A blue blob of ink

I am sitting at school today. Yes, it's school holidays, however we are getting our network cables fixed up so (hopefully) all will be working in our senior school building the beginning of next term. So, I'm making good use of the time by cleaning out files and folders on my laptop and ones backed up to the network. I discovered this great journal entry from April 2005 that I had written....

Sitting on my desk at home, was a small blue stamp that prints the word excellent and about 5 ticks. Over the holidays, I had corrected a large slab of the class’ writing and had used the stamp on the work of some students.

Seeing the stamp had reminded of a boy in my class, Sam, who loves playing with my limited collection of stamps at school. Every now and again, as we started to clean up the room for the end of the day, he would ask me if he could put stamps on the hands of those children who were cleaning up well or being good. Normally I tell him no, and that he should be playing with things on my desk, however, after what must have been a long and exhausting day, I agreed to let him do it; simply to get him out my face.

So, around he went, placing stamps on the hands of anyone he saw picking up paper off the floor, helping to clean the tables or helping other people.

Shortly after, the bell rang for the end of the school day. After inspecting the room and dismissing the grade, Sam walks over to my desk.         

“Hold out your hand,” he says.        

“What for?” I ask.         

“Just hold out your hand,” he says again.         

He takes the lid off the stamp and makes a print on my wrist.         

“What’s that for?” I asked him           

“Because… you were good today too”.

And with that, he opened the drawer on my desk, returned the stamp to where it belonged, and raced out the door.         

“See Ya Mr D!” he yelled from the corridor         

“See Ya Sam!” I respond.

How simple – a small blob of blue ink, yet it made me feel so good. I look down again at the stamp sitting on my desk. I take off the lid, press it onto my wrist, and look down at the blue excellent and the group of ticks.

Suddenly life doesn’t seem so bad after all.