Map of life

Before high school I was rather shy and quiet. I know I know it's hard to believe! But once I started performing on stage something opened up inside of me and I became much more outspoken and outgoing. As I entered my senior year in high school I noticed that more and more I was not getting cast in plays as much as I had been during my junior year. I was a bit devastated since it was my senior year and in my world my last opportunity to perform. Then as if things could not get any worse I ran against my friend Russ for President of the speech team and came in second...therefore making me Vice President and ultimately the grunt that had to collect all the speech points and tally them. Well at about 3/4 of the way through the school year I had had enough. I came into my acting class one day and seeing no teacher around went off on how unfair my life was currently and launched into a tirade about the fine arts director hated me and was literally trying to make my senior year the worst year ever!! I ranted on and on and on and on and on until I was finally out of steam. Only at that moment did I notice there was someone taping the class *gulp*. At the time I was very naive and stupidly assumed that portion of the tape would get erased and forgotten. I had a note delivered to my next class saying I was to be dismissed to see Mr. Jeffers in his office. *GULP* I slowly walked up to his office and figured I was going to be kicked out of the fine arts program. However I then started realizing that really I HAD been kicked out so who cared. And then I started thinking of all the things I was going to say to him and how I was going to really give him a piece of my mind. Well I walked into his office and his secretary looked up at me sadly shook her head and said take a seat he'll be right with you. I waited about 10 minutes when suddenly he came storming out of office face red veins beating and eyes popping out of his head. He grabbed my elbow and dragged me over to a map hanging on his wall. He said what is this...I took a deep breath and said a map. He glared at me and said this is a map of your life and see this tiny pinpoint here this is high school...that's how much high school means Jeanne it’s a pin point on the map of your life! He released me elbow and stormed back into his office. I stood there dumbly looking at the map, composed myself and returned to class. It was a good lesson about life and something I carry around with me to this day.