Teacher Appreciation Song: A Song for Teachers - You Have Made A Difference

I find this wonderful and meaningful song that I want to share with all of those who feel appreciative towards not only their own teachers but any other person who made or still makes a difference .. maybe in your life :) Thanks!

CHALLENGE … is our life a continuous challenge? Is my life a challenge?

It is being so long since I have posted something, written by me and about me, on this blog. And for those who like my blog and check from time to time to see what new stuff I have written, about maybe things that happen in my life, I am sorry to have disappointed you with anything new. … But I promise I will try to find time for new sharing.

What meaning have challenges in our life and what should they represent for each other? What would challenges represent for me?

It is one year since I decide to move into a complete new place, new country, new society and culture, the kind of decision that changed my life somehow completely. One year and things looks different right now. I lived new exciting experiences, some of which were sad and heartbroken, others happy and joyful, some accomplishments and failures, feelings of stability but also of insecurity; I have learned new languages, new habits, and new people but not to forget about the old life patterns and style that brought me sometimes to the end of my limits of acceptance and endurance, patterns that I was not yet prepared to change or improve. One year, time that I spend in finding the best ways to go further for achieving my life and professional goals, one year of analyzing my mistakes in order to make sure I take the best decisions and I surely go in the right direction. There were times of self confidence and believe but also times of disbelieve and low self esteem. I sometimes wanted to be alone, other times crowded by people.

Being in a complete new environment means also being surrounded by complete strangers, people that you may not know if you should trust or not, people who ended to misuse my feelings but also lot of those who smoothly touched my heart with joy and compassion. There were times of appreciation and times of regret; times of love and times of hate. But two things which matter most were the feelings of having learned something new about me, of having learned a new lesson that made me who I am today and specially accepting to be a lucky person who had and still has at her side, a partner that knows how to bring the best out of me, a partner who encourages me and supports me in all my decisions. For that, I am most grateful and thankful.

This article is an introduction in a new series of short stories about my life and my experiences. It is mostly about life lessons and challenges. I believe one must experience the most diverse things in life in order to be able to appreciate not only the good out of every experience, but the lessons out of those bad ones.

Yes, there were good times! Yes, there were bad times, too! But all those good and bad experiences are the end result of today. And for what it matters, today I am happy. At the end of each bad or good day I remember myself to appreciate my life, to appreciate what I have and what I am. I smile in front of the mirror and I try to feel the feeling of happiness. I sometimes lie myself but after few seconds smiling in that mirror, I can really feel it, I can really feel the moment of appreciation, the feeling of gratefulness. It may not always be easy, but I also remember myself that in every experience there is a lesson. A lesson that I have to learn a lesson that represents the end result of my being. And so, at the end of each day, I feel more mature, more confident, blessed and definitely stronger.

As I have learned during all this time – we are what we produce out of ourselves; and we should be happy for the best parts of our life experiences – the good parts as well as the bad ones, comparing the example of the need for salt and sugar in our daily meals. We cannot feed ourselves with only sweets as well as our life would be senseless without bad experiences from which we are suppose to learn something good out of them. Our meals taste much better by adding additional ingredients such as salt and pepper. Bad, good, all this combined is going to be reflected into our final product, our cooked meal or our present being.

My message in these shared thoughts is that we have to learn to combine life experiences; to learn how to use the bad experience to our own advantage. To learn what has to be changed. Learn to enjoy all the experiences we may have. This will bring joy and satisfaction to our life. Learn how to enjoy ourselves, with good and bad, with tears and smiles, with new and with old.

I want to tell you about one concrete example, explaining what I mean about challenges.

