Life's a Great Balancing Act

One of my favourite books in the world is Dr. Seuss' "Oh the Places You Will Go!"

There are a lot of reasons for this, some of which are: it's fun, it's written in Dr. Suess prose, which is always entertaining, and it has great messages about life, including:

On and on you will hike
and I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.

You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never  mix up your right foot with your left.

Oh how I love this book!

It's so hard to only copy sections of the text because it's all so good, but the Balancing Act thing really speaks to me right now.

Currently, I'm working two jobs.

By night, I am an ordinary person: an employee with the Bradford Group, who answers phones and responds to correspondence from people all over North America. Basic call center / customer service type job.

But by day?

I'm a Mad Scientist.

Seriously. That's my official job title.

My day job is the coolest job EVER. I get to play with all sorts of interesting things like dry ice, set stuff on fire and see what happens, melt water cooler bottles, and do magic tricks. I perform at birthday parties and in school shows and workshops, and next week get to start working with kids at three different schools once a week at lunchtime.

The job description is similar to teaching and involves a lot of class and time management, as well as instructional and organizational skills. We follow a curriculum and give kids "assignments" to do that they then get to take home with them. For example, one of the take-home activities is to create periscopes (during our optical illusions session).

It's so much fun! I'm totally exhausted after working, but have a great time every single time. The kids act like we're rock stars and get very excited when they see our white lab coats (yep, we have lab coats - it's mandatory uniform) and plus my teacher-self thinks it's amazing to watch kids have so much fun learning.

The only problem with this is that I'm now running like a maniac between two jobs (and still not making enough to pay all of my bills). I'm tired all the time and have no social life aside from the two days a week when I'm not working past everybody's bedtime.

It'll pay off though.

Just like today, after my workshop, when the classroom teacher mentioned something very intriguing...