my crisis of being.

Every once in a while a certain type of moment hits me like a freight train... or in my case... hits me like the AVE (ie the high velocity - alta velocidad - train).

Anyway... I call these moments my "crisis of being."

The last one I had occurred last Monday evening.

I was working and had reached a point of delirium.
I started thinking about all my friends and the amazing jobs things they are doing.
I know some pretty cool people.
I have friends in medical school, PA school, nursing school, law school, grad school for psychology, grad school at HARVARD.
Friends who are jet-setting across the US giving hard-core presentations in front of clients over twice their age.
Friends who have been editors at big-time, big city magazines and have already left their jobs.
Friends who live in Washington, DC, New York City, and LA doing things that are beyond me.
Friends who are Peace Corps volunteers changing the lives of people in 2nd and 3rd world countries.
Friends who are engineers working at the "happiest place on earth."
Friends who are tour managers, organizing a well-known band's performances across the world.
Friends who are accountants, dealing with (literally) millions of dollars.
Friends who are teachers, educating the youth of America.
Friends who are ministers, pastoring to people around them.
And I know there's more that I can't pinpoint right now.

No really, sometimes I marvel at the intense caliber of cool of the people I know.


And you know what I was doing?
Cutting out sea creatures out of colored paper.








That's right.

Big fish
Skinny fish
Star fish
Jelly fish
Sting rays
Sea horses
Octopuses
and let's not forget the sweet crab I cut out. (Not a single template, I might add.)
And I thought "WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?"

Given, this was all for a reason. Read on if you'd like to give me a little more accreditation, but feel free to stop if you enjoy the fact that my job sometimes is to cut out sea-dwelling inhabitants.


I was preparing for our school's carnival-style fiesta we were throwing at the convent which acts as a children's home for kids who have families who can't take care of them full-time, so they live there during the week and go home on the weekends.




I decided we should bestow our carnival with a theme, bajo el mar (aka under the sea), based upon my personal favorite station of Verner Elementary's Spring Fling which I attended every year of my primary schooling. It was a "fishing" station where the coolest mom obtained and painted a refrigerator box to look like the ocean, and then we kids got to fish for prizes with clothes pins for hooks. TRY and tell me that's not SWEET. (Ok, so it was difficult to procure a refrigerator box... this old sheet made do.)



So clearly, I determined this would be a wonderful addition to Acento de Trinity's third annual fiesta en el convento de los niños, and hence rooted the rest of the activities based upon this theme. We dressed in "beach attire" and began by playing a tremendous game of terrestrial "sharks and minnows" (which clearly became "tiburones y pececitos"). Then I oversaw a complicated rotation of about thirty Spanish children divided into 5 different teams through the following games:





a Spanish-style "cake walk" (where we replaced "cake" with "bag-o-chuches" which is the bomb candy here)







a relay of dressing in over-size beach finery (including my goggles)






a beach towel water balloon toss









a create-your-own-boat-with-random-objects-that-float craft along with face painting (because what self-respecting carnival doesn't have face painting?)







a shoot some penalty shots competition (not super "under the sea"-esque, but I mean, this is Spain, what do you expect?)








Meanwhile as the kids won the little events, they were presented with a gusanito (a little worm) to go and fish in the mar for a prize (maned by the professors.)









Of course, it was not totally perfect, but I have amazing students that helped so much, and with their indispensable assistance as team captains and activity supervisors, the fiesta was a complete success. We even got the coolest nun ever, Madre Gema, to participate.

(No, seriously, this woman rivals Sister Mary Clarence, she's too cool to even wear her habit... the woman is phenomenal, not to mention hilarious.)


So conclusion, well... yo que sé, if you want doctors or lawyers, you better look somewhere else... but if you want mono-colored sea creatures cut out of computer paper (without the help of a template, mind you), then I'm your girl.