Dear Richard
I just saw how I ended off last week… “Soon” hasn’t come
yet… But hopefully on Tuesday morning when I have my marking deadline I’ll be
able to say “soon” has arrived J
This past week has been completely dominated by marking for the board course.
The College is offering a board course in-house for the first time for students
who are busy with their articles and are preparing for the second board exam.
It’s being offered completely online, and they have several assignments they
hand in during the year, which is what we’re busy marking now. We’re marking in
a new way though, in line with what is going to be done for the actual board
exam this year – giving an assessment of their competence (highly competent to
not competent) as opposed to marking what they got right and wrong and giving a
percentage. That, plus the fact that the types of questions is very different –
a different style of case studies to what I’ve done before – and this whole
experience is one huge learning curve! So lots to benefit from it, but I’ll be
very glad when I’m not getting to bed at midnight every night because of it.
It’s just so wonderful today (being Sunday) knowing that I just can’t be
working, so I don’t feel bad about resting and going to be early J
Of course, all my other work carried on as normal last week.
I was lecturing my third years again, which is always a pleasure J We also had a meeting
about the new groups textbook and decided on what we’re going to be doing to
get it finished. I’ll be doing a review/rewrite of 6 of the chapters in the next
few weeks… Hopefully it will still be published in August or so…
We had a fun week with Caleb… Almost every day (of any given
week) something dramatic will happen to him. He knocked himself on the jungle
gym, or something along those lines… But the best was when I got a call from
his teacher when I was on my way home. Just to warn me so that I wasn’t
shocked… Caleb and 2 other Penguins got into the Preschool class and painted
each other’s faces and hair with some dye that was out on the tables ready for
the art activity the next day… The teacher said she didn’t know if she should
laugh or cry when she saw them… They tried to clean the kids as much as
possible, but it was still very funny to see them when I arrived… As one of the
other teachers said, when I said I wasn’t surprised because I know what Caleb
is like, she said that all the kids are like that really, but not all of them would
spot the open door like Caleb does. And that’s what it is – mischief and really
sharp eyes… SUCH an entertaining child to be around! Even after washing his
hair he still has a slight pink and green tinge… But I think it’s kind of cute J
Yesterday was busy, with taking Josh and Hannah to a party,
trying to find a dentist for Hannah to see, and then I walked into my kitchen
when we were about to rush off… and there were Cindy and Dom! Wow, was I
surprised!!! They’re here for the week, and it’s so nice (and just right) to
have Cindy back J
They sat with us during church today, and all of my kids were all over them the
whole time – they really have missed them, well Cindy especially, but they
really like Dom too. This afternoon, after our home evening, we let the kids
ride their bikes outside and we also just spent time chatting to them then. It’s
going to be a nice week J
And we got Cindy to say it… In 3 ½ years they can look at moving to Cape Town
once she’s finished paying off her bursary… We’ll hold her to that!
Oh, and at the party yesterday there was a Shetland pony for
the kids to ride on. Josh really enjoyed it, but Hannah was her normal cautious
self around animals. But after a while the guy walking the pony around tricked
her on ;) He picked her up and got her to hold the rope while they walked, and
then I don’t even know how he did it exactly, but he slipped her on to the pony’s
back, and by the time she was coming around to me she was all smiles! So my
little Hannah has made another huge step for her! J
Colleen taught our Relief Society lesson today, based on
Elder Mayne’s talk from October last year, “The Strength to Endure”. She used a
really great object lesson. She set up an obstacle course that Sis Daphne
navigated for her. First obstacle was a friend had offended her, and she was
going to have to climb a mountain of forgiveness with a bag full of hymn books
on her back. Her choice was to leave the offence behind or carry on with it on
her back weighing her down. The second obstacle was to pay tithing or school
fees. She could either take a leap of faith (Colleen had used the big letter
puzzle blocks to spell out faith on the floor all spread out) or to just walk
past and pay the school fees. When the choice was made to pay the tithing Sis Daphne
got a cookie ;) The next obstacle was that she lost her job. Colleen had set up
4 chairs, two and two facing each other a bit apart, with rope strung between them
at knee level that you’d have to step high to get over. To navigate this
obstacle you could try it on your own, or you could pray before (plus a whole
lot of other things too) When she knelt to pray Colleen pushed the chair
together and the rope became very slack. So the rope was still there, but it
was easier to navigate. The last obstacle was some chairs placed at intervals
which was a conversation we have with friends and an opportunity to share the gospel.
We can choose to walk straight past and not grab the opportunity, or we can
weave the gospel into the conversation (weaving through the chairs). And then
for getting through all of that Colleen gave her a whole bag of cookies. So
some obstacles in life we can choose what to do (leave behind the offence, pay
the tithing) and others we can’t choose and we can’t stop from happening, like
losing our job, but we can always choose how we navigate these obstacles. The
talk is well worth reading – and maybe you can use her ideas to adapt for a
fireside or something using the talk J
Sam spoke in sacrament meeting today, and one of the things
he said struck me (I didn’t get to hear all of it of course, so I’m sure there
would have been other things too… ;) But when talking about why we need to do
the basics every day he pointed out that whenever we talk to people, or watch listen
or read something we are being exposed to the ideas of the world. And if we don’t
do the basics, particularly our daily scripture reading, we won’t be reminding ourselves
what the gospel perspective is. Then we’re going to find ourselves influenced
by the world. Very good explanation for why those basics are so important!
And on that note I’ll leave you J Of course I know you’re doing
the basics now – your challenge is to keep it up when you get back to normal
life… But I’m sure you’ll manage that just fine J
Oh, and today being 27 April we are celebrating 20 years of
democracy in South Africa. It really is quite something to reflect back. It’s
really been your entire life, but your life would be very different if it weren’t
for where our country is now!
Have a good week!
Shelly