The Spirit of Christmas
Christmas greetings from New Zealand. Let this pohutukawa flower remind you to have a light heart this Christmas.
December 21, 2011
By Juliet Bonnay
Are you caught up in the commercial hype of Christmas with its tinsel and glitter? Are you rushing around frantically with last-minute shopping, crossing off things from your ‘to do’ list, and becoming stressed? Has Christmas turned into the Coca Cola manufactured image of a white bearded man wearing a red suit – one that parents use to extract temporary ‘goodness’ from their children by telling them that Santa will only come if they are very, very good? Have too many of us forgotten what Christmas is really about?
Tony Robbins gave a talk at T.E.D. a few years ago in which he described the time his family had no money to buy food for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Although he was only eleven-years-old, Tony Robbins still remembers his awe and surprise when they discovered a hamper of food left on their doorstep. Continue Reading…
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Gifts Found in Unlikely Places
October 13, 2011
What you may call a disaster could actually become the greatest gift in your life. This is what I learned when Zeehaen, an eighteen-meter steel yacht my husband and I had bought to sail the world, foundered on a sandbar while at anchor.
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Mothers Who Play With ‘Dolls’
September 15, 2011
“Here comes Pretty Woman…Paisley…” announced the host on Toddlers and Tiaras. Out struts three-year-old Paisley dressed as Julia Roberts who plays a prostitute in ‘Pretty Woman’. She is wearing a look-alike outfit: thigh-high black boots, a white top that shows her bare toddler tummy, a skin tight blue mini-skirt, and a yellow wig.
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Living On Molesworth Station
August 09, 2011
Molesworth Station in New Zealand’ South Island was carved by ancient glaciers into broad u-shaped valleys, conical and round-topped hills, moraines and corries. It is an ongoing visual feast spreading west from the knife-edged ridges of the Inland Kaikoura Ranges. And I was lucky enough to live there for a year!
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Promiscuity: Loose Morals or Searching for Love?
July 26, 2011
A Timaru gynaecologist made a call to “stigmatise” New Zealand’s promiscuous women in an attempt to change their reputation as being “the most promiscuous women in the world.” But there are things he doesn’t know that lead to this behaviour.
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National Standards and What Education is ‘Really’ About
June 19, 2011
Podcast: Des Mann, founding principal of Green Bay High School in Auckland, New Zealand talks about some alternatives to National Standards and what education is “really about anyway.”
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The ADD Myth
June 09, 2011
A teacher, Peter Giddens, gives his take on the ADD epidemic affecting steadily increasing numbers of boys in schools.
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About School
June 10, 2011
This post includes a poem handed into a teacher by a senior in high school shortly before he committed suicide. It highlights the frustration of many students at school and unfortunately, mine too.
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Making Dreams Come True
May 30, 2011
Mark and Rowan Sommerset had a dream of creating children’s books when they first met ten years ago. Read about how they achieved their dream and won the coveted Children’s Choice Award in the 2011 New Zealand Post Children’s Book of the Year Awards, or listen to Mark’s story in a podcast. A podcast of an interview with Mark is included at the end of this post.
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Christchurch, and what can be learned from disasters
March 05, 2011
Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist nun who wrote When Things Fall Apart, stated that we need chaos and disasters in our lives to “wake us up”. As terrible as it appears, this is sometimes what we need to change the whole course of our lives for the better…
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