Time Marches On

The season for environmental education is in full swing and beginning to wane a little even. Life has been busy due to this and my first couple of days off in about two weeks have proven to be very productive.

I've been doing a lot of thinking of life and concluded that I understand less about love and life than I seemed to when I was in my earlier 20's. My solution to that is to simply live the way I want to live without including anyone else's agenda and just see what happens.

On that note, I've finally started up the knitting club I've wanted to and tonight will be the first session of it, so wish me luck. I even baked for it-something I used to love doing, but have not done much of in quite a while. Wow, what a day off will do for you.

In EE news, I find that we have so many groups of kids who know so little about their own surroundings. There are generally two reasons for this:

1. They are wealthy and don't have to think on a daily let alone yearly basis about where things come from or how they get them. This is to no fault of their own, but they are simply unaware.

2. They are underprivileged and have never had the opportunity to navigate away from their neighborhood and see what is actually out there. The result is the same for them. They have no idea where things come from. Milk comes from the store. I have heard this comment more times than I'd like to admit during my own classes.

What I do find is that the children of those parents who are incredibly aware are the ones who have all the answers. I am fortunate enough to meet their parents sometimes and see what it is that they come from. Sometimes the parents complain about things even more than the kids, and sometimes, the parents are so aware that they are teaching the kids things in my class that even I didn't know. As long as it isn't taking over the classroom, I love those moments and their children seem to beam at the thought that this is what they come from. These are the kids who are the most responsible in many senses. Provided I have children one day, I hope to be that kind of parent.

On an unrelated note, I have entered a photography contest through the Learning Abroad Center of my college in which the photo must have been taken outside of the country. Of course, this lead me to enter a picture I took there. I struggled with the decision of which one to enter, but after taking a poll of friends and my own contemplation, I eventually chose this one:



It was such an amazing moment and I was so lucky to get this shot that I couldn't resist, even if the color and lighting were better on some. It is a giant green mantis sitting on a traditional Thai instrument called the Kim that we were learning to play at the time, when this friend flew right into the room.

Well, off to make some cream cheese frosting for my pumpkin cake for knitting night!