One year ago I moved to Copenhagen, Denmark. In the hope that everything will be fun and easy, I find out that stepping out of my comfort zone was much harder than I ever wanted to estimate. The first challenge, that of learning Danish language which I thought it should be easy, it ended to be the most difficult one. Deciding to learn Danish language is, first of all, just as deciding to learn two languages in the same time – the written and the spoken one. I struggled a lot at the beginning … maybe also because I was constantly telling myself and others how difficult it is and how impossible it seems to be when I needed to act. It took me a month to start and after starting it took me few weeks to get the basics. I may have had the need for a tutor, a native one, but I stubborn into thinking that I can do it all by myself – as usual. I decided at one point that school would be too slow for me and so I start teaching myself the advanced part of the Danish language, challenging myself each day more and more. H. C. Andersen’s fairytales became my favorite ones and because I found not only the books but also audios, I was listening again and again for many days in a row. In the beginning nothing made sense, I was not able to understand much but I never gave up believing that one day all this will seem very easy … and indeed that day came, though after about two other months. I start to volunteer in centers where Danish was the main communication language, I start discussing with different kind of people on streets and shops, I listen constantly to radio and watched news on TV, I got involved in so many activities as possible in order to improve the language that, at the end of about six months I could handle quite well. I was and still am proud of my successes in this area; the kind of challenge that seems impossible became possible, only that it took some time. The time is not ended and I still have to improve a lot, but I did it. I believe, life teaches us how to face problems and challenges in a kind and easy manner but we seem to struggle believing that, and we sometimes make out of our experience a negative and hard one.

This was and still is, for example, the kind of challenge I had to face when decisions about moving here seemed to be reasonable. (I will talk about other challenges in the next article)

My next article will relate to the following question:

“Why do we tend to spend so much time judging and criticizing others? Why are not we spending the same amount of time improving ourselves / our own life? Is it because most of those who spend time on criticizing others life have nothing interesting to say about their own? Then why not develop the interest in finding the best that lies in us. In this way we enrich our life and let others enrich their own. This can be viewed as a life lesson, but why is it than so hard to apply this lesson to our own experiences?”

I will relate this question to my own life experience and a new challenge, but in the upcoming article.

If you would like to read about specific kind of examples I have linked in this article, I will appreciate your comment. And so I will introduce your question to my article where I will post a concrete example of the kind of experience you want to read about.

Thank you for reading this article. Enjoy life!

Gabriela

Good morning LIFE!!! ...

what a beautiful way to start this wonderful day ... I hope you will enjoy this as much as I did this morning :)





Dean Martin - Good Morning

Good morning life
Good morning sun how are your skies above
Gee it's great to be alive and in love

Good morning life
Good morning birds sing out your happy tunes
Feels so good because I'll be seeing her soon

Last night she said she loved me
What a pity to part
I slept with both eyes open waiting for today to start

Good morning life
Good morning world how are you happiness
All at once I know what livin' can be
It's life, it's free, it's someone waiting for me
Who'll someday be my wife, good morning life

Good morning life
Good morning life

Last night she said she loved me
What a pity to part
I slept with both eyes open waiting for today to start

Good morning life
Good morning world how are you happiness
All at once I know what livin' can be
Ah it's life, it's free, it's someone waiting for me
Who'll someday be my wife, good morning life

Denmark Happiest Place on Earth

Happy New Year 2010!!!

Oprah Winfrey in Copenhagen, DK

Denmark 'happiest place on earth'

If it is happiness you are seeking a move to Denmark could be in order, according to the first scientist to make a world map of happiness.

Adrian White, from the UK's University of Leicester, used the responses of 80,000 people worldwide to map out subjective well being. Denmark came top, followed closely by Switzerland and Austria. The UK ranked 41st. Zimbabwe and Burundi came bottom. A nation's level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels. Prosperity and education were the next strongest determinants of national happiness. read more

Measuring happiness

He said: "There is increasing political interest in using measures of happiness as a national indicator in conjunction with measures of wealth. "A recent BBC survey found that 81% of the population think the government should focus on making us happier rather than wealthier. read more

The Oprah Winfrey Show - Oprah on Location: The Happiest People on Earth - 10/21/2009

Women Around the World

In October 2009, Oprah traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark's charming capital city, to support Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics. Well, Chicago didn't get picked, but that didn't stop Oprah from enjoying her first visit to the country that's considered one of the happiest places on earth.

