WW #4: Overcoming the Impossible

Reading: Like A Hole In The Head
Pages: 3-39

Jill, the main character, works part time in a used bookstore, really just as a way to get some spending money - she doesn't take the job seriously and sees it mostly as a chance to just sit and read all day long (which sounds like a great job to me!). One day, a dwarf walks in and she buys a rare signed Jack London book from him for $25, which she then sells for $300. Shortly thereafter, a big man walks in, sets the dwarfs hair on fire, and demands from Jill that she get the book back. A big problem has settled down in Jill's life and I can't help but think what I would do. I mean, she's sold the book to someone that she doesn't even know that well. She only has a limited amount of time to get the book back before more bad stuff happens (I don't know about you, but I could imagine that someone setting my hair on fire would be terribly painful) and she doesn't have a car nor does she know they buyer of the book that well. So the delima she finds herself in is interesting to me because we all find ourselves in problems that we have no way of solving, yet things all work out in the end. It may be difficult to get through it, but everything works out.

In teaching, I find myself often worrying about the next batch of essays, the next batch of tests, the next batch of homework that I have to read and evaluate. It's very daunting to look at those stacks of work and realize that they represent hours and hours of looking through and measuring them up against standards (so, ironically, I *do* have a job where I'm paid to sit around and read). But I always think that it will get taken care of, this, too, shall pass. I've done it before, I'll do it again, I will be able to get through all of the work I have before me.

And we're all in that same position from time to time, perhaps more often than we'd like. We are all in a spot where we are facing something that looks tremendously difficult, near to impossible, in fact. But we'll do it, we will get it done. And, after we finish that impossible task, there will be another one right around the corner.