Plain and Simple

I am not a person of uber extravagance.
I don't need expensive gadgets to make me happy.
I don't require over the top nights out to stimulate me or make me feel like a worthy individual.
I don't think you need to spend money to have a good time, nor to make another person happy.
My stimulus threshold isn't high enough to tolerate much of that...

Don't get me wrong... once in a while, all of the above can be a lot of fun. In the short-term. What is left of these things the next morning? or when the new electronics are marketed 6 months after your "new"(now old) gadgets were purchased? And money is dirty... really, lots of germs of that stuff (ewwwww)

I like small things.
Simple things.
Things that, in their ordinary state, take your breath away.

Like on Saturday morning...
I was just starting my longest run ever. My group makes it's way from the Runner's Den in Westdale up to York Blvd, and then we run down York Blvd until it turns into Plains Rd.
But running along York Blvd. is one of the best views... There is Hamilton Harbour and across the way is the Skyway Bridge.
(Anyone who reads this and knows Hamilton is likely going to add: "And smokey, gross steel factories, Christine!". Well, yeah... but without those smokey, gross steel factories, Hamilton would be nothing. But I digress...).
But the way the sun light was being cast out of the sky that morning, the sparkle on the newly thawed water, the smell of pre-spring air... it just filled me with such a renewal of life after this long winter. My run was amazing that morning.

In my field of soon to be work (Educational Assisting), I am lucky to experience such wonderful things on a very regular basis.
I am currently completing my 4th placement at an inner-city high school where all of the 322 students have been identified as having some kind of exceptionality (e.g. learning disabled, mild intellectual delay, autism, tourettes... the list goes on). I'm not supposed to have favourites, but I totally do... it's inevitable.
Anyway, one classroom possesses some of the schools most spectacular students.
They can barely read or write or complete even the most simply math calculations.
But they inspire me.
They never give up.
They have so many strikes against them, yet they continue to persevere.
For themselves.
For their futures.

These students totally put life into perspective for me.
Many of them have so little to their name, yet they get up every morning, come to school, work so hard on everything handed to them, and still manage to smile through it all.
And it is little things that make a difference in their lives too.

For instance, this class runs a breakfast program every day.
Four students every week are titled "Kitchen Staff", and they are responsible for setting the table, taking orders, and making the breakfast.
Sometimes it is simply bagels, muffins, and cereal to gobble up.
BUT! when there's pancakes?! Oh.My.Gawd. Why don't you just say "Here's a Million Dollars!".
It's just eggs, flour and butter, but to these students it's as if they are made of gold (I think syrup may play a role in this happiness, too, but I haven't conducted enough research).

Last week we were told pancakes were what was going to be made, but *GAAASP!!!* there were no eggs!
This was ok with some students.
Not with others.
One in particular.
He was having pancakes, no if's, and's, it's or but's about it!
But there were no eggs.

Now, I like to call this one of my more "brilliant" moments at placement.
We had "Brown Sugar Oatmeal" in the cupboard.
Student was relentless in his pancake pursuit.
I said: "We cannot make pancakes today, and that makes a lot of us unhappy and disappointed, huh? Well how about this? Would you like to have some syrup on your oatmeal today? Oatmeal is hot like pancakes, and I was wondering what it would taste like with syrup on it".

WELL! The smile on Student's face at the mere mention of syrup was not even measurable!
Syrup is all it took.


I wish society could stop all it's materialistic ways.
I wish we could appreicate life and what we have in it for what they naturally represent.
I wish society didn't require such big (yet empty) things to "fulfill" them.

Because really,
syrup is yummy.