Girl, Interrupted

I'm knee deep in my busy season right now. And I'm not talking tinsel and toys. These days, I'm plowing through piles of papers, diving into daunting deadlines, and spewing sound research statistics, all at a mind-numbing speed.

It's like that 80's Hollywood memoir, "I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can," only minus the valium.

And yet, for all the icky intensity of my recent work days, I actually get a bit cranky when someone comes along and threatens my unpleasant routine. Go figure!

Take Friday, for instance, when a group of journalists from India had the nerve to disrupt my flow. Right there, in the midst of a short, furious Newspaper deadline, they galavanted into my classroom, expecting to talk with my students and me. Right there, in the midst of our well-planned mayhem, they had the nerve to interact with these teenagers from another country, asking them why they like journalism. As if we had time to stop what we were doing to answer them!

Well, I hope they're happy! I mean, it was downright annoying to have to sing "Happy Birthday" to Jackson (17 years!) while these dark-skinned strangers in funny clothes watched us. And to think we'd have to share Jackson's cookies with these people! Really!

Really?

I walked into my Newspaper class bathed in the inky chemicals of stress, silently wondering how we could meet our deadline AND our guests...Fifty minutes later, I left feeling connected to my world again, swapping concern for contentment.

I mean, who gives a rip when our paltry rag wends its way through the printing press? This is not cancer, after all. This is not life-and-death. This is an assignment worth 100 points. An expensive and time-consuming 100-point assignment, to be sure. But it is not strangers in a strange land, reaching across languages and lands to make a connection with someone they just met.

And so, a wonderful bunch of mostly pasty-white U.S. teens sparkled for and spewed to, sought out and surprised these five Indian journalists who came across oceans and continents to find out how other people tell stories.

To tell a new story, together.

I've got my fingers crossed for all kinds of disruptions in the jam-packed week ahead. I can only hope that they'll be as magical, as life-giving and grounding as these fine folks who had the gall to disrupt my sputtering flow.