For the past 30 years, scientific researchers and survey results have all reached the same conclusion—Danes are consistently happier than the rest of the world. On the "world map of happiness"—a map created by a social psychologist in England—Switzerland, Austria and Iceland rank just below Denmark on the happiness scale. Canada comes in at number 10, while the United States is a distant 23rd.

So what makes the Danes so happy? Oprah met up with Nanna Norup, a resident of Copenhagen, to find out. As they walk down the cobblestone streets, Nanna explains some of the differences between Denmark and America.

For instance, in Copenhagen, people are very environmentally conscious. A third of the population rides bikes around the city, many with grocery bags or small children in tow.

Homelessness, poverty and unemployment are also extremely rare in this nation of 5.5 million people. If you lose your job, Nanna says the government continues to pay up to 90 percent of your salary for four years. And not to worry…healthcare is free for everyone.

The Danish government also takes a special interest in mothers and their children. Women typically get six to 12 months in paid maternity leave. And, when it's time to go to college, citizens get paid to go the universities. "When you go to university, then you get paid $400 or $500," Nanna says. "You have free education. Then, you have healthy, well-educated people in the world. What could beat that?"

Women in Denmark also don't feel pressure to get married. Nanna is 44 years old and single, and she says she didn't grow up dreaming of a bridal gowns and weddings. "It's never been a dream of mine," she says. "I don't think my girlfriends had that dream."

Stine, one of Nanna's friends, says she had three children with her partner before they decided to get married.

Watch as Oprah tours Stine's home in Copenhagen.

While visiting another family, Oprah discovers one more reason to be happy in Copenhagen—a delicious bread called Rugbrød! "I so love it," Oprah says. "I have a slice every morning. … It's like eating earth."

"The frustrations of modern life, and the anxieties of the age, seem to be much less significant compared to the health, financial and educational needs in other parts of the world." Mr White (on BBC)

The Marshmallow Test

In this reprise of a now-classic Stanford psychological experiment from the 1960s, kids are put in a room with a marshmallow and told they can either eat it immediately or wait until the researcher gets back, and they'll be given a second marshmallow. Hilarity ensues as the kids suffer marshmallow temptation!

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

But the consequences go deeper: In the New Yorker article "Don’t!" from May that detailed the very same experiment, it turned out that the ones who passed the marshmallow test enjoyed greater success as adults. Said Walter Mischel, the Stanford professor of psychology in charge of the experiment, "What we’re really measuring with the marshmallows isn’t will power or self-control... It’s much more important than that. This task forces kids to find a way to make the situation work for them. They want the second marshmallow, but how can they get it? We can’t control the world, but we can control how we think about it.” read more

Sa zambim impreuna – Daruieste un zambet

S-a initiat campania "ZAMBESTE! e gratis" prin care putem aduce un zambet pe buzele tuturor.

V-ati intrebat vreodata ce se inmulteste fara sa platiti?

ZAMBETUL!

Daca ii zambesti cuiva, te ASIGUR ca iti va zambi inapoi. Fac acest exercitiu zilnic:

- ii zambesc partenului cand ma trezesc
- ii zambesc vecinului
- zambesc femeii de serviciu
- zambesc oamenilor pe strada
- zambesc oricui intalnesc, chiar si mie in oglinda :)

Incercati si voi si veti vedea ca lumea va zambeste inapoi. Este un pas mic dar sunt sigura ca merita.

Saptamana asta (21 – 27 Septembrie 2009), cei de la www.lumebuna.ro au lansat o initiativa la care subscriu :) citeste mai multe dand clic pe zambesc.lumebuna.ro.

Se impart zambete saptamana asta, tuturor persoanelor pe care le intalnesti.

Ce inseamna sa daruim un zambet?
Pe o bucatica de hartie vom desena un smile si vom scrie “Un zambet pentru tine”.
Aceasta bucatica de hartie o vom oferi persoanelor din locatiile respective impreuna binenteles cu zambetul nostru propriu :)

Sa zambim impreuna – Daruieste un zambet