Meaningful experiences in life.

[sbrettt]

This thread is for sharing meaningful experiences/realizations in life. They don't have to profound. For instance, during my 5th grade science class my teacher was explaining that our digestion system needs certain forms of bacteria to do it's job. That night I went on a learning binge and looked up information about microbial life. I was in 5th grade so I imagine some of what I found was probably internet bs. Regardless I found it amazing that life forms we can't see can sometimes carry more weight than lifeforms we can see. I know that is lame example so instead of attacking it, top it. :]

 

[lizzie]

That is a difficult question to answer at age 55. There are so many of them. I'll have to think about it, and post back.

 

[TheGirlNextDoor]

This thread is for sharing meaningful experiences/realizations in life. They don't have to profound. For instance, during my 5th grade science class my teacher was explaining that our digestion system needs certain forms of bacteria to do it's job. That night I went on a learning binge and looked up information about microbial life. I was in 5th grade so I imagine some of what I found was probably internet bs. Regardless I found it amazing that life forms we can't see can sometimes carry more weight than lifeforms we can see. I know that is lame example so instead of attacking it, top it. :]

When I was in high school , I took a class called "News Writing ". I should explain that when I was a freshman in high school, I was not a good student. I was there for social hour, my home life wasn't great, I spent a lot of time working part time and I wasn't really concerned with grades.

Anyway, I was in this class and they did a mock group interview. The students asked questions and we had "X" minutes to write a newspaper article.

Fast forward a week later and when that hour rolled around, the teacher handed out those graded articles. I didn't get mine back, which bugged the hell out of me. I had turned it in before class was out the same day, so I was a little upset. Where the hell was it?!

Next thing I know, the teacher talks about how good the papers were, but there was one she was particularly impressed with. I'm still sitting there, pissed off because I actually DID that assignment and turned it in.

Next thing I know, she starts reading this paper aloud.

She was reading my paper. I was flabbergasted. I had NEVER had a teacher read anything of my aloud before, much less give it praise.

Everyone turned around and stared at me. I think they were as shocked as I was. I could feel my face and ears burning red. She handed it to me, with an A+ scribbled on it, and told me she wanted to see me after class.

After class, she wanted to put me on the school newspaper staff as a reporter. She was the sponsor and would sign off so I didn't have to take the prerequisite classes.

This sticks out to me to this day, because she was the first teacher that believed in me. Everyone else was so quick to write me off...and this woman took a chance on me.

I'll never forget her.

Thanks again, Mrs. VanPatten!

 

[Fisher]

There are just too many but I would say the ultimate is being there with someone until the end as they were dying. It is emotionally horrible, but incredibly life-affirming in the end.

 

[sbrettt]

There are just too many but I would say the ultimate is being there with someone until the end as they were dying. It is emotionally horrible, but incredibly life-affirming in the end.

That sounds as meaningful as it gets IMO.

 

[lizzie]

I won't go into many details, but I've been a fairly intuitive person since childhood. Every once in awhile, odd things will happen in my life repeatedly, until it finally dawns on me what it is that I need to learn from these things. Those are always "ta-da!" moments, and they are meaningful in the way that they increase my understanding about life and about myself. The more painful things were also the most meaningful in a painful but necessary way (major losses, of which there have been several). I think that the most meaningful events were probably the births of my two sons, and meeting my husband. Meeting my husband, and the way that it came about was pretty special, but losing him was hell. Reaching the point that I feel okay about just being me was a major accomplishment, required a very rocky road, and was a very painful process. You just never know what life has in store for you, and you just hope that you can handle it.

 

[sbrettt]

When I was in high school , I took a class called "News Writing ". I should explain that when I was a freshman in high school, I was not a good student. I was there for social hour, my home life wasn't great, I spent a lot of time working part time and I wasn't really concerned with grades.

Anyway, I was in this class and they did a mock group interview. The students asked questions and we had "X" minutes to write a newspaper article.

Fast forward a week later and when that hour rolled around, the teacher handed out those graded articles. I didn't get mine back, which bugged the hell out of me. I had turned it in before class was out the same day, so I was a little upset. Where the hell was it?!

