Not Forgotten

Its been a long time!
Felt like posting something.
Strangely, miss teaching many of you.
We had some good and interesting times.
I learned alot.
Maybe memory colours things positively?




Here's to my crazy ones of 2005!




Something I agree with in many ways. Also a very good orator!

Childrens Day

“There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.”
Elizabeth Lawrence



“There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book.
Marcel Proust



There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.”
Deepak Chopra



"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.”
Tom Stoppard



"For most of us, dreams come true only after they do not matter, Only in childhood do we ever have the chance of making dreams come true when they mean everything.”
Anonymous



“The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day”
John Milton



Childhood is the sleep of reason.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau



“Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.”
John Betjeman



Childhood is frequently a solemn business for those inside it.”
George F Will



We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today
Stacia Tauscher



You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.
~Franklin P. Jones



A characteristic of the normal child is he doesn't act that way very often.
~Author Unknown



We've had bad luck with our kids - they've all grown up.
~Christopher Morley



A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer.
~Author Unknown



Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it.
~Harold Hulbert



A three year old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm. ~Bill Vaughan



Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.
~William Stafford



Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.
~John W. Whitehead, The Stealing of America, 1983



Children are one third of our population and all of our future.
~Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health, 1981



If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.
~Pearl S. Buck



Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.
~Rabindranath Tagore



You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy? Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long? Never in his life will he be so busy again.
~Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762



Children make you want to start life over.
~Muhammad Ali



There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson



Children seldom misquote. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.
~Author Unknown


A child is a curly dimpled lunatic.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson



The prime purpose of being four is to enjoy being four - of secondary importance is to prepare for being five.
~Jim Trelease, The Read-Aloud Handbook, 1985



What is a home without children? Quiet.
~Henny Youngman



There are only two things a child will share willingly - communicable diseases and his mother's age.
~Benjamin Spock, Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care, 1945



Children find everything in nothing; men find nothing in everything.
~Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone Scelto



Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.
~Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969



Women gather together to wear silly hats, eat dainty food, and forget how unresponsive their husbands are. Men gather to talk sports, eat heavy food, and forget how demanding their wives are. Only where children gather is there any real chance of fun.
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960



Anyone who thinks the art of conversation is dead ought to tell a child to go to bed.
~Robert Gallagher



The only thing worth stealing is a kiss from a sleeping child.
~Joe Houldsworth



There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child.
~Frank A. Clark



There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million. ~Walt Streightiff



To all my pupils and children from P6 GE Rosyth 2005, Happy Childrens Day. You will always be children to me.

Here's to the crazy ones and Teachers Day

Here's to the crazy ones


Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,
are the ones who do.

From Apple Computer


When I was in the Institute of Education as a trainee teacher, i was on the committee for freshmen orientation. we came up with the theme for that year (1982) whihc was "You don't have to be crazy to teach but it helps!".

When I saw the article on the advert for Apple computers, I began to think about what it means to be 'crazy'.

I did a one hour one man play in 1986 for Theatreworks called "Diary of a Madman" by a Russain writer called Gogol. I was right smack in the middle of the P6 camp (It ws for P6ers for many years until sometime in the 1990s) but my principal (Ms Ada Ponnapa) let me leave the camp (at Chestnut Drive off Upper Bukit Timah Road) at 6 pm (I was riding a motorcycle then so transportation was not a problem) and come back after the show, whihc was about 11 pm. (bless her!) Did some research on insanity and came to understand it better (or so I hoped) and began to have more respect and empathy for people who had psychological problems.

I read a quote somewhere about the difference between a genius and a madman; both go to unchartered territories but a genuis knows his/her way back!

This led me to a piece of writing or 'advice' from one of my favourtie poets, ee cummings. I'd like to share it with all of you:

A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.
This may sound easy, but it isn't.
A lot of people think or believe or know they feel —
but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling.
And poetry is feeling —
not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know,
but not a single human being can be taught to feel.
Why?
Because whenever you think or you believe or you know,
you're a lot of other people:
but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself —
in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.
As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words,
that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn't a poet can possibly imagine.
Why?
Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else.
We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time -
and whenever we do it, we are not poets.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling,
you find you've written one line of one poem,
you'll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is:
do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world —
unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
Does this sound dismal?
It isn't.
It's the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so I feel.


