I've learned....
That life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the
faster it goes.

I've learned....
That we should be glad YHWH doesn't give us everything we ask for.

I've learned....
That money doesn't buy class.

I've learned....
That it's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.

I've learned...
That under everyone's hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and
loved.

I've learned....
That the Lord didn't do it all in one day. What makes me think I can?

I've learned....
That to ignore the facts does not change the facts.

I've learned....
That when you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that
person continue to hurt you.

I've learned....
That love, not time, heals all wounds.

I've learned....
That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with
people smarter than I am.

I've learned....
That everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.

I've learned....
That there's nothing sweeter than sleeping with your babies and feeling their breath on your cheeks.

I've learned....
That no one is perfect until you fall in love with them.

I've learned...
That life is tough, but I'm tougher.

I've learned....
That opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.

I've learned....
That when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.

I've learned....
That one should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow he may
have to eat them.

I've learned....
That a smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.

I've learned....
That I can't choose how I feel, but I can choose what I do about it.

I've learned...
That when your newly born child holds your little finger in his little fist, that you're hooked for life.

I've learned....
That everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness
and growth occurs while you're climbing it.

I've learned ...
That it is best to give advice in only two circumstances; when it is
requested and when it is a life threatening situation.

I've learned....
That the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.

Here are some bits from another email thingie I received:

Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't
mean they don't love you with all they have.

To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the
world.

Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened (This is my mantra!!! - Sabrina)

I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.

It has a been a beautiful day today. Like a real summer day, both today and yesterday. Feels nice.

I made a new photo page. Check it out!

Talked to my Mom today. I was feeling really down and stuff, but she talked to me a bit so then I felt all better :-)

Me and Olka have been getting along. She is out riding her new bike! She loves it. I am a bit too clumsy for a bike. I do want to go swimming, though.

I am going to the Lake District on Thursday. I have booked this really secluded hostel with great scenery. I can't wait to just relax and look out onto the lake and the moutains. i will probably take lots of photos.

I was supposed to be going to London tomorrow, but that fell through. Oh well, c'est la vie!

Right so things are fine and dandy here. I got first aid certified on Saturday, which is good. Seven kids did as well, which is brill(iant). I had a relaxing weekend. I decide to take today off since I've been working far more hours than I am supposed to, but now I am here in the office doing some work. I have two meetings tomorrow and a project, along with a committee meeting on Wednesday. Also, I'm supposed to have some report done by tomorrow as well. One of my bosses is really getting on my nerves, but that's nothing new because he always gets on my nerves. He accused Olka of using his 'personal' coffee and tea that is here in the office. So weird. Anyhow, neither of us took his precious teabags and he is just cross all around.

I may be going to Northern Ireland next month for work. There is a dreamscheme there and we will be visiting it. I also have to meet with someone who will be coming out to Manchester to do conflict resolution training with the kids.

I swear I feel like I've gained ten pounds in one day. Maybe I'm just bloated. I don't know, but it's starting to bug me now. It's like anytime I make a decision to lose weight, more just magically appears. I feel like I have this hidden personality that is determined to sabotage any slimming efforts.

Well, I need to get back on that report and make some flyers reminding about the committee meeting on Wednesday. Talk to you later, gators!

Lots of love,
Sabrina :-)

The moods of a woman

This is an amazing little story about
~ATTITUDE~


Jerry is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!" He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?" Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "the first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door, " Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.

Jerry continued, "...the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a deadman'. I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead'."

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.
The next move is up totally to YOU!

From LOLfun.com Accessed on 13 April 2004

I've completely lost my faith in humanity. Forget the concrete the boys had to break the windows, on Easter Sunday, their older brothers came back with an axe. Now the family of refugees who were supposed to move in this week will have nowhere to stay. There were fires and fights and an attempted murder on the estate all over Easter. I am far too sensitive for this sort of lifestyle. The boys then turned to my house and threw a broken pool cue among other things at our windows. I actually went after them with the pool cue and told them if they had a problem to take it up with me instead of throwing things at my house. I haven't seen them since.

