Lingualympics

My two weeks of teaching in at West Finland College are drawing to a close.  Only tomorrow left, and then I can officially begin my summer holidays.  It took a while to switch gears from teaching English to adults to teaching it to Russian kids.  The teaching tactics and levels of conversation suddenly went from knowledge management concepts to "What's the weather like today?" (It's windy, cloudy and cold and sunny right now, in case you wanted to know.)

I've had thirteen 9 to 11 year-olds in my class for five hours a day.  That may seem a bit daunting, but there has been grace for every day and I have a good group of kids.  I was also here last year, but somehow this year has seemed a bit more draining.  Today was a fun day though, as we had Lingualympics in which student groups competed through various language-related tasks.  At my station, I had a relay race where they had to collect letters and form as many words as they could with them.  Then in the second round they had to sing a song in English and choreograph it as well.  The day culminated with fairy tale presentations that incorporated the teachers as characters in the script.  I think I was a goldfish-fairy godmother in a presentation that included Johnny Depp and Lady Gaga!

I still have a final lesson plan to compile, but all in due time.  A little nap, and I'll be good to go.  Greetings, from this little town almost in the middle of nowhere.  I have, among other things, learned two new words:

budgerigar--represented by the picture to the left.

ret--verb,  to soak in water or expose to moisture, as flax or hemp, to facilitate the removal of the fiber from the woody tissue by partial rotting.

from a late night on TED.com

"Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.” (Brené Brown)

you think you oughta wait, ya know--until you're perfect, until you've got it together--before you head into the arena of risk we call life.  so you build walls and watchtowers where you sit pretty with your binoculars, watching the compelling drama of life, imagining yourself in it, but not letting anyone get too close, lest they see through you.  your heart even begins to to palpitate and spread fire and adrenaline through your body as you see something or someone you want to respond to, a situation that calls your name.  some small part of you is convinced even, that this very door of opportunity is meant for you.  

but a vicious enemy has crept into your thoughts with a poison dart the minute you begin to move, "why are you even thinking of this? you're not enough. you're too fat.  you're too weak.  you'll never amount to more than your parents did. think of where you come from, why would they take you? they'll laugh at you." and thus you find the carpet swept out from under you with your first step, tossing you flat on your back, with a deep shame for even having wanted to try. you're pinned to the floor with an excruciating pain, afraid you are doomed to be disconnected and alone.

let me tell ya something, though.  we don't need more photo-shopped princesses and cutout heroes trying to maintain a status quo that is based on greed and appearances anyway.  we need people who are real.  ya know, the sort who are gentle and kind with others because they are that way with themselves in all their imperfections. the disappointments, glorious wins, lost loves and twinkles in children's eyes, bankruptcies, cancer, first homes, challenges, salient summer days, moments of joy and weakness--they live it all with a sense of gratitude for the immense scope of human experience. 

we don't look down on them because they don't succeed, but we admire them, because they keep going. so i wanna see you in the arena, because you belong there, my friend. i wanna see you try.  i don't care if you made poor choices in the past, or whether you keep falling with the same struggle, the same lie.  you can fail and you will fail. but don't stay down.  stand up, lift your head, wipe the blood from you face, and look around. 

you'll see me right in there next to you--just as imperfect, just as scared--saying, "oh, yeah? me too." 

keep on keeping on

good and perfect gifts

have their source

from above, from

the Father of lights

whose goodness

joy and love

leave no room 

for shadows and

the darkness of doubt.

so receive with an

open and trusting heart

what he is placing

before you, in faith

taking hold of his

promises, for he--the

very fountain of all--

is forever faithful.

Allu

may be he was 14.

perhaps older, perhaps younger.

either way, too young to be drinking

hard liquor on a saturday night

bus ride into town.

he kept looking at

us to see if we really saw him,

talked loud and downed a swig then

made a scene about vomiting

in the garbage bin.

the worst part

was hearing that the bottle in

his jacket was given by his mother

and he was the supplier for his

surrounding friends.

this band of boys

of foul language and dulled

eyes is but a mimicry of adult ways

they see at home, on tv and

in the streets.

the tragedy of

it all, more than this one

boy and his guilty mother, his

using friends, is that this

is not the exception.

(I found this in my drafts from way back in 2008. I still remember this bus ride.)