I just came across a really wonderful site about a marvellous and inspiring teacher named Albert Cullum. It reminded me about what is important about teaching and learning, when I felt really alive in my classes in the past and also showed me how I have fallen short so many times in my own classes with pupils like you. I hope I can have more days in my classes like what Albert Cullum does.

The post must seem very disjointed, incomplete and rushed. i started on something but left it hanging and went on to something else, or did I?

It was really good to see you all in Rosyth on the 30th August. I was really happy to see you. Thanks for making the effort to come. Its very much appreciated.

Good to hear from more voices

Every time one of you posts a comment, I am immediately notified in my e-mail (as if you didn't know that by now!). I still get a kick out of reading the comments you post as to the things that are happening in your teenage lives.

Hello to Chew Lin and Karen!

I am glad that the lyrics of the songs resonated with events (mental, emotional, school) in your busy school lives and that you found the lyrics meaningful and even poetic. For me songs have always been life affirming and provided many questions for me to pursue intellectually and like great literature reflect the times we live in as well as pose pertinent questions or issues for us to explore and reflect on.

I am even happier to note that many of you are pursuing your interests and passions (Go for it Karen!) and are realising the talents that all of you have, despite the hectic schedules, consternations, questions and daily interruptions that teenager life is full of.
Yes, Karen, I was and am still very interested in plays.
I was very involved with a local theatre company called Theatreworks in the 1980s (from 1985 to 1991). I acted in their first production called "Be my sushi tonight" and acted in a number of productions each year until my last in 1991. I had to make a choice between taking drama/acting more seriously and perhaps pursuing it full time and my other passion, teaching. Well you all know how that worked out. I still keep in touch with plays because of my friendship with many of my fellow theatre practioners who are still involved in theatre and who also do TV work now like Lim Kay Tong, Lim Yu Beng and tan Kheng Hua (Aiyahh name dropping is so gauche!) I still love acting and drama.

I bought Mary j Blige's debut album many many years ago II think it was before you were born!!) Chew Lin.
(I thought her duet with Bono [who is in my favourite band of all time U2, nest to the Beatles of course] was rather forced and OTT [over the top] I liked her earlier stuff better)

Here are a couple more of my favourite song lyrics and some personal comments.


Eleanor Rigby (Lennon/McCartney)

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people
Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from ?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong ?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near.
Look at him working.
Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

This song was written in the 1960s and looked at plight of old people (an often ignored and invisible group of people). It was amazing that pop musicians at that time even recognised them, let alone write a beautiful song that explored the despair and lonleliness that pervaded morst of their lives. It shows how importnat it is to be obeservant as a writer (song or literary) and to be sensitive to the environment around us whihc we often take for granted. As Picasso said "A truly educated person can never find life boring".
( I will be 50 in 3 years time and the song means much more to me now then when I first listened to it in the 1970s. Thats what good wriitng is supposed to do, its meanings and connections change as we grow and change)



Running to Stand Still - U2

And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was lyin' still.
Said I gotta do something
About where we're goin'.
Step on a fast train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night.

Singing ah, ah la la la de day
Ah la la la de day.

Sweet the sin, bitter the taste in my mouth.
I see seven towers, but I only see one way out.
You gotta cry without weeping, talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice.
You know I took the poison, from the poison stream
Then I floated out of here, singing

Ah la la la de dayAh la la la de day.

She walks through the streets
With her eyes painted red
Under black belly of cloud in the rain.
In through a doorway
She brings me white golden pearls
Stolen from the sea.
She is ragin'
She is ragin'
And the storm blows up in her eyes.
She will suffer the needle chill
She's running to stand still.

I used this song to teach poetry and writing to my P6 class in 1989. Its about a drug addict or drug addiction. I loved the irony in the title and the lyrics..... oh boy!Bono for me is a consumate wordsmith, the way he writes his lyrics in a quasi stream of consciousness wash still blows me away.


Nowhere Man (Lennon/McCartney)

He's a real nowhere Man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plansfor nobody.

Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to,
Isn't he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere Man, please listen,
You don't know what you're missing,
Nowhere Man, the world is at your command.

He's as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see,
Nowhere Man can you see me at all?
Nowhere Man, don't worry,
Take your time, don't hurry,
Leave it all till somebody elselends you a hand.


Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to,
Isn't he a bit like you and me?
Nowhere Man, please listen,
You don't know what you're missing,
Nowhere Man, the world is at your command.

He's a real Nowhere Man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.

Sounds like an awfully negative song or is it a timely reminder or cautionary tale about the nowhere man within each of us? (these were my thoughts when i first heard the song as a teenager. I spent alot of my teenage years pondering about the lyrics of songs! And playing football. And studying! And socialising. We actually bought our vinyl record and went to each others houses to listen to the records over and over; sometimes signing along or trying out best to copy the lyrics by listening to the song over and over again [i.e. if the album did not have lyrics enclosed])

Hope you enjoy them.

Long time no post

Just got a posting from Serene who mentioned its been a long time since I posted anything and maybe it was time the blog got a new look.
Well, what do you think?
I have been busy with many projects in school.
I just finished being involved in the Excel Fest last weekend and today i am going with the P5s to the NE show at the National Stadium; the last one at the 'grand old lady'. (it will be demolished and replaced by a state of the art sporting arena)
So,will I be swept by a sense of nostalgia and wistfulness?
Anyway, the fireworks will be nice!

Wanted to share with you the lyrics to a few of my favourite songs. Sing along if you want to!

Both Sides Now - Jon Mitchell

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere, i've looked at cloud that way.
But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone.
So many things i would have done but clouds got in my way.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions i recall.I really don't know clouds at all.
Moons and junes and ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real; i've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show. you leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.

I've looked at love from both sides now,
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions i recall.
I really don't know love at all.

Tears and fears and feeling proud to say "i love you" right out loud,
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, i've looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange, they shake their heads, they sayI've changed.
Something's lost but something's gained in living every day.

I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose, and still somehowIt's life's illusions i recall.
I really don't know life at all.



OLF FRIENDS - Simon & Garfunkle

Old friends, old friends,
Sat on their parkbench like bookends
A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes of the high shoes of the old friends
Old friends, winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settle like dust on the shoulders of the old friends

Can you imagine us years from today,
Sharing a parkbench quietly
How terribly strange to be seventy
Old friends, memory brushes the same years,
Silently sharing the same fears



BLACKBIRD - The Beatles

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arive

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

Blackbird fly,
Blackbird flyInto the light of a dark black night.
Blackbird fly,
Blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

If you are reading this Karen, how do they compare to Jay Chou's? :}

Quotes again!

Some more words to the wise for pondering, wondering and reflecting.

From Calvin and Hobbes (one of my favourite comics of all time!)

"I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul."-Calvin"

I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know."-Calvin

"To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible."
-Calvin

"If you couldn't find any weirdness, maybe we'll just have to make some!"
-Hobbes

"Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless."
-Calvin

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
-Calvin

"I hate to think that all my current experiences will someday become stories with no point."
-Calvin

"In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks."
-Calvin

"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?"-
Calvin

"There's an inverse relationship between how good something is for you, and how much fun it is."
-Calvin

"There's no problem so awful that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse!"
-Calvin

"So the secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met?"-Calvin

"I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!"
-Calvin

"You know how people are. They only recognize greatness when some authority confirms it."
-Calvin

"History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices."
-Calvin

"It's not the pace of life I mind. It's the sudden stop at the end."
-Calvin

"The best presents don't come in boxes."
-Hobbes

"As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway."
-Calvin

"Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend."
-Calvin

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."
-Calvin

"It's only work if somebody makes you do it."
-Calvin

"In my opinion, television validates existence."
-Calvin

"Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success... ...Flat stretches of boring routine... ...And valleys of frustration and failure."-Calvin

"Reading goes faster if you don't sweat comprehension."
-Calvin

"What I like is when you're looking and thinking and looking and thinking... And suddenly you wake up."-Calvin

"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want."
-Calvin

"You know, there are times when it's a source of personal pride to not be human."
-Hobbes

"I had resolved to be less offended by human nature, but I think I blew it already."
-Hobbes

"You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid? Well, mine are even worse!"
-Calvin

"A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do."
-Calvin

"I'M SIGNIFICANT!...screamed the dust speck."-Calvin

"The worst part is that I don't even have the fun of doing the things I'm getting blamed for."-Calvin

Quotes again!

