Disclosure, Part 2: It's a Small World After All

Turns out my previous concern over overtly disclosing my diabetes to my professor is obsolete. Ironically, the instructor of my fall writing workshop class is best friends with my former sixth grade teacher (who helped me nearly twenty years ago as I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes while a student in her class). She was the teacher who most encouraged me to write and nurtured my shy eleven year old self with ample opportunities to practice playing with language and experimenting with words. I reconnected with her through my current professor, and we are setting up a lunch date. How cool is that?!

It really is a small world after all (anyone else love this Disney ride as a kid?), and so, just as I had hoped, the topic of my diabetes surfaced naturally and without me forcing the topic.I am glad my prof knows the back-story of my diabetes because I might need to play that card, after all. In fact, I almost excused myself from class this evening. I felt sick all day and hadn't eaten anything since vomiting up the carrots and dip I had in lieu of lunch, and felt my bloodsugar dropping. I tested at break time and was at 82. I stayed.

I really struggled through the three hour seminar, though, as the temperature outside exceeded 90 degrees. Yes, in Wisconsin. Yes, in September. And no,of course our room in the historic Notre Dame Hall had no air conditioning. My fantasy vision of the campus from last week faded quickly in light of a new reality. It felt like an inferno, with fourteen sweaty grad students crammed into tiny desks in a sour room with dead air and no fan. For $5,000 a semester, you'd think they could find a way to crank some A/C into the room.

But I digress...the college really is special. After attending huge state schools ( U of M and UW, respectively), the individual care and attention placed on me as a Mt. Mary student is refreshing and much appreciated. I'm quite charmed by the intimate feel of the campus and all who work there. Everyone is friendly and helpful, going out of their way to accommodate me. Just today, I was lost and late to class after showing up at the wrong classroom. Unsure where to go since I had just switched sections and the room number wasn't on the syllabus, I rushed into the nearest office with a live body in it, and the woman at the desk stopped what she was doing, despite the fact the business office was technically closed, and pulled up my class schedule and printed it out for me, correct room numbers and all.

She was cheerful and friendly, and topped off her kindness by hand delivering the bottle of water I'd mistakenly left on her desk in my hurry to get to class (almost) on time. I was taken aback when she showed up outside room 236, bottle of water in hand, a few minutes later. No bursar's office worker at the U or UW would ever traipse through the building after hours to hand deliver a half-empty bottle of water that some forgetful student left on their desk. It may seem like a small thing, but her act of kindness made my day, and reaffirmed that I am in the right place. It proved to me, yet again, that Aesop was right-- no act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.

What small act of kindness brightened your day today?