Unexpected Suprise.

This morning I volunteered at a local organization. 

I was required to volunteer for an hour and let me just be honest...I was not a happy camper this morning having to wake up early and do goodness knows what. 

However, when I got there I was assigned to help adults in a G.E.D class. I had no idea what I was in for. I was just hoping that there wouldn't be anything too difficult. When I entered the classroom,there were some adults taking tests, some just practicing how to write and do math problems. A young woman waved me over who needed help with math. 

Crap. 

I suck at math. 

When I sat down though, I saw she was working on measurements...yes, as in inches to centimeters, yards to meters etc. This young woman has never done math before in her life, let alone used a ruler. To think that I learned that kind of stuff at such a young age and this woman had never learned it was..well..appalling. 

 I'm no professional teacher and I honestly felt a bit uncomfortable telling someone older than me what to do. She wasn't allowed to use a calculator so I just watched her write out the problems and then checked her math. She told me about how she is expecting her 2nd child, a girl, we talked about how both our dads are the "strict ones" in our family and how annoying long division is. 

It took us an hour and a half for 12 problems. Kinda makes you thankful that you can read this post and use a measuring device, huh? 

After we were finished, the class instructor walked me out and thanked me for my help, he then said he usually has a bit of trouble working with the woman I helped because she gets frustrated at his explanations.

 Maybe she was just nicer to me because I was a stranger but I'd like to think I helped her in a different way than her usual instructor. This is easy to connect to Thanksgiving because it's just around the corner. I am so thankful that I can read,write and count. But I am also sad that there are people who live in a different world than me but in reality are only miles away. 

Ok, I'm stepping of my soapbox. Just a little story to make you think.