Some more words to the wise for pondering, wondering and reflecting.

From Calvin and Hobbes (one of my favourite comics of all time!)

"I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul."-Calvin"

I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know."-Calvin

"To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible."
-Calvin

"If you couldn't find any weirdness, maybe we'll just have to make some!"
-Hobbes

"Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless."-Calvin

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
-Calvin

"I hate to think that all my current experiences will someday become stories with no point."
-Calvin

"In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks."-Calvin

"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?"-
Calvin

"There's an inverse relationship between how good something is for you, and how much fun it is."-Calvin

"There's no problem so awful that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse!"
-Calvin

"So the secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met?"-Calvin

"I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!"
-Calvin

"You know how people are. They only recognize greatness when some authority confirms it."-Calvin

"History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices."
-Calvin

"It's not the pace of life I mind. It's the sudden stop at the end."
-Calvin

"The best presents don't come in boxes."
-Hobbes

"As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway."
-Calvin

"Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend."
-Calvin

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."
-Calvin

"It's only work if somebody makes you do it."
-Calvin

"In my opinion, television validates existence."-Calvin

"Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success... ...Flat stretches of boring routine... ...And valleys of frustration and failure."-Calvin

"Reading goes faster if you don't sweat comprehension."
-Calvin

"What I like is when you're looking and thinking and looking and thinking... And suddenly you wake up."-Calvin

"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want."
-Calvin

"You know, there are times when it's a source of personal pride to not be human."
-Hobbes

"I had resolved to be less offended by human nature, but I think I blew it already."
-Hobbes

"You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid? Well, mine are even worse!"
-Calvin

"A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do."
-Calvin

"I'M SIGNIFICANT!...screamed the dust speck."-Calvin

"The worst part is that I don't even have the fun of doing the things I'm getting blamed for."-Calvin

More Quotes

I read your comments these past few days and decided to let all of you out have more mental nourishment!


"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."
- Buddha



To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson



Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
- Chinese proverb



It is not by accident that the happiest people are those who make a conscious effort to live useful lives. Their happiness, of course, is not a shallow exhilaration where life is one continuous intoxicating party. Rather, their happiness is a deep sense of inner peace that comes when they believe their lives have meaning and that they are making a difference for good in the world.
- Ernest Fitzgerald



"We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems."
- John W. Gardner



How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
- George Washington Carver"



Far away in the sunshine are my highest inspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead."
-- Louisa May Alcott


"In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire."
Ralph Waldo Emerson



"If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars."
--- Rabindranath Tagore



"No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an unchartered land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit."
-- Helen Keller



"To understand is to forgive, even oneself."
Alexander Chase



"Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them." Ralph Waldo Emerson



"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
-- Henry David Thoreau


Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours.
Richard Bach


Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer


A life without cause is a life without effect.


"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.



"Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good." -Vaclav Havel



"To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed." -- Bernard Edmonds



When the solution is simple, God is answering. Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science.
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)



When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
John Muir



"We see the brightness of a new page where everything yet can happen."
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours



We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in an ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.- Mother Teresa



We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing.
- Seneca (3 B.C. - 65 A.D.)



We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.
- John Webster



We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. - Winston Churchill, Sir (1874-1965)



We love because it's the only true adventure.
- Nikki Giovanni



What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)



We can do not great things - only small things with great love. - Mother Teresa



"The real questions are the ones that obtrude upon your consciousness whether you like it or not, the ones that make your mind start vibrating like a jackhammer, the ones that you 'come to terms with"" only to discover that they are still there. The real questions refuse to be placated. They barge into your life at the times when it seems most important for them to stay away. They are the questions asked most frequently and answered most inadequately, the ones that reveal their true natures slowly, reluctantly, most often against your will.
-- Ingrid Bengis"