Feb
21
Well this was certainly a far less comical week than the one I reported on last week, and I think I may just be thankful for that. The truth of just how idiotic I can be at times is funny when it happens, but not something you want to repeat too many times.
Mitchell and Jenna have been on mid-term break this week, which means that many of their activities were cancelled for the week, but Jenna’s gymnastics continued. She is competing in the Weald – 2010 – Floor and Vault Competition at the end of March. This week the coaches finalised her routine and now she is busy practising it every evening.
Mitchell spent some time with his school friends this week and had one wonderful day with Thomas, playing tennis at the Tunbridge Wells indoor sports centre. Jenna and I had a fun week of arts and crafts.
The cold outdoor temperatures which prevail at the moment made for the best time to paint and glue and cut things. I took Mitch and Jen to the Hobby-Craft warehouse in Tunbridge Wells this week and we bought all sorts of things for a week of crinkle-paper, paint, and glitter.
Mike got back from South Africa on Tuesday after a week of meetings and paperwork in South Africa and returned full-force to work over here. He got the chance to see his brother and some of his ex-colleagues and friends back home.
This week I have I tried to imagine what moving to another country would have been like without the new technology that we have at our disposal these days. With social networking sites like Facebook, and other communication tools like Twitter, Gmail, Skype, and a whole host of others, staying in touch with family and friends around the world is made so simple. I realised this week how much more in-touch we are with what is going on in the lives of people, some who are closest to us and others who are not, through the use of these tools. I am not someone who chooses to accept just anyone on Facebook, I have been told that I may even be a little too harsh in choosing which requests I accept and which ones I don’t, but I discovered this week that staying in touch with the people who really matter, is what counts. I have read on Facebook this week about two school friends back in SA who are fighting difficult battles against Cancer, one friend who had a car accident, one who is spending part of his holiday in a hospital in Mexico, some who are experiencing the joys of getting married, two who are pregnant, some who have had babies and others who have just simply fallen in love, I have read about those whose children excelled in school and those who lost loved ones close to them. We use these tools to wish people a happy birthday, a happy anniversary, and good luck for an exam, we look at their interesting holiday photos and are reminded of what matters to them and makes them who they are, by the groups they join, and the kind of things that they post for everyone to see. A few chats with family and friends back home this week finally made me appreciate that I am maintaining relationships from very far away, that I would otherwise have lost in the move over here. It has been an eye-opener of a week on Facebook for me and for the first time I really sat down and thought about all the information I would not have known if these sites did not exist. Being so far away from all the family and friends you have ever known, makes you appreciate the fact that technology and the modern world can play a part in bringing you closer to the people that you don’t want to lose contact with. Would it really have mattered to my life if I didn’t know all the news that I read on Facebook this week? Well, I don’t really know for sure, but for someone like me, to whom human relationships have always been so important, it is just great to know that even from 6000 miles away, I just have to logon to a website and there is the news from my other home. New friendships form on this side of the world, but for me technology has undeniably made it a whole lot easier to be here. So here’s to the new friends that we can meet and greet eye-to-eye every day over here, but also to those that we get to stay in touch with right across the miles.
We have now won back more than an hours worth of daylight in the evenings alone. In the middle of December the sun was completely set and it was pitch dark outside by 16:30 when Mitchell stepped off the bus on his way home from school. This evening I looked outside at 17:20 and it was still quite light…
February 26th, 2010 at 4:18 am
Greetings Kerry
read your blogspot for the first time today. Interesting.
Would never dream of writing one myself – you are young enough to benefit from all this technology. I have drawn the line at Skype! Good to see Mike recently. Half of your convert group serving on our new parish council! What is the church like there?
Prayers and blessings to you all.
Fr. V.