(Reading on Facebook? Please click on the following link to see this entry as it should be! https://www.xanga.com/serenitymine ) Excerpt from an upcoming prayer letter: GRATITUDE: “A feeling of thankfulness and appreciation.” It seems like a simplistic definition for a word as overused as it is under-felt. Gratitude is simply being thankful—like cheer is being […]
You know how you meet people sometimes who seem to burrow into a them-sized spot in you and just kind of set up residence there? It’s like that spot had just been waiting for them… Well, such a thing happened three years ago in Toronto, when Ben (aka. Prof) arrived on my doorstep with one […]
(Reading on Facebook! Please don’t! The colors and layout and pictures are WAY nicer at this link: https://www.xanga.com/serenitymine.)There’s a weird phenomenon happening on the court behind BFA. It appears to be growing curly blond hair. Shocks of it. Shocking shocks of it. It happened at lunch time. A horde of hair-aggressors pinned Austin (aka. Caleb, […]
(Reading on Facebook? Stop now! It’ll look a LOT prettier if you click on: https://www.xanga.com/serenitymine ) It happens every year. We pile 300 students onto several buses, drive them to the nearest Swiss city (Basel), and set them loose on the streets with just a handful of guidelines: – Travel in groups of three or […]
(Reading on Facebook? Stop now! And click on https://www.xanga.com/serenitymine) [Following up a much-read post on soccer with a rant on singleness? I must be out of my mind. But humor me and read it anyway, will you? I even included lots of pictures for those of you more averse to words… I know there are […]
It began as all adventures do: with the requisite preparations and the expected mass hysteria. The school (not all of it—just its most noisy elements) was headed to Basel to watch the US team taking on Switzerland in soccer. I nearly stayed home—mostly because people had signed up for seating in neat little groups and […]
(Reading this on Facebook? Please go to: https://www.xanga.com/serenitymine to see it correctly!) Another “party” Chez Phoenix…another stab at the chaos theory. There were some new faces this time around… …and some all-too-familiar faces too. The occasion for the party was a pre-Rome celebration for our seniors–they leave tomorrow! And we had the requisite Rome-themed dessert […]
(If you’re reading this on Facebook, please click on the following link to see it correctly! Facebook’s layout and color scheme STINKS! https://www.xanga.com/serenitymine) Ah, the bliss of leotards, leg-warmers and scrunchies! Anyone who lived in the 80s knows that no TV show better illustrated both the accoutrements and the spirit of the Dream-Decade than […]
(If you’re reading this on Facebook, please click on the following link in order to see it correctly! https://www.xanga.com/serenitymine) Humiliation, it turns out, is not a fatal condition. It may cause hives and intermittent intestinal discomfort, and it may even lead to post-adrenaline binging on addictive substances like…you know…cereal and Canadian honey (I’m a bit […]
I’m in love. Really, I am. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. With the beginning of the school year has come a flood of affection for my students, the odd and extraordinary creatures who populate my life. After an evening of hosting ten of them in my home, I can only pass on to […]