I'm still so hurt over Jason and Ronan. I texted Jason and said I wanted to talk and he texted back saying he was at his girlfriend's house, we'll talk later. Two days later, I still haven't heard from him. I had a phone conversation with Ronan at about 3:30 this morning but I don't remember anything except for that he got a cat and I texted him this morning asking what his text of "maybe" that he sent at about 3:30 am was referring to. I haven't heard from him either.

I had said that I would speak to neither of them. Ronan phoned and apologized after reading my website. Jason is too close of a friend and it hurt more to not speak to him. I don't know, but right now I can't stop crying and I hurt because of many things, but these two are a couple of them.

Now, I'm not sure if I wrote this before, but I started losing my faith in humanity after seeing a photo on the front page of The Guardian of Iraq citizens in Fallujah laughing and smiling as they fanned the flames of the mutililated body of an American civilian. I couldn't and still can't believe it. I wonder if I am making a difference at all. These kids live here all their lives and see violence of all sorts all the time. How can I possibly steer them away from that? Our estate is quite good and manageable, but we are only one set of houses, surrounded by council estates with all the violence and mindset that goes with it. We don't exist in a bubble and I don't know if I can tackle the poverty of the world.

First of all, whoever thought it was a good idea to put poor people all together on an estate can kiss my butt. Seriously. My mother voiced this opinion (except for the kiss my butt part) many years ago, when referring to the high rises in Chicago.

I saw this movie on tv the other night called "Erasable You" and it was a satire. One character said, "I wish all the poor people could just go to their own island and just be poor together. Wouldn't that be great?!" The idea of council estates and high rises is just that. Put all the poor people together and then the middle or high classes won't have to mix with them.

White flight is still a huge problem in the cities and suburbs of America. If a black family moves in, the neighbors say, "there goes the neighborhood" and move out to another lily white 'hood. This flight is what causes property prices to fall, but what is said is that the value of property goes down simply because a black person moved in. That's rubbish. People just don't think logically. It happened on the south side of Chicago and I read an article called, "What if we would have stayed?" referring to the masses of white families who left the south side as it became more diverse. Chicago is practically split down the middle with the south side being predominantly black, and having a bad reputation for being a hihg crime area. "oooo the south side", the north siders side with fear and pity.

Many people before me have said it, but what separates us more than anything is not race or religion, but socio-economic status. Sure everyone loved watching the Cosby's on TV because they were upper middle class. Movies or television that depict the ghetto are just referred to as "black movies" even if the stars themselves, such as eminem, aren't black. It is fanned by both sides of the fence, the poor and the rich. If I went to see a "black movie" wearing business attire, I would not go unnoticed.

However, it is also a chicken or the egg argument. Are the poor just reacting to their oppression? Are the rich just reacting to the violence they've experience at the hands of the "poor"?

The change needs to be societal. How does a society change? How do beliefs change? Sometimes there are movements which change the government, which then changes beliefs on a wider scale, slowly, such as Martin Luther King's movement for integration. Other times, the government comes first and changes beliefs.

So what can we do? What shall we do? I don't know, but I know that I definitely want to go to law school to start to find out.

Well, hello, hello everyone! It has been a busy week indeed. On the lighter side of things, I received a package from my Mom. She sent me a big chocolate easter bunny! She also sent me a card with a cute little bunny and blue bird on the front that says "For a Sweet Daughter". Awww! I was "buzzing" as the kids say. (That means really happy not slightly drunk.) I also met Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, and spoke to him about Dreamscheme. That was quite interesting. I went to Laser Quest with the kids...all 19 of them! It went surprisingly well. I was a bit worried with that number of kids, but it went well. We did a fundraiser leafletting around the neighborhood and nearby Quays. That went better than expected, but there was a bit of hitch when we got a complaint about leaflets on the ground. Doh!

On a not so light side, I witnessed a car being stolen from a mum with a preschooler, got some abnormal medical results, saw the aftermath of a bloody fight and yelled at boys with big pieces of concrete in their hands twice for breaking windows at the house opposite.

