The United Nations Environment Programme announced that the theme of this year's World Environment Day will be small island developing states or "SIDS." Island nations around the world are particularly vulnerable to climate change, natural disasters and rising seas. However, they have also come up with some amazing solutions to cope with these problems.

World Environment Day is June 5, and this year aims to raise awareness about the impact of climate change on small islands states around the world. There's also much to be learned from these countries, which have overcome a number of environmental problems with only limited resources.

To all my friends and colleagues who are Moms and to the Moms of my friends and colleagues.

 

 

All the joy and passion you can envision can be yours right now, rather than in a future point in time.

The time we are blessed with is limited and tends to be used up all too quickly. How we utilize that time is consequently one of the most important decisions we make.

Yet it is far too easy to put off until tomorrow what we are dreaming of today. The hectic pace of modern existence affords us an easy out; we shelve our aspirations so we can cope more effectively with the challenges of the present, ostensibly to have more time and leisure to realize our purpose in the future.

Or we tell ourselves that we will chase our dreams someday once we have accomplished other lesser goals. In truth, it is our fear that keeps us from seeking fulfillment in the here and now—because we view failure as a possibility, our reasons for delaying our inevitable success seem sound and rational.

If we ask ourselves what we are really waiting for, however, we discover that there is no truly compelling reason why we should put off the pursuit of the dreams that sustain us.
(The Daily Om)

 

 

 

 

April 1st was the World Day of Education and I am still thinking of how this can be celebrated in any other way than providing education to all those who need it.

 

Authorities and governments claim that they know that Education is the way to grow as citizens and as countries but while they say this, the news show many incidents where corruption, greed and misunderstanding create situations that end up in violence, disease  and death.

 

It is so hard to solve so many problems at the same time!

 

However, if each of us, as individuals, try to  learn how to live and work in harmony, how to help each other and how to be thankful for what we have, we may find ourselves at ease and less prone to commit crimes and hurt others, I hope.

 

Education begins at home, with the values our parents and family pass on to us. At home we learn to trust, to help, to enjoy, to be considerate, to wait and at school we consolidate these skills and attitudes if our teachers show them by becoming role models of all this.

 

I believe we are all teachers, we all have children around us who look up to us and who may want to become like us. Therefore, it is good to try to be the best we can in everything we do. No matter if the outcome is not perfect, but we can rest assured that we did our best and that is what counts.

 

"If we knew that tonight we were going to go blind, we would take a longing, last real look at every blade of grass, every cloud formation, every speck of dust, every rainbow, raindrop- everything."

Happiness is the result of inner maturity. It depends on us alone, and requires patient work, carried out from day to day. Happiness must be built, and this requires time and effort. In the long term, happiness and unhappiness are therefore a way of being, or a life skill. (Matthieu Ricard.)

Today is Monday morning, a new week starts  today and I decide to make the most out of it. It is a sunny day, my beloved are all in good health, I stretch out and fix breakfast. I am about to enter my office but then I decide to water my garden before it gets too hot, I pet my dogs and then  share a coffee with a relative.

 

I start work  with the usual routine, check mails for about an hour and when I was at this, I  find a mail from a long-lost friend in Germany. I feel my heart flooded with this warm feeling I have whenever I hear from a friend I have not heard of for quite a while. How good to know she is doing fine, she lives in a caravan surrounded by the wind, flowers and birds. She is happy!!!!

 

After answering mails, I start the serious staff: prepare the sections of the Pronunciation course I am going to teach soon and delight at the idea of imagining the teacher trainees doing the different activities and sharing a good laugh together. I am happy !!!!!!!!!

Last week was certainly memorable. Not only because I finished running the three-day sessions on CLIL I had been assigned and whose summary you can find at mumariatefl.blogspot.com but also because I received a phone call from a Head hunter-Michael Page company-trying to recruit me for a start-up British company and another from a University in the North of the country which I visited in the year 2010. They wanted me as a profesor in their School of Translation and Interpretation.

I did not accept any of the posts because I am in a special position in my life where I want to take things slowly and enjoy every bit of it. I have already had my share of struggles so felt happy to know that I am still competitive in the EFL world and am in a privileged position of choosing what I want to do with my time.

 

An additional reason to be happy was that my parents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last week but my Mum has Alzheimer so she does not remember the date and my Dad died almost two years ago, so I paid homage to their wonderful lives together by lighting a candle and offering a prayer. However, if they had been with me they would have been really happy at this news and would probably felt that they had nothing to do with it disregarding that what I am now is because of them.

 

They did a terrific job raising us up, my brothers and I, considering that we were born in a shanty town, my Dad was a textile factory worker and my Mom could not even finish primary school. However, they were loving, dedicated and convinced that only education could take us wherever we wanted to be... and so it did. My brothers are American citizens, one works in education like me whereas the other works for a Stock Exchange company. We have all travelled extensively because of our Jobs. I have been in Europe, Asia, North America and have lived in Spain, England, Chile and the USA. We all have quiet but happy lives, keeping a low profile but enjoying the family and always taking care for each other.

 

Mum and Dad you certainly did an amazing job!!!. Love you lots.

Beginning and Ending

From January 20th to 31st I participated, as a tutor, in the Summer Course for Top Teachers of English, organized by Customized Training Services, the company I work for.

We tried really hard to offer teachers the chance to  exchange their experiences in areas such as Classroom Management, Teaching Pronunciation, Language for Teachers, Developing Communicative Competence and Supplementary material.

This experience was really interesting because it helped me understand the situations some of our colleagues have to experience on a daily basis along their teaching practice and how resourceful some of them are trying to overcome the problems they encounter.

Liliana, who took care of the Logistics, Emma, my peer tutor and good friend, and I have learned a lot from our colleagues and are really looking forward to meeting them again and supporting them in their pursue of their professional development.

Thanks very much our dear new friends. You can find their posts and a summary of their production at https://summerenglishcourse2014.blogspot.com