Tonight it took me no less than 90 minutes to travel 6 miles in Los Angeles.
What generally takes me 20 minutes as I journey to my Monday night tutoring, tonight for a reason I have yet to learn, took me an hour and a half. Needless to say, it was tough to make it a pleasant ride.
Fact #1: No one enjoys traffic.
Fact #2: Traffic doesn't make nice people.
Fact #3: When you're stuck in traffic it seems impossible to make traffic better.
During my journey I nearly cursed a fellow driver who wouldn't budge an inch to let me switch lanes, gave up on my hopes to run a couple of errands on my way, and pondered quitting tutoring or at very least call to say that tonight wasn't going to work - I'd rather just make my way home.
When I arrived to tutor, thankfully I arrived to forgiveness. My 14-year-old student waited patiently for me even though I was 15 minutes late. And when I arrived he said, "every tutor was late tonight. The other tutor said it took her an hour and a half to get here." It didn't matter to him that I was late, the traffic didn't matter, it only mattered that we had some time to study. He told me about his new classes he started today and he pulled out his geometry homework. (Geometry happens to be my favorite math subject!). Together we learned (and re-learned) points, lines, rays, and segments, and during our time it was very clear that he understood the material. What started off as confusing because we both fumbled to figure out what we were doing, ended up in point, line, and ray mastery and he even initiated taking additional notes so he'd remember what he'd just learned.
Take that, traffic! You won't get me down! Thanks to a 14-year-old who conquered his homework, even a sour traffic driver (me) can turn the night around.
And next time I'm stuck in traffic, I'll be prepared with positive-thinking to help me on my way. Please, if you're next to me, kindly let me into the next lane.
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