Wednesday, August 29, 2007

I want to write my words on the face of today.

Thank you to all of you who responded to my last post. I appreciate your understanding and sharing while I work through this spiritual stumbling block.


I messed up my first graduate school assignment.

Yup. It's true.


I misunderstood what the professor requested of me, and after sending the assignment to him in an email, I received a response from him about 20 minutes before I left for class informing me of my mistake.
Oops.

At that moment time froze for me and the words of a very wise young man echoed in my head-

I can't control this situation. The only thing I can control is my reaction to it.

I took a deep breath.
No need to get upset, it was too late to fix it and this wasn't going to cause me to fail the class or anything.
I smiled, fired off a response telling Prof. to go ahead and make an example out of me (I'll take one for the team!) and popped in my headphones as I strolled out the door. It felt so good to have actually handled what could have been an anxiety-inducing situation well. I sang on the way to class I felt so relieved. I'm sure the people on 15th street thought I was crazy. ;-)

Sometimes all we need is a deep breath.

On different note- my graduate classes are amazing!
Religion in Modern Japan is currently blowing my mind. Shinto and all it's various kami and Japanese Buddhist practices like Sudden Death temples are just so...foreign!
Expect a post later once I process all this new information...
I love this stuff!

My new favorite thing about KU: The soap dispensers. The ones in the Union are automatic and have shiny silver soap. It's the little things that bring me joy!

3 comments:

gabriel said...

"...and then I'll paint it." :)

We should talk Shinto sometime. When I was in Japan I was always a little more impressed by the Shinto Shrines that I saw than the Buddhist ones.
(Little did I know, I would begin to embrace Buddhism a few years later...)

Mark said...

Here at Drury, it's the squirrels. They don't dispense silvery soap, but the DO play tag!

You make me want to be a better person, just so you know. I like reading your thoughts and growth a lot. :)

khengsiong said...

I know very little about Shintoism, but its temples are really magnificent.

Can you post a photo of the soap dispenser?

P/S I have 2 blogs. One of them - link not shown in profile - is specifically for Buddhism only. If you are interested please click here.