Give Her A Day

What can you give to one small girl?
A diamond ring, a baton to twirl?
A pretty pink dress with lots of bows,
or decorated sandals that show her toes.
A walk in the woods, a stomp in the park,
a shopping trip from dusk till dark?
A shiny pink bike, a kitten for a pet?
No, there is still time for such things,
yet…
Give her a day of her very own.
Just one small girl and her mother alone.
Give her the gift that only you can,
the companionship of her own mum.
Games are outgrown and toys decay,
but she will never forget if you give her a day.

A poem from Qattara Cousins, year 9 student at St Ursula’s Covent School.

 

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It’s finally Friday!!!

It’s finally Friday. Wooop. The time is 07:02 to be precise. As I write this the fact that I’m growing up is just dawning on me. Yh yh I’m gonna be 18 you’d expect me to be excited… Right? Don’t get me wrong I am. But a bigger part of me is so scared. Fine. I admit it, I’m scared. Scared to be on my own in this big bad world.  Scared to make my own decisions. Scared to fail… All on my own. Right now I’m on the train up to Nottingham. Exciting… Right?  I’ve never gotten the train on my own before… There’s always a first time for everything. Right now I’m really expectant… Finally this is the MORE I’ve been craving, so what does the BIG, WIDE, WORLD have in store for Moyo? I’ll guess I’ll just have to wait and see. In mean time just keep calm and love life.

The ‘When I Grow up Syndrome’

Girls, how many of you remember being about 5 years old and looking up towards the sky excited as ever,  You clear your little throat and with so much enthusiasm and boldness announce to your parents…Mum …Dad when I grow up I’m going to be a ……………insert your own

For the records mine was a Vet but I realised I didn’t deal with blood very well, then it was a lawyer…then I realised I wasn’t a good liar (I’ve totally offended so many lawyers accept my apologies) then a Psychologist….and now I realise I was created to help individuals realise their worth…I’m yet to give that a title.

But yes sorry back to being a 5 year old kid, I remember it so vividly, Head held so high…limitations….pffft a word that your positive little brain didn’t quite understand or register…you know that zeal I’m talking about the ‘I can do whatever I want to do’ attitude I can become whatever I want to become’…that audacious confidence.

But then, is it just me that realised as I went through life, reasoning and logic and standards and expectations began to bit by bit hammer away at my audacious confidence levels. Where ‘limitations’ was once a word foreign to my little brain as a kid…I found it strange the older I became the more it seemed to flash in Neon lights everywhere. You go from ‘I’m going to be president.. to emmm you know maybe being president is a little too out there, maybe I’ll go for owning my own successful business to  okay seriously dude right about now, I’m going to be realistic a job is a job….I hate it but it pays me!

Where did we lose it?

I mean I think it’s hilarious how as little biddy kids we can see the world as our oyster with so many opportunities no limitations..so many possibilities, like a blank canvas waiting for us to totally jump in with our Crayola’ s and create whatever we want to create  (remember Crayola’s..I loved them)

But the more I think about it I think I know where we lost it, as we grew older we began to become conditioned, we allowed our unbelievably powerful minds to accept that we have to play life by the books, we lost our creativity when we were taught that there is only 1 correct answer everything else is wrong… 1+1 = 2 it will always =2 if it = to 3 you’re wrong!

Okay guys come on, a raise of hands if you were ever that kid in maths class who used to totally have a heart attack when your teacher looked at you from the end of her/ his nose and pointed ‘hey you what is the answer’…..I think I may have actually prayed to God  on numerous such occasions for the rapture’

Ask most  3 / 4 year olds a question… any question And they have no qualms with giving you an answer which in no way whatsoever relates to the question you asked them Why?

They have NO fear of FAILURE…..

Now, I believe that this fear of failure has robbed so many of us from trying, from dreaming, from turning our dreams into reality myself included…..I don’t know about you buddy…but I do not want to be…actually for a matter of FACT I will not be that person whose old and wrinkly (hopefully not too wrinkly haha) riddled with regrets of what ifs……

I have this picture in my head of a morbidly obese being in our heads his name is fear, now the reason for which he is morbidly obese is because we keep feeding him with our negative thoughts, he’s getting so big he’s ready to occupy more space in our heads than his paying rent for…about time we put him on a diet and starve him…don’t you think…and I’m not talking weight watchers!!

