In lieu of a To-Do list: an I-Did list.

This week I researched:

• Verbs used in Bloom's taxonomy. (I was setting an exam paper.)


• Making inferences. (Apparently it's a reading skill that needs to be taught. Who knew?)


• Weird laws all over the world. (It was connected to a text we read in class.)


• Free presentation software. (Prezi is cool, but web-based -- you'll need to purchase the software to run it off your hard drive.)


• Teenagers and their cellphone usage. (Had to come up with survey questions for a student research project.)


• The efficacy of praise and compliments. (Write-up's on my official blog... no link. If you don't know the URL, ask me.)


• Using comics to teach English. (In preparation for showing a bunch of workshop participants how to make a comic strip using an online comic strip generator.)


• Techniques to be employed in the bedroom for maximum marital happiness. (Kind of an accident, I stumbled upon one article, and with the Web, one always leads to another...)


• Mother Teresa's dark night of the soul. (Needed to reference it in a blog comment!)


• Salon.com's Open Salon opportunity to write on the site. (Would bring more exposure but not sure how my stories would fit, as I'm not American. But damn, some good writing there.)


• Copyright notices and Creative commons licences. (I really wanted to use that onion picture two posts ago.)

No wonder I feel like I've been going at breakneck pace all week. *pants*

Choosing joy

I see life as a series of choices. Much like Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, I think throughout life we all have a series of choices to make. The problem with choices is having to live with the consequences, of course.

To use myself as an example: I try to remember that I'm single because I chose not to accept any of the guys who came along, for what I considered good reasons at that point in time. Sure, I have no control over whether I'll get to meet someone I'd consider a "good fit" (for lack of a better term), but in a way, it's still my choice to be single right at this moment.

"But," you might say, "sometimes we have no choice!" Thus the saying that you can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends. In such a case... we have a choice in how we respond to the person or situation, right? As such, I don't believe there's ever a time when one truly has no choice whatsoever.

So sometimes, I hear people complain, and I think: That was your choice. Friends gripe about their jobs, but continue to stay in a place that they claim makes them miserable. While I empathise with their distress, I find their sense of helplessness puzzling, because the power is in their hands: They chose to take the job, and with every passing day, they're renewing their choice to stay on at the company. Of course, this can be a rather simplistic view if you factor in financial responsibilities, especially in cases where there's a family to feed and a mortgage to finance. But even if one chooses to stay at a job for those reasons, the fact is, you've still made a choice.

The thing is, we often look at our choices and think we have no choice at all. Rejecting one choice for another because the former looked unpalatable or impossible doesn't diminish the fact that a choice has been made. I like thinking this way because it means I'm responsible for my own well-being and happiness. It means I'm not giving anyone the power to make me unhappy. Unfortunately, it also means that if I'm unhappy, I only have myself to blame!

When I grow up, I wanna be like them

Yesterday I read this in a friend's blog: "They didn't belong in that sacred pantheon of your heart." Lack of context notwithstanding, all of a sudden I found myself greedily covetous of that sentence -- and my friend's writing skills -- because never in a million years would I have managed to come up with a turn of phrase like that.

In the same vein, I found this blog a few days ago and have been wildly jealous ever since. Everything flows so beautifully (overlooking the slight overindulgence of italics) and reads almost like poetry.

Onion Head

Onion Head
Originally uploaded by photongina

People are like onions. Not in the sense that some have B.O. or are drenched in perfume; nor in the sense that they make you cry (at times). But in the sense that there are so many layers to them.

Another analogy -- and a prettier one -- would be to say that people are like diamonds, with many facets. Depending on the situation or the role they're playing, you get to see a different facet.

But I like the layer analogy better because sometimes certain aspects of the person are hidden so deep that nobody gets to see those. Perhaps even the person himself is unaware of what is buried there. The inner core that we all have is exceedingly private.

So whenever I look at people, especially if I'm waiting in line and have plenty of time to look around and observe, I wonder: what lies beneath the surface layer? When I see a businessman stride briskly past me, speaking into his cellphone, totally focused on his call, I wonder what he's like at home, what he's like when he's chilling with friends, what drives him, what makes him get out of bed every morning. Who is the man beneath the suit?

We take each other at surface value a lot of the time. But consider a colleague, for example. The person with the calm, professional demeanour you see at the office -- that's not necessarily the same person she'll be at home with the kids. And it probably won't be the same person she'll be when she's alone with her husband. It's also not the same person she is when she's visiting with her parents, or when she has some quiet time to herself. Oh, in essence she'll be the same; I'm not saying she has multiple personality disorder. But the way she chooses to express herself, respond to people, react to situations, these might change. Not so much swapping one mask for another, but swapping one role for another. Each role brings out a different side of her, in fact requires her to be different.

That's why people are endlessly fascinating. You can never know a person as well as you think you do. They can (and occasionally do) act in ways you consider "out of character". The truth is, it isn't out of character. It's just one more layer being revealed, a layer you never saw before.

Not quite a sunflower!

Today I bought myself a single red rose. It's something I do occasionally. Roses are my favourite flower, and the deep red rose -- almost maroon -- always draws my eye. Perhaps due to its associations with romantic love.

For some reason having a red rose sitting in a crystal vase on my desk speaks to me of hope. It soothes my soul in some way, acting as a reminder that there's beauty in the world all around me, if I choose to look. It whispers to me that if God could put that much attention and detail into a single lovely flower, how much more must He care about me. I can almost imagine His potter's hands shaping each delicate petal, pausing every once in awhile to run His fingers over the soft velvety surface.

And think about it: a flower doesn't have to do anything, just be. It just is. Here today and gone tomorrow, yet it brings such joy to the heart. So I'm reminded that I don't have to do anything. I'm God's child and He looks at me with joy. He loves me. Just as I am.
 
 
The Lord your God is with you,
He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17

A tiny miracle

I don't understand how anyone who has held a baby can believe there is no God.

Hidden power

When Sivin (my pastor) first showed us this video in August 2008, it nearly brought me to tears. It demonstrates to me the power of words: words can be used for good or evil, to build up or tear down. I've always believed that a single word can make a world of difference to a person, whether positive or negative. In my experience, sometimes the most casual, throw-away statement remains in a person's consciousness for years. I've met people who told me, "You said such-and-such" and I don't even remember saying it.

I think it's important to be careful with our words, because they contain so much hidden power. We've all experienced this -- when what was meant to be a teasing jab felt like a dagger going clean through your heart. A bit melodramatic, but yeah. Conversely, the right word, uttered at the right time, can be truly life-giving.



You, by Amena Brown