Determined to be happy

1) Don Julio told me about a moment in his special ed class:

DJ's assistant brought in some seeds and planting materials, and they've organized a project around growing plants. On day one, they opened up a big white bean seed, talked about the various parts and then drew a sketch of the inside on the board. DJ asked for ideas on what kind of plant would germinate from the seed they'd dissected and got in response: an apple tree, any other kind of tree, a flower, and...'An even bigger seed!'
Don Julio glanced back from the chalkboard and passed a quizzical look at the kid. 'An even bigger seed, huh?'
'Yeah! And then, and then...then it'll grow a whole bunch more baby seeds!'

Sometimes I wonder how DJ doesn't just lose it in class. Awesome.

2) Tonight I'm going to a concert: 'La Grande Sophie.' Apparently she's quite tall. I like her already.

I'm heading over to one of DJ's friend's house beforehand to eat some dinner and get organized. She's nice, and makes me laugh, but I'm going to need some coffee to keep up with her.

3) I think I've finally let go of my accent insecurities. (This means I've also become a lot lazier about it, but after a certain point I had to either let myself go and talk or never say anything out of fear of saying it incorrectly) One of the English teachers I work with got me a french audio book for my birthday, which I'm pretty excited about. We talked before about ways to process a foreign language, and in a couple conversations, we'd touched on what a great resource audio books have become. I made sure to thank her again on my way out, and she said with a genuine smile 'Now you can have a good french accent!'

That statement startled me for a few seconds. When someone says something like that, you of course think 'What? Is my accent that awful?' and even two weeks ago it probably would have sent me into a spiral of self-loathing. But it only pricked a little, and I realised that it just didn't matter that much to me anymore. I'm not a native speaker. I will never sound like a native speaker. I will always pronounce some words in a really weird way, my voice will never completely lose its English tendency to rise and fall, and I will at times be utterly incomprehensible. And I'm okay with that.