spoonfuls

this wont be the 'here we go again' and I am not the weak link. Sometime will be the right time and these labor pains will be forgotten. Meet me here, because I don't want to be the same. I've been within your immense favor before, so thats what I remember and pray for.

being open and real is really hard. I don't like feeling vulnerable, but you can't have one without the other. what a pompous kind of order.

thankyou for giving something in my life worth offering. 

when the world doesn't make sense, you make sense of everything

My mum tried 'active listening' last night,because I complained she just walks off and thats rude. But ironically, her attempts made me wonder whether she was listening at all because when I was telling my story, it looked like she was staring at me. Very blank stares, straight through me, or even past me. You know the look, vacant and or thinking about something else. Her efforts to be really intentional, just made me annoyed as she didn't even respond. The point of 'active listening' is to listen with intent so you are equipped with a response. No such thing happened, "Mum??..." no response, "Mum are yous listening." "YES NICOLIE! I'm active listening." hahahaha, clearly you weren't and somehow, I'm judgmental. Good one mum, keep working on it.  

I've been blown away! I study education and I can say that I have been changed probably for ever, by a very simple perspective. I was given a vantage point to view creative, student centered education. My heart was in uproar when I found out that an educational movement was started from the demands and efforts of a bunch of women in a Italian Provence called Reggio Emilia. In world war 2 after a majority of their houses had been reduced to rubble, these women who shared a common goal, began rebuilding what was left of the bricks and supplies to fashion a new school for their children! But what is so striking is that what came out of that relatively small city has not turned into a global phenomenon. How these women managed and delivered learning to their students was completely original. Before women rights where being protested for, these women where in the streets rallying for the children of Reggio Emilia. There approach was so effective and so unique that it has been adopted around the world in early childhood classrooms and has inspired many other teachers in this play based learning structure. It actually, really amazes me. Education can honestly feel dead and calculated because of our curriculum and outcomes. But gosh, if the women in this war torn city, with rubble for materials and novices for teachers could pull of one of the defining discoveries in teaching in this century, surely we could do it on top some appalling national standards. I feel really excited about teaching. I always has, but finally, it makes teaching make sense. I mean this I think at the heart of all teachers. 

looking for an emergency eject button on a fairly overwhelming situation today...there wasn't one. 

in suffering because of my own idealism, what can you do?

i think friendships/relationships are worth the intensity and the struggle and the social anxiousness, to get it right! i'm not saying it will make things right. I am aware now that you can't wait at an emotional wall because you're to afraid to climb it. Calculated risks wont get you far and fear will always be an issue. But, you can laugh about it an know that you gave it everything, even if it was for something really minor.