My life be like Ooh Ahh. . .

The monotonous beeping of my alarm drones next to my ear. I rub my eyes, trying to erase yesterday’s troubled dreams and ready myself for another long day.

I melt beneath a fiery sun as I stand outside a classroom at the high school, giving an English reading quiz to a girl who stumbles over the unfamiliar words like a blind man on a rocky path.

“I’m going to count to 10,” I scream. “If you’re not out of the pool on 10, you’re not swimming tomorrow.” Kids start plowing through water like Michael Phelps on his way to a gold medal.

Tears trickle down his face as I carefully apply the baking soda paste to the welts on Enrique’s body. Enrique’s got chicken pox, but unfortunately for him, he´s 13, a lot older than most kids with pox.

Bertha drags the comb through my unruly hair. “I found one,” she exclaims. That makes four. I’m resigning myself to the fact that I will probably have lice on and off for the next six months.

An orange flies across the floor and a defiant Manuel glares at me from across the table. He´s angry because I punished him with only bread and water for breakfast.

I glance down at my legs. My feet are still dirty from playing soccer in the mud a few days ago and they´re covered in bug bites in various stages of healing. I`ve forgotten what a good hair day is like and what I look like with makeup on.

They´re simply out of control. It`s my first grade English class and I`m screaming at these hooligans at the top of my lungs. I drag three to the office.


“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Some days are more difficult than others. Sometimes I wonder what I´m doing here.
This verse gives me strength and encouragement.