A couple of weeks ago, I went to work at the counseling office and the computers were down. A line had been cut by PSO, so we just sat around, not allowed to go home for some reason but not able to assist students, have them take placement tests, or find classes for them. Waste of time. So my boss up in the testing office, a great black lady, proceeds to hum and sing some contemporary Christian songs while we are all sitting around. She tells us of one she really likes and says she has it in her office. Me, another counselor Matt and a guy who mans the reception desk now proceed to be herded right outside her door. We sit down as she puts in the CD and starts the song. Now, I cannot stand contemporary Christian music; my thoughts are along the same lines as the South Park episode where Cartman says they just take pop songs, remove the word "baby" or "girl" and put in Jesus or Lord. But I'll listen. So she plays the song, which she tells us is "Thank You, Jesus." Mmmm-kay. What I don't expect is for the guy and his backup choir to spend 4 and a half minutes singing just that! There were no other words. And my boss is dancing around, clapping her hands and singing with the music. Then she starts pointing at us during the song, either thanking me and intimating I was Jesus, or telling me that I was going to sing-neither of which was true. I had to think that I was getting paid 11 dollars an hour for this and that I still didn't think it was enough. So I started messing with her:
Me: "Thank who?"
"Jesus."
Me: "Oh."
Me: "Do what to him?"
"Thank him."
Me: "Oh."
Me: "For what, exactly?"
"Everything."
Me: "Oh."
Me, after another 2 minutes of this song: "Who are we thanking again?"
"You are a trip."

Moments like this make me take stock of my life. Do you ever do that? Have something occur and while it's happening, start to think, "What happened to me?" I was thinking, "Here I am, mid-30s, past a Master's degree education, married and settled. I had such promise in High School, voted Most Talented and expected to do something (writing, acting, singing) creative with my life. Now, more than several years down the road, I'm still in school, I'm teaching two classes and having to work at another job just to pay bills and have another avenue of work just in case, as is likely, I don't find a tenure-track job as an English professor, staring at a computer for hours on end while students babble about how they know they messed up when they first went to school and that they'll work harder now, or are divorced and looking for "something to do" or "my parents said if I wanted to live at home I had to be in school" and not understanding that ENG 1113 means that it is a 3 hour class or they got a 7 on their ACT and expect to go into Pre-Med and "by the way, can you put me in easy classes with easy teachers because I don't want to work that hard and I hate to write" and my cartag is due and we'll have less money coming in during the summer because I'm not teaching and I'm sitting here watching a 50 year-old woman dance around, clapping her hands and singing "Thank You, Jesus" for 4 and a half minutes while I'm supposed to be working.