop. I feel as though I might have died. I realize that it wasn't the sun which did this to me. It was merely the luminous burst that prompted an awareness of my current state, as induced by too much running. The sun is a powerful thing. I cannot fathom the energy it produces by thermal fusion, but I appreciate it in the same way I appreciate good friends or a plate of spaghetti (not to say that friends and spaghetti are the same thing...I can distinguish the two on most occasions). I finish running.
Back to fusion. Although the time is still far off, I am already contemplating what is will be like to leave this place. To have invested so much of my time as a service worker primarily into a relationship with one student...well, that does not make for an easy transition. I feel like I have stepped into a process of fusion. Rather than two atoms fusing together in a gracefully exothermic ballet, it is me and Mohammed. We are interacting in very rewarding ways, which impact not only ourselves, but those around us. Apart, we are what we are, but fused, we do a lot more. The form of my service work is impacted by Mohammed. It transforms who I am, and who he is. It shapes me, Mohammed, and many others, in direct and indirect ways. Our exothermic equivalent is the vitality that we receive, the things we learn from each other, the relationship that is formed, and the changed perceptions on deafblindness.
Fusion. Clever analogy in what could have been an uneventful, rather forgettable morning run. Thank God for faithfully providing me with such moments of reflection. If you haven't yet, go out and look at the sun. The luminous burst is captivating. And may you remember God as you think of the fusion present in your life. Peace.
