Life is Good...30% off

I saw a shirt in a store this week:

"Life is Good."

On the rack, a sign that read “30% off.”

I’ve always liked Life is Good T-shirts and mugs and such, but I’ve never actually bought one—they’re usually pretty expensive—so I thought I’d check it out a little further and see if I should take the plunge this time. Well, after looking at the rack of shirts, one that drew my attention had a few of those I’ve-been-folded-and-in-the-sun-too-long-so-I-have-a-faded-streak-across-the-middle-of-me marks running through it.

Life is Good ... 30% off.

I didn’t buy the shirt. Now that I look back on it, I think it was a fitting symbol of this first week of the institute—at least for me.

It was an intense first week. Grueling schedule. Loaded class sessions. Information overload. The Arizona heat. Learning to know 35 new faces. Trying to blog. Borrowing cameras so I can have pictures for my blog. On top of all this, a super-slow laptop that crashed 3 days before leaving for the institute leaving me wireless-less (is that redundant??), and a neglected online class I’m supposed to be working on. I guess the kicker would be my very first Father’s Day “celebrated” away from my wife & 9-month-old son.

Life is Good ... 30% off.

Yes, it’s been an amazing first week. A vigorous schedule with class sessions loaded with great information in a beautiful new air conditioned building with 35 new friends. I blogged for the first time in my life, and there are great people willing to share their cameras with me. I have a laptop that still does word processing and a new flash drive so I can transfer files to an Internet-capable computer. And when this is all done, I have been blessed with a wife and son who will be waiting for me at home.

Life is Good .... I think I’m going to go back and claim that 30%.

Chris Braun

Reedley High School

Reedley, Calif.