Cartwheels

It has been a good week so far, and I have tomorrow off...even better. This is my last foreseeable week of underemployment, so I've been uber-enjoying it. Next week I'm plumping my work schedule with a made-for-me new job closer to home, as well as continuing my teaching in SF. I've also been subbing for some classes with a mobile environmental-ed. classroom. It is finally looking up in employment land, and I'm definitely stoked to be busy, though I do need a reminder in how to say no...and mean it...and leave some time for visiting all you people I never see.

So far this week I've been able to teach 4 kids the difference between cartwheels, round-offs, and tinsicas (definitely learn how to turn a tinsica, it is always a hit...here's a picture), roll down 3 hills multiple times, climb 2 trees, and discover 1 "fairy fountain." I've also realized more than once just how lucky I am to be where I am, doing what I'm doing. I may be wasting my potential and languishing in the in-between, but it sure has been fun. And my current jobs definite help to lubricate my cool-for-kids skills. As some of you know, my barometer for procreation is the ability to turn 10 pt. cartwheels. So far so good. I may even have a few decades left for baby making.

How important is it to be truly happy in your career? I find that the folks I know fall into two basic camps. Some work so that they have the money and time to do what they really love, others work at what they love and make do. Both have their merit. While I envy those that see through the guise of capitalism and opt for security with a side of philanthropy, I have fallen firmly (and poorly) into the second camp, though I've had difficulty really pitching a tent on a particular career site. I seem to suffer from an "I want to know everything about everything and try it and then teach it" complex that keeps me from sticking with one discipline.Which is how I find myself teaching marine ecology and early childhood education while daydreaming about publishing and restauranteering...and childbirth education...and farming...and...

What is nice about having options is that it opens my mind to all the possibilities out there. Beyond the bathroom needing painting and the garden needing planting, there are minds to be molded and hills to be rolled down. Many, many hills. Try it. You're never too old or too tired to re-pitch your tent. And we're all definitely made for a few cartwheels. Some of us even think better upside down.

Bloggity.