Don't sweat the small stuff

I'm really enjoying my German classes. The teachers are very warm and motivated and use all sorts of interesing methods to help increase our vocabulary and reinforce the grammar.

The people in the class are very interesting as well. They come from all over the world: Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Bulgaria, the Philippines and Brasil. It's really interesting to hear all the different perspectives that they can contribute.

It's disheartening, though, to hear a lot of their personal stories and how difficult some of their lives are. Most of them are studying so hard because they are determined to better their situations. Makes me feel a bit frivolous that I'm there just because I like languages and have some free time in the mornings.

Today we had a new student join the class. He's an Iraqi who's been here for 10 years. He was very agitated-- was sweating profusely and couldn't sit still. As part of the exercise we had to ask him who he was and why he was here-- he sought political asylum from Saddam's regime after spending 2 years in prison.

He was bitter and angry about American interference in the region, especially since he feels that our sole reason for involvement was for oil. (At one point when he was speaking he got so worked up that I was happy that he didn't know my nationality...)

So class gets started and one of the discussion topics was concentration- the Chinese women spoke for a bit about Tai Chi, the Brasilian said her husband had had some experience with Tae Kwan Do, which had helped him learn to concentrate and tune out everything else.

and then the Iraqi raised his hand and said: "I have found Kung Fu very helpful."

And the teacher seemed relieved that he was eager to join in the conversation and said "Oh! great! And how has this helped you with concentration?"

He got very quiet and started sweating again. Then he said:

"I was a prisoner in Iraq for political reasons. I was kept in solitary confinement in a dark 1m x 1m meter cell for two years. There was one small window through which they would push my food, but I never knew what I was eating because I couldn't see it in the dark. My skin cracked and rotted and I had to sleep in a sitting position because there wasn't enough room to lay down. the only time they let me out was to torture me and then they threw me back into my cell. There wasn't enough room to practice any of the physical moves for Kung Fu but I spent most of my days using the mental discipline just to keep myself sane."

We were all completely flabbergasted. Certainly puts things in perspective. I spend a lot of time being stressed about piddly details. Sometimes it takes an experience like this to remind us not to sweat the small stuff...