"Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get." I guess that's a true enough analogy, but most of us like chocolates! And the best part about a box of chocolate is that you DO get to pick.
What a diverse group of people I now live with! Just watching them come into the building with their various gear in tow was amazing. Some of the littlest people had the biggest bags! I think I saw a student with a backpack on the front, one on the back and a big suitcase as well. We all packed differnt things in different ways for differnt purposes. One of the students is taking Greek online, for fun! Another brought a guitar. I packed taco seasoning 😀.
As we unpack our bags to get settled in, it occurs to me that we are all unpacking some of the same things. Our own "baggage" as it were. Our own tendencies, our own preferences, our own ideas of normal. It occurred to me that maybe life is more like a box of cables (just so you know, I'm not talking about David's box of cables, his are twist-tied and labeled). We have the cable in our hand, we can't exactly tell where it started and all of the cables are intertwined and cross over one another. Sometimes our own "stuff" unpacks like this. I can see this as the students interact with each other. I can see it as we are given a new cultural situation to deal with - struggling to unwrap the cables, figure out our preconceived perceptions and translate each new experience.
The good news is that this is a great opportunity to grow, to figure out the beginning and maybe even the ending of some of those cables.