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Global Scaremongering

We have had a wonderfully hot summer in New Zealand, since Christmas. Yes, I realise it has hurt many who depend on the rainfall to keep drought conditions at bay, but it could have been worse if we didn’t have the last two wet months of 2012; I think a lot have forgotten that.

The media have had a field day with our long, hot summer, again offering doom and gloom and prophecies of the negative effects of the planet warming. The earliest mention of global warming I have come across is from a newspaper published the year I was born, 1959, which was found in the wall cavity of an old bungalow I was renovating with my husband in 2004. It talked then of the dire consequences we were to experience then, that are yet to take place to the full extent they predicted half a century ago. Continue reading “Global Scaremongering”

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Keeping Positive

Trials come upon us all in life. That is expected. It’s not the trial that is the problem in many cases. It is how you react to it. Like now, for instance. Trying to write a  blog post on my Android phone. Small keyboard, awkward access to punctuation, no spell check for the many times I hit the wrong key and such a small display to edit in. But, I want to write and for whatever reason my laptop has thrown a wobbly!

So, do you give in to technology and let it win? Or are you a battler – born to rule! I have decided the only way in life is to take life’s challenges by the horns and twist those little beggars around to suit my needs!

Now, I am not promoting selfishness. Nor am I advocating getting everything you want. A few challenges in life can certainly speed up the way in which we become adept at solving problems. If you live life accepting problems as simply challenges turned upside down, then your stress levels will certainly be reduced and you will become a more positive person. You know ‘the glass half-full” type! (Note to self: I always find that a conundrum – I just want to know where the other half of the glass is!!!!)

Have a good day!

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Shared Parenting

It's difficult ... but not impossible!
It’s difficult … but not impossible!

I spoke to a neighbour recently who has recently separated and is having some issues with the younger son coping with the change of households. It dawned on me, as I spoke and thought about the situation – I have been there, done that, and got the T-shirt to prove it! I can offer many insights into what might work for these situations in life. I have dealt with many of these single parenting issues myself, after parenting alone for nearly 14 years. And, if I haven’t had them, I know many who have, or seen many of the issues in my classrooms.

So, do you have a child that finds it a real challenge to go to ‘Dad’s House’ or ‘Mum’s House’ in this new experience they are having, sharing your marriage break up? I don’t say that in a derogatory way – but our kids often have no understanding of what is happening – sometimes we don’t either! Continue reading “Shared Parenting”

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If God is for us who can be against us?

A thought-provoking verse for the start of 2013…

What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:31

It’s a question many people have thought about, indirectly, as they ponder the tragedies that have struck them over the previous year. Illness and death of loved ones; marriage breakups and other family problems; natural and man-made disasters wreaking havoc in communities – never to be the same again! Continue reading “If God is for us who can be against us?”

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Knowing who you are helps

I have spoken about this before – but I have just read “Belinda Seiger’s revelation to herself” and she puts it very succinctly. If we are intense people, it pays for us to realise that BEFORE we scare all our buddies away!

Before we can build relationships with other people, we simply need to know who we are first, and how we appear to others. This is a lesson for not just gifted people who need to learn to engage in a ‘foreign’ world to themselves, but to any of us who think that everything out there is just like them.

Coming to live in Samoa, in a new culture, is a big learning curve. To Samoans, my everyday actions can be interpreted as rude – in THEIR culture.

“[S]o, I just wanted to dash out and post a letter – but I was still finishing my doughnut! I dare not leave it in the car – my husband would have ‘seen food and eaten it’!!! I took it with me, but later found out it is rude to eat while you are walking in Samoa! So I hid it under my fan (lucky you can’t go out on the street without a fan to keep you cool) and kept walking …”

Many mis-communications come from people who just don’t realise how their words and actions appear to others around them. Sometimes, I have described this to my husband as him “walking around with his blinkers on”. Other times, I have joked it away with friends as him being a “man on a mission”. They have either learnt to accept his intensity, or been driven away by it.

I am a little intense too – I am always challenged by what I could have done. Many times through life I seem to have missed opportunities – sometimes because I was too early for them, before others were ready to listen. I was in the right place, but at the wrong time! This young girl may have smothered her need to achieve by smoking weed – I have taken to cryptic puzzles lately, just to keep my mind active, while I flounder about thinking which way to go next!

Sharing online – just another way to look at life.

Update : Sonia Dabboussi gives another view of this in her blog:
http://giftedforlife.com/1599/gifted-adults-intense-emotions-depression-and-anger/

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“Find Your Great Work” Movie – by Michael Bungay Stanier

Following on from yesterday, watch this Find Your Great Work Movie – by Michael Bungay Stanier. Michael challenges us with five ways to find our great work:

  1. Things only get really interesting when you take full responsibility for the choices you make.
  2. Changing your focus changes what is possible.
  3. You must make the full choice – what to say “yes” to, and what to say “no” to.
  4. If everyone’s happy then you are not doing great work.
  5. If you’re doing it yourself, you are not doing great work – will you open the door to others?

Great work will make a difference to others. Sometimes we can be so wrapped up in what we want to do, we forget about our impact on others. Being empathic takes you out of the zone of self-fulfilment to ‘other centred’-fulfilment. As teachers, we need to look at our students to see that they are truly learning, before we accept any praise for ourselves. Unless they are truly learning, we are not truly teachers. Are we?

Just a thought to ponder online, as you prepare for the variety of students in your class this year!

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The 5.75 Questions You’ve Been Avoiding – by Michael Bungay Stanier

This got me thinking – it was just an interlude that started to challenge my ‘procrastinating’ personality. Watch the short video – The 5.75 Questions You’ve Been Avoiding – by Michael Bungay Stanier and ask yourself if the .75 question is numbered correctly! Is it only worth .75, or should it really have been entitled the “5 and 100 questions”? Continue reading “The 5.75 Questions You’ve Been Avoiding – by Michael Bungay Stanier”

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Life at the Edge

Many gifted students live life right at the edge – pushing the limits in all directions. This is the type of personality that pushes through to achieve great things, but sometimes also experiences great resistance.

If you are the out-going, talkative, questioning, and creatively-productive type, your effervescence will probably alienate you as a demanding individual. If you are the serious thinker, poor writer, and deeply absorbed type, you could possibly be considered disinterested or distant (or even lazy!) Continue reading “Life at the Edge”