How Fruits Basket changed my life

 Well the last week has been one of sharp contrasts and extremes. The dark woes and traumatic experiences (mostly teaching related…no surprise there), and also fun and fluffy smurfiness.

I have been struggling with coping with the nastiness of delinquent third formers. I’ve have been sworn at, been insulted in various ways ranging from my teaching ability and intellect to my appearance, and had a used (well I hoping it was faked to look used) condom put on my desk (EWWW!). Nasty.

It has been hard for me because I really do not like confrontation and I have never really had people act so hatefully towards me before. Thankfully most people in my life even if they didn’t like me have been subtle enough to allow me to blithely continue in the belief (delusion?) that I am a likeable enough person.

However, the experience has not been wholly bad. The nasty students have been dealt with (the really horrible one has been put in another class! Yay! Dance of joy!) and heaps of the staff have been really nice and encouraging.

I think in many ways I owe a lot of support I have received to Fruits Basket – the shamelessly cute anime of loveliness. Not only has it always managed to cheer me up and put a smile on my face no matter how bad the day at work was, it also inspired my to act the way I did - ask for help.

Yep – life lessons from anime. In between the kawaii animals and big eyes there are some pearls of wisdom.

Often in life it is easy to get depressed and believe that nobody cares about you or your problems. Not true.

As touchingly demonstrated by Kyo and Yuki (aww) in a recent episode, people will often go out of their way to help and support you once they realise that you need it. It just that often we try to battle on bravely and the people around us do not realise how low our morale is or how badly we are feeling.

People are full of kindness and have big delicious plums on their backs (sorry, that reference will make no sense if you haven’t seen Fruits Basket).