I received this great email tonight from Senior Nora Curran.  As part of the Literature of Justice class, students were asked to simply do something nice for someone else. While she still plans to sing at a nursing home near her, Nora spent part of her day just being present - something to remember this holiday season.

Nora Curran ’10

I woke up this morning at 6:00 AM to the great sound of my mother’s voice mixed with the lovely ringing alarm on my cell phone. I was so tired due to the fact that I went to bed at 1:00 AM, making for only five hours of sleep. My mom told me a couple days before that I would be reading The Polar Express to a group of special needs students at her school. I was pretty excited but I was wondering what I was going to do the rest of the day. When we got there we ate breakfast and I met a bunch of the faculty and then I went down to meet the teacher in charge of the students I was reading to. I went down ready to read to the kids and that is exactly what I did. Every time I looked up I could see their bright smiling faces, knowing that they were thinking about Christmas just as much as I was. When it came to the end of the story, one student asked me to stay to watch the movie of the Polar Express and I said I would come back in about a half an hour. When I came back they were watching Home Alone, and I sat between two kids, one who asked me about all the malls I had ever been too and the other one about the movie. I sat there and every time something even a tiny bit funny happened in the movie I heard the overwhelming laughter of the kids and I felt happy myself inside.

I loved being around that much happiness, so I stayed in that room for most of the day instead of having my dad come pick me up halfway through the day like I was planning before I met the kids. Those kids began to show me how the little things really do matter and happiness can come from different things, whether they are from inside yourself or outside. I saw how those kids’ smiles made me smile and feel like I meant something to them. I’d say it was my best day so far during vacation. I got to do something meaningful and bring happiness to people other than myself with a side benefit of making myself feel good as well.

Nora Curran ‘10