Imagine...

I was just reading minivanmom´s (www.morethanaminivanmom.blogspot.com) post about her son getting an "action plan" in school for daydreaming and it not only made me mad, but actually sad too. Have we really come to the point where we are going to punish children for having a lively imagination? Are we going to discourage them from having dreams? Do we, as a society, really think that these children will just imagine and dream during "after school hours"? We do not need our children to learn everything by the book. These kids are great at Googling and there is a wealth of information out there, accessible for them almost at any time, any place. We need to give them the tools to use this knowledge, filter out what is "nice to know" and "need to know" information. We should be helping them reach their goals and pursue their dreams. NOT telling them it´s wrong to dream! Didn´t Martin Luther King Day, followed by Inauguration Day teach us anything about the importance of dreams?

When I grow up I want to be a ...???????????

When I was a kid I always knew what I wanted. First of all I was a far from being Peter Pan as possible. I definately wanted to grow up. In fact I think I hated being a kid. I was extremely headstrong and independent and couldn´t wait to be able to rule over my own life. Well, I didn´t "have to" wait that long. When I was 15 I got pregnant and moved in with my then boyfriend (now husband of 12 years) and became a "grown up". We finished school, had another child and moved overseas to Denmark to go to university. At that time I had no doubt in my mind what I wanted to do. I wanted to study business and management. It was a pretty "safe" choice, probably marked by the fact that money had been tight in the past years. I´d be pretty sure to get a job in the field when we eventually would move back to Iceland and I´d probably be able to earn a salary big enough to feed all the children I was hoping to have in the future. When I think back I realize I might have been focusing more on what I thought other people were expecting of me than what I truely wanted most. I was choosing the easy way out. Something which is very un-like me. I was lucky. I really liked my studies and thought that almost all my courses were very interesting. I finished in 2005 and could very well see myself working within this field for the rest of my life. Only problem was that this was "hypothetically speaking", since I didn´t have any relevant work experience to back my theory. Fast forward. After my studies I stayed home with our (then) 4 children until in January 2008 when I thought it was time to go out and try out what I had spent 5 years and $$$$$$$$$$$$$ on studying. But at this point I just couldn´t see myself being "owned" by some company who would demand my services almost 24/7 and having to have a bad conscious if the kids were sick and I couldn´t be in the office. I decided to start teaching marketing(something I had always pictured myself liking to do) at a great business oriented highschool, letting me combine my interest in business and marketing with a family friendly workplace (with the advantage of sharing my kids school holidays). This is what I´m doing now. I like my job and I love my work hours. But I don´t LOVE my job. I really wish I did. I´m the kind of person who always thought I would do a job I loved, something I had a passion for. I kind of envy people who have a passion for their day to day job and I honestly don´t like envying people. Bad feeling and there´s no pay-off. Sounds like I´m going through my mid-life crisis at 30! After all that would only make sense, considering that I always wanted to be 20 years older than I really was. I need to do some soul searching and be honest to myself, first and foremost. I wonder what I´ll come up with (actually I think I know, I´m just not ready to shout it from the rooftops yet).

Practically perfect in every way!

"We eat, we drink, we screw"-Rescue me

I´m on the couch watching Rescue me! I can´t believe how exhausted I am after just 1 1/2 weeks back on the job. I guess I got used to crawling back into bed after the big kids left for school during my 8 month maternity leave. I also can hardly believe that I chose a profession which includes dealing with even more kids than I have at home. And yet there are still people who consider me sensible. One more thing I can´t believe. All good things come in 3´s, right? I´m a highschool teacher. I teach 18 year olds marketing. I really enjoy my job in general. These are smart, funny, vibrant young people. They´re full of life, great ideas and creativity. Sounds too good to be true? - Not at all. They honestly are. But...ah, you knew there was a but in there somewhere...they´re lazy!!!! Completely lazy. And this is the part I hate about my job. I told them to read chapter 9, the shortest chapter in the book. In class the next day three of them had read the chapter. I told the rest of them they BETTER read the text for class today and to answer the 3 questions on the bottom of the first page. Today- I got asked: "WHY do we NEED to BUY the book. What questions, where are they, which chapter?" Mind you, these are (as I stated earlier) good kids from good homes. And that may actually be part of the problem. They´ve led easy, sheltered lives, had no mountains to climb. They drive mom´s Range Rover to school, dad does their laundry (got to be PC on the gender issues here) ;) They felt sorry for themselves having to read 50 pages in one week. That is... until they found out that I had 2 kids by the time I was 18 and still in highschool and I still managed to read chapter 9!!! However that´s material for a whole other blog post. See you later and please leave a comment so I know who´s checking in on my new blog adventure :)

Next time will be different

March 15, 2008- a loooooooong time ago, at least in the life of a 14 year old, my oldest son had his confirmation in church. In our neck of the woods (o.k. I admit there are no woods here, but hey, you get the picture) this is a big event and the kids' gifts usually reflect that. Once again, hubby and I decided to not go with the flow. When most kids were getting laptops from their parents, we decided we wanted to give him something more "special". Yep, that´s us. The folks who think their kids are more special than others and only deserve the best. Makes us "special" parents, huh!?! Flame away! O.k. Kid loves turtles and marine life in general. So what could be more perfect than a week at Sea World camp in Orlando? - Zip, nada! Best friends parents agreed. Said they would send their son too. Great, wonderful, fantastic....until..................................................confirmation day. Guess what their kid got? - You guessed it. A trip to Sea World camp, right? Uh...no- What do you mean, no? Kid got new phone and $1000. Why, you may ask. Well, please don´t ask me cause I have no idea whatsoever. They never discussed these new plans with me. Do I send a 14 year old alone on a plane, approx. 3000 miles around the world and tell him to stay for a week and then come back, alone again! Hell no! So what do we do instead? The best idea we could come up with was to plan for a trip a year later, when mom and dad would have saved up enough money and frequent flier points to go with him (makes for a nice couple of kid free days while he´s at camp). And this was truely our plan. I even sometimes think I was looking more forward to the week in Orlando than kid was. Guess what? Icelandair decides to stop flying to Orlando in the summer months. And no, I´m not going to fly into some other place first making this planned trip twice as expensive and with no chance to use our points. Which leaves us back at our starting point. We promised him a fun and special gift and this is what we intend to give him, without breaking the bank! Daughters confirmation is next year. I am soooo not going to get myself into the same kind of trouble in 2010. Hoping I can combine their gifts this year. A long weekend in London (without the little kids) is in discussion mode. Any and all ideas will be greatly appreciated. At the moment I feel most like giving them $$$ (so much for special) and going on a romantic getaway with my hubby to get away from this whole mess. Hmmmmmm...food for thought.

It´s such a perfect day

Welcome everyone! Today is the first day of the rest of my personal blog life. Funny. I´m kind of nervous. Like I´m afraid of failing. How can I fail at blogging? Am I a blog failure if I don´t update daily? If I´m not funny enough? Not wise enough? Not PC? Or maybe even if I´m too PC? But hey, I´m just me. Nothing more. Nothing less. I haven´t failed at being me so far. Actually I´m starting off on the wrong foot with all of you. I´m kind of lying (great start, huh?). I have blogged before. Just not in English. And not very many read my blog. I couldn´t really decide how personal to be. So, now it´s out. I WAS a blog failure. But that was last year, right? New year, new opportunities and hopefully also new blogfriends. I´ll be back -soon! Hasta luego :)