Perspective

Today I started at a new school. I was terrified and really didn't want to go. Everyone else has been there for six months and are great friends, so I'm the outsider and feeling really self-conscious and new. We play games involving remembering names (which I suck at). They get them all right. I get EVERY name wrong. For the rest of the lesson, I don't understand much of what the teacher says, so I'm also feeling really dumb by this point. At break time, I'm feeling dumb, confused, tired, lonely, self-conscious, and I also notice half of them have yummy-looking takeaway lunches, so I'm jealous, and embarrassed by my boring apple and dorky thermos of home-made coffee. So I slink off to the kitchen, pour myself a cup, then come back, and the only spot to sit is on a sofa, in the middle of the group. I sit down. Did I mention I've lost the cup from my thermos... so I have this really embarrassing plastic yellow cup instead? Anyway, they are all discussing going to buy fancy coffees from the machine. I'm wishing I could buy a latté or a double mocha or whatever fancy coffee is available. I'm sitting there blowing the steam from my cheapo coffee, trying to be invisible and feeling sorry for myself and my crappy coffee from home, hoping nobody laughs at my ridiculous smiley-face plastic cup. And then one of them announces that the coffee machine is broken. They complain. They wail. They're very unhappy at missing out on their caffiene fix.

I sit there with my awesome home-made coffee in the hilarious cup, blowing it and feeling smug and quietly grinning to myself.

PERSPECTIVE!!