Is that all there is?

Last Wednesday, I spent an entire day in the library of my former high school.

Why? Why, oh why?

Well, as Ben reported, I was finishing work on a small job that I had agreed to do for the school. And, this job involved using one of the computers on campus -- a computer in the school's library.

So, during the course of the day, I sat through about four or five study halls in a seat only about ten feet away from the students.

You know how you'll sometimes hear an elderly person say that, despite their physical ailments, they still feel like they have a seventeen year-old mind?

Well, maybe they should spend a day in a high school library -- ten feet away from seventeen year-olds and their minds. Then, perhaps, they wouldn't be so quick to disregard the differences between their mind and that of the teenager.

Despite the fact that ageism reared its ugly head, I did attempt to give these kids the benefit of the doubt.

For starters, I came into the library with a positive attitude. I believe I smiled more during those seven hours than I did during most of the days I spent in high school.

"Let a smile be your umbrella," I guess.

And, when some oblivious starter jacket rudely bumped into me without a remorseful acknowledgement, I didn't elbow him in the side.

Aww, the kinder, gentler Mena.

Oh, and I spent a good chunk of time imagining that I would come to the rescue of a freshman boy who -- with his fully zipped-up Member's Only Jacket and shaggy hair -- looked like he could have been the only kid in that school who actually spent as much time online as myself.

I guess I just wanted to go up to his desk and say "it gets better than this."

But, wisely, I refrained from my white knight act so as not to seem any more like the creepy stranger using a computer in a high school library.

Comments

[Nicole]

what is the secret to your buddha-like calm? I tutor kids and at the end of the day I feel like some of them need more than elbowing...
ps you can borrow my vespa--when I get one!

[Harmony]

Hehe :). I can relate to "let a smile be your umbrella". When I was on work experience during high school I had to face an entire classroom of kindergarteners who didn't know who I was and weren't inclined to like me. So I just smiled and smiled until I felt like my face was going to crack.. I seriously probably smiled almost non-stop for about two hours.. and finally one by one they smiled back. After that they wouldn't let me out of their sight for the rest of the week, and all thanks to good old smiling :).