When you think the worst…

…sometimes you will be surprised.

I hate Thursdays.  Everyone who knows me knows this now, I think.  I have a bad selection of classes, and barely a moment to breathe, let alone pee. Some of the kids I teach are badly behaved, and most of them seem to come on Thursdays, just to make the day even worse.  One of them is dirty – he picks his nose and eats it in class.  One of them just likes to wind me up as much as possible.  Most of them like to chatter away in Japanese despite my efforts to stop them.  It’s not just the kids though.  Sometimes everything on a Thursday can bring me down.

Today was set to be no exception.  I had one of my bi-monthly meetings at head office to start my day, which meant a trip to a different part of town for a three hour meeting.   Then I had an hour, which was marked as my lunch break, in which to dash back to school, eat, and prepare myself to teach five lessons.  See?  It doesn’t sound good, does it?

So I woke up feeling blue.  I really didn’t want to even leave the house, but I put my suit on and dragged myself into town.  I went to Starbucks for breakfast, as an effort to put something good in my day.  There, I enjoyed a white mocha with non-fat milk (which I have recently learnt to ask for in Japanese!), a warm pumpkin scone (mmm.. autumn!) and a little quiet study time.  I was feeling a little better, until I realised I had to get ready to go to head office.

But then, chance started to intervene in my day, and I bumped into a new friend.  It’s always nice to see a friend when you don’t expect to, but even more so when that person is someone who always has something positive to say.  Almost immediately she told me she liked how I was dressed and that my suit really fitted well.  I suddenly felt a whole heap better than I had just five minutes ago.  Remember those old computer games when you have a health bar at the side of the screen, and it gradually goes down, but then you eat an apple or something and it goes up a notch?  Well it was like that!  Her positive comment was like a great big juicy apple, bringing up my health and happiness level.

So I went off to head office with a little more bounce in my step, but still aware that the health bar was going down with every minute, and that a three hour meeting was going to be tough.  But the meeting surprised me, actually.  Whilst I didn’t really learn anything new, I did meet a few new people and have some fun conversations.  It wasn’t so much like work, really.  I love talking, and I think having a few laughs or even sharing a couple of moans made me feel a little better again.  One more juicy red apple!

After the meeting I ran back to school, stuffing my lunch down me as I went, and I could feel my enthusiasm faltering again.  However, my first lesson was with one of my favourite students, who is usually my only little ray of light in a dark day.  And today was no exception.  Not only was she positive, entertaining, and lovely, she also gave me two persimmon.  Just because.  In my job I get a lot of souvenirs and gifts, but it’s something as simple as a piece of fruit which can really make my day. Two juicy orange persimmon to bring up my levels!

Then came the kids classes.  But… today they actually weren’t so bad.  I mean, nose-picker was picking (and making some terrible smells which actually made me gag!!), but a couple of kids were absent, which made it a bit quieter, and I tried a few new tricks which seemed to control them just a little bit more.  I don’t think I even raised my voice that much, which is a miracle for a Thursday.

Finally I had a couple of adult lessons, which were fine too.  Some interesting conversations and no questions that were too difficult for me to answer.

I didn’t leave work until very late as I had to clear up from my whirlwind of lessons, but I left school feeling fairly positive; certainly a lot more positive than I have for the last few Thursdays.

So, what’s the moral of today’s scribblings?  There are two.

1) If you think something nice about someone, say it! You never know how much they might really need that juicy red apple to bring up their health and happiness bar!

2) When you think the worst, you might just be surprised.  While it’s all well and good to go into things with a positive attitude, sometimes, if you’re too positive, you might feel let down.  Whereas, if you think the worst, maybe actually you’ll find that it’s not so bad.

Have a beautiful day tomorrow. 😀