Little Things Do Count

Life is hard, and the journey is exhausting; sometimes one wants to scream at the top of my voice.  Lately, it doesn't take much to see me collapsing, drowned in tears, praying for an end of unknown pain. The least inconvenience puts dark clouds over my head, burdening me with a desire to run away from life. However, somehow the urge of life proves stronger in me than I ever thought it to be.

I may have failed life, and proved myself an eccentric alien to this game called living, but sometimes a beam penetrates the clouds, breaking, even if weakly, the gray color with some feeble gold. Such beams always come from my career.

I've been lately engaged in several activities in my work, coordinating some literary sessions between our students and some lecturers in the US embassy. Such activities have been found useful and quite motivating for the students, and given the opportunity to show foreigners the achievements of the students in English language and literature.

All the events I have co-planned and organized gave me joy, but above all restored my self-confidence, after being in crisis for quite a long time. When I started teaching nine years ago, I didn't know how to do it: how to establish channels of communication between me and the people sitting in front of me in class. Sometimes I failed in gaining their very attention to the topic under discussion, sometimes I failed in convincing them to get involve in discussion. I had never fancied myself a teacher, and when I started this job, I knew that I was not made for it!

However, as they say practice makes perfect. Every year taught me something, giving me new skills, till it came a time when I got into class knowing exactly what to do and how to draw my students ' attention to what I was saying. Such achievements, little sometimes seemed to me, but made me more comfortable in my workplace, even with the annoyance and nagging of my ex-boss.

With the new boss' encouragement and the space he gave me to act, I managed to cross many limits, establishing new mode and tone for the department. All the activities I have participated in organizing made me feel good about myself, forget, even if temporary, the harshness of the life am living, and the many life disappointments that I suffer every day.

When the literary sessions started and I saw how my students were taking a look at me every now and then when I started to participate, I realized my influence on them, and that I did made something different for these young men. Such joy, such renew self-confidence, all help me to go through difficulties, and bestow on my face a smile has been missing for a long time.

  Nadia F.Mohammed