I was looking through boxes in the garage for the posters I bought in Barcelona in 2007 to decorate my classroom with now that I am embarking on teaching Spanish – (very exciting but just a” leetle bit” scary too!) when I came across the cards that colleagues gave me when I left the UK.  One of them had this Calvin and Hobbes cartoon on it which I think is a great thought to hold onto;

In case you can’t read it – it is rather small – it says

Calvin; ” Well, it really snowed last night.  Isn’t it wonderful?”

Hobbes; ” Everything familiar has disappeared! The world looks brand new!”

Calvin; ” A new year… a fresh, clean start!”

Hobbes; “It’s like having a big white sheet of paper to draw on!”

Calvin; “A day full of possibilities.”

Calvin; “It’s a magical world, Hobbes ol’ buddy…… let’s go exploring!”

The same card also had this wonderful outlook on life from Martin Luther King, which I will try to quote to my students and indeed my sons. I think it is a very humbling thought and one which, in a world where we constantly encourage our youngsters to strive to attain qualifications so that they can get well-paid, professional jobs that are perceived to be the only positions worth having, reminds us that everybody has a role to play in society and everyone should try to fulfil that role to the best of their abilities.

“If a person is called to be a streetsweeper, they should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote porty.  They should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did their job well.”

Martin Luther King, Memphis 1968

May this be said of you in whatever path life takes you on from here.