Next thing I know, the teacher talks about how good the papers were, but there was one she was particularly impressed with. I'm still sitting there, pissed off because I actually DID that assignment and turned it in.

Next thing I know, she starts reading this paper aloud.

She was reading my paper. I was flabbergasted. I had NEVER had a teacher read anything of my aloud before, much less give it praise.

Everyone turned around and stared at me. I think they were as shocked as I was. I could feel my face and ears burning red. She handed it to me, with an A+ scribbled on it, and told me she wanted to see me after class.

After class, she wanted to put me on the school newspaper staff as a reporter. She was the sponsor and would sign off so I didn't have to take the prerequisite classes.

This sticks out to me to this day, because she was the first teacher that believed in me. Everyone else was so quick to write me off...and this woman took a chance on me.

I'll never forget her.

Thanks again, Mrs. VanPatten!

It's pretty cool to think about how your meaningful experience would probably be very meaningful to that same teacher.

 

[lizzie]

This sticks out to me to this day, because she was the first teacher that believed in me. Everyone else was so quick to write me off...and this woman took a chance on me.

I'll never forget her.

Thanks again, Mrs. VanPatten!

Your story reminded me of my first grade teacher. After I finished first grade, my family moved to another city, and I never saw Mrs. Rainwater again, but she kept in touch with my mother over the years. When I graduated from high school, she sent me a pastel drawing of a mountain lion that she did herself. How many people can say that their first grade teacher gave them a piece of artwork that they themselves did, after keeping up with them all throughout their school years? Isn't that cool? To this day, I'm still not sure why she seemed to find me special, but apparently she did.

 

[sangha]

I remember the moment I learned how to read.

 

[sbrettt]

I remember the moment I learned how to read.

How did that make you feel?

 

[lizzie]

I remember the moment I learned how to read.

I remember when I learned to ENJOY reading. I learned to read in 1st grade, but never enjoyed it until I was 12 years old, and it was when I read "Little House on the Prairie" . :lolsomething about those pioneering types, living in a dirt dug-out, and hard times, that made it appeal to me)

 

[Medusa]

life itself is an experience

 

[sangha]

How did that make you feel?

I remember being very young, and watching some cartoons on (black & white, of course) TV. Even for back then, the cartoons must have been very old because they didn't have any dialogue. The only sound was an old piano music score and the dialogue was in subtitles which my older brother read to me. Because he was pretty young too, he couldn't read fast enough and I was frustrated because we were missing so much of what was going on.


Skip ahead a few years, and now I'm in the 1st grade. I remember learning how to write letters and thinking "So what?" It was tedious and I didn't see the point of it. But I practiced and memorized it because I had to.

Then the teacher went on to explain that each of the letters had sounds, and you could string the letters together and the combination of sounds made words. All at once, it clicked for me. Now, *I* could read for myself, and I wouldn't have to depend on my brother reading it for me.

It was empowering and instilled a hunger for learning and reading.

 

[Lutherf]

I was probably around 4 years old (We had a TV and my brother wasn't involved so that must have been the time frame). I had just finished watching a Tarzan episode and decided that swinging from a tree would be fun. I grabbed some rope from the back room and trotted out to the back yard where we had two large pine trees with low hanging branches. I climbed the tree, threw the rope around a branch and took off just like Tarzan....except that I bounced off several branches on the way down and landed on the corner of my sandbox.

Fortunately, my parents had been watching this whole thing go down but by the time they realized what I had in mind, remembered that I had no idea how to tie a knot, and made it to the back yard the damage had been done.

I learned about gravity that day and, over the next few days, also learned how to tie knots.

The meaningful lesson? Television lies!!!!

 

[CRUE CAB]

Your story reminded me of my first grade teacher. After I finished first grade, my family moved to another city, and I never saw Mrs. Rainwater again, but she kept in touch with my mother over the years. When I graduated from high school, she sent me a pastel drawing of a mountain lion that she did herself. How many people can say that their first grade teacher gave them a piece of artwork that they themselves did, after keeping up with them all throughout their school years? Isn't that cool? To this day, I'm still not sure why she seemed to find me special, but apparently she did.

My first grade teacher is about the only one I can remember their name.
None of the others were worth a crap.