Just how much I resonate with this....

This strikes home.
It also helps that her name is Kathleen.
That was actually eerily ironic.
Hope you enjoy.

What I can learn from flies...

The following quote, taken from my "Strategy Bites Back" text, epitomizes what I have learned these last two weeks in my Strategic Leadership course...

"If you place in a bottle half a dozen bees and the same number of flies, and lay the bottle horizontally, with its base [the closed end] to the window, you will find that the bees will persist, till they die of exhaustion or hunger, in their endeavor to discover an [opening] through the glass; while the flies, in less than two minutes, will all have sailed forth through the open neck on the opposite side...

It is [the bees] love of flight, it is their very intelligence, that is their undoing in this experiment. They evidently imagine that the issue from every prison must be where the light shines clearest; and they act in accordance, and persist in too-logical action. [To bees] glass is a supernatural mystery...and, the greater their intelligence, the more inadmissible, more incomprehensible, will the strange obstacle appear. Whereas the feather-brained flies, careless of logic...flutter wildly hither and thither, and meeting the good fortune that often waits on the simple...necessarily end up by discovering the friendly opening that restores their liberty to them"


- Gordon Siu


p.s. when I googled an image entitled "flies and bees in a jar", I got the following image:


..entertaining.

the brain as a sponge. which is now dripping.

I have so much to share based on the last 4 weeks of my masters program. But that will have to wait for another time. I have a big paper to write.

In the meantime, read this and tell me what you think:

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/16/gates-buffett-600-billion-dollar-philanthropy-challenge/

study break...part 2

when i need affirmation...

back to the...

I just got a spam email entitled "singles over 50".

Was it from the future?

from the mouth of an almost four year old.

According to Charlee, the following is a picture of me, as she says, "when you were a little boy". Awesome. I am relieved that Carleigh was also given a picture of herself when she was a little boy. I'm waiting for Gary to get a picture of when he was a little girl. That will be so worth it.

And then, this was followed up with a picture of a "green city". Charlee evidently knows about my passion for the environment. 

According to her, the words at the top say, "Dear God, please let Kaleen not be scared and know that she doesn't need to be scared anymore, and please let her take me to the park and get ice cream." 

How 'bout that? Prayers for all. Build confidence and ask for what you want. No shame in that, no siree.

p.s. The actual drawings came from a "doodle book" and Charlee provided the colour. I would say that she's a child artist prodigy...and she probably is, but not quite to this degree....yet.

Study break....

It all really comes down to...

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

 - Howard Thurman

A two week masters level course...

...is like drinking from a fire hydrant.

I am really enjoying the MAL program (Masters of Arts in Leadership). The topics are interesting and relevant - everything I hear, I can picture either CBC or Costa Rica (which then leads me to daydream and forget what's happening at the front of class for a minute).

The people are fascinating - we come from all walks of life, worldviews, perspectives, positions - I've even been blessed to have been put in a group with someone who owns the bakery down the street from where I live (here comes ten more pounds by Christmas :) Right, Hank? Oh, well, I'll walk it off.)

It was reassuring as well, to know that we're all in the same boat. We're all overwhelmed...excited, enjoying it, but overwhelmed.

The hydrant is flowing.

Back to it...