I mean if I asked myself what I wanted from life.. if there were no such thing as limitations….boy I could go on forever…so you know what as of today I will live like there are none!…….I mean what’s the worst that can happen?  We may trip that’s life get over yourself you wouldn’t be the 1^st or the last…as Les Brown puts it ‘if we can look up, we can get up’

So back to ‘when I grow up’, I mean I hate to break it to you buddy, but the revelations kicked me up the backside too….we have grown up! So our job now is to unlearn half of the stuff we spent learning since we were little biddy kids, you know that 1+ 1 = 2…well I say 1 + 1 can = to anything you want it to equal too.

So let’s regain our audacious confidence we lost along the years….Life will pay whatever price we ask of it- (Tony Robbins) so let’s dream big ask big and live with no regrets…..

With love,

Deborah

There’s no day like a snow day!

Well, I’m assuming most of us were probably snowed in this weekend. Yes, I can see you nodding. I didn’t go out at all during the weekend so last night I decided to do something fun and make use of my new found knowledge of no school on Monday to the best of my ability. I made cookies!!

Now, I’m no Nigella Lawson and I don’t think I would last that long on the Great British Bake-off. Nevertheless, there’s no harm in trying and I found that I really enjoyed making them and I would like to do it regularly.

I know the pictures of the cookies don’t look amazingly appealing but looks can be deceiving and they tasted really nice. I would have loved to add chocolate chips but we didn’t have any so I had to make do. This is something that I wanted to do for a while but I never had the time. Then I realised we have to make the time for the things we want to do. This year I’m definitely going to polish up my baking skills. For me it’s a time where I can leave stress outside the kitchen and focus on one thing and I just love listening to my IPod at the same time as I can dance along to my favourite songs. So for me it’s a win win situation.

Here is a link to the website: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/4807/best-big–fat–chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies.aspx.

I challenge you to do something this year you’ve wanted to do for a long time. It doesn’t matter what it is (as long as it’s legal), whether you’ve done it before or not. Just try, and who knows what the outcome will be?

I found this quote on a website called Pinterest and they have tons of photos on just about everything. I like this quote because it’s very true we get so many thoughts in a day and sometimes a lot of them can be negative. These negative thoughts can stop us from doing great things or stopping us from even trying and learning from our mistakes. This year we need to say goodbye to our doubt and just live the life God intended for us.

Have a lovely week,

Anita

Anita Makinde is a year 10 student at Dartford Grammar School for Girls.  She loves singing and playing the guitar.

ALIVE

Do more of what makes you feel alive, what excites you? What could you do everyday all day and never become bored of? What is your passion? What gets your adrenaline pumping? What makes you smile? What makes you happy? If money wasn’t a factor what would you do? If you could do absolutely anything no limitations what would it be? Not sure, take the journey of self-discovery ask yourselves these questions and care to find out…we all have something that makes us feel alive; it could be that some of us haven’t yet discovered it but when you do discover it its truly amazing.

What I have noticed is we often look at others longing for their gifts and talents wishing we could possess some of their unique abilities. However, I’ve realised that in doing so we inadvertently neglect and forget the amazing gifts and talents that God has given us, which are already deposited within us. We’re so busy desiring the success fame and accomplishment of others that we often forget and neglect the unique incredibleness of our own gifts and talents which if worked upon and developed can yield great results and bring us much fulfilment.

Some of the world’s most successful people are so because they played to their strengths, what are your strengths? What comes naturally to you? Usually we find that the gifts which we personally take for granted and do not even see as anything special someone else notices and values. Don’t sell yourself short, don’t wait until someone discovers you, discover and develop yourself.

Never underestimate the power of what already lies within you and the tools which lie readily available in your hand.

Do more of what makes you feel alive… more of what excites you…more of what makes your heart smile

With love,

Deborah

Hello and Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Trust you had a good holiday.  As I ponder on what to write today; I can’t but think of self-esteem.  Self-esteem is a healthy thing and the way we see ourselves affects the way we relate to others.  So what is self-esteem?

• It is your own opinion of yourself and your worth.
• A realistic appreciation opinion of oneself.
• Realistic means accurate and honest.
• Appreciative implies positive feelings and liking.

You are important and valuable as a person because you are unique, precious, of infinite, eternal, unchanging value and good.

“How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!  How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You” Psalm 139: 17-18.

Blessings,

Dupe