A busy week indeed.

Again, I feel the need to start my post with 'why oh why'. Why are emotions so irrational? Why can't I just make a decision and stick to it because it is the best thing for me? Why do my feelings have such a hold on me? I realize that feelings are what make people empathetic, sympathetic and kind, but right now, I wish I could just pull the emotions out of my body and place them on the shelf for awhile. I feel like I should've just let Jason go forever back in October when our romantic relationship ended. I was determined to have a friendship, though, because I enjoyed his company and because I didn't know that many people (if any) in Belfast. I thought I was doing great, and met more people, even started another relationship, but low and behold, my feelings for Jason came back to bite me in the ass, as I cheated on new boyfriend with him.

I listen to the message on my voicemail and I think, "that doesn't sound like a woman who would compromise herself for a couple of guys." I sound assertive and confident. I feel like I am able to see myself as some others may see me; living life the way I want - living in a foreign land, doing the work I want, making choices I want to make. Yet somehow, in this phase of my life, I keep allowing myself to be swallowed up by the emotions of romance.

I feel so silly that I am depressed because a boy doesn't like me. There are children starving in every region of the world, but I am depressed because a boy doesn't like me. Some of the children I work with are abused physically, emotionally and sexually, but I am depressed because a boy doesn't like me. People the world over are shitting themselves for fear of terrorism and I am depressed because a boy doesn't like me. It doesn't seem quite right.

The problem is that it is more than that. I am doing all I can to help the children I work with. I feel I am doing my little bit to help make this planet a little bit of a better place, at least for some people, or even a few people. I'm comfortable with that. What I am sad about is that there is no one there to greet me when I get home from this work, when I'm overwhelmed by all the sadness, poverty and terror in the world, there is no one there to hold me or comfort me. I am not trying to make myself out to be a martyr of any sort, I am just saying that what I miss is not Jason, not Ronan, not any of the faces in particular; the names change as the years go by, but the need to feel loved remains. It is a basic human need that I pushed away for so long. I finally opened myself up to it again, and now I miss it. I know what I am missing and it sucks; it hurts. Yes, I want to be loved. Yes, I would like to be loved by Jason and/or Ronan. But it also hurts that both of these men ended their relationship with me and are now both involved with other women. There's also the thought of "what do they have that I don't?" "Why wasn't I good enough for them?" "What's wrong with me that they didn't want me?" Then you start thinking about all the other relationships that have ended or never even began and really start to wonder whether ANYONE will EVER want you....much less want you FOREVER.

For my honors paper in Interpersonal Communication, I researched relationship dissolution (i.e., breaking up). The point was made that every romantic relationship one will ever have will end - except for one. How can we bear that? If you got food poisoning from eating jellyfish, would you eat it fifty more times hoping that the fifty first would be the time you didn't puke all over yourself?

Well, no, because there's not a whole lot to be gained by being able to hold your jellyfish. Finding a lifelong love; now that is everyone's fantasy. It is written about in most songs, books and movies regardless of genre. "All you need is love" - the Beatles song, and a Valentine's Day card sitting in my dresser drawer. What if you have everything else? What if you love where you're living, who your friends are, what you do for work... what if love is all you don't have?

Why oh why am I such a wuss? Why do I even still care? I haven't spoken to Ronan, but I did ring Jason to ask when he was sending my belongings. I did stick to task and did not chat, but oh my heart wrenches. Geez louise, why do I care?

It is such a beautiful day today. I am trying to arrange to get away this weekend. I am overly affected by things right now, including work and homesickness and I just want a break. I am going to the cinema with Hugo on Sunday evening, but I have to fill the rest of my weekend as well.

Today I was just thinking again about how my life seems to keep repeating itself. Same story, different names, faces. The angst I feel over the Ronan & Jason drama is just another one of a series of angsts felt since I was 11 or 12 years old. I just thought, 'am I always going to feel like this?' "Will life always just be a series of highs and lows, of love and hate, of trust and betrayal; over and over and over again?" Will I never find a security of love and happiness that will last for a lifetime?