Me wielding a machette to plant a pineapple tree by the Centre's back steps

CJ and I had a great consultation with our Auxiliary Board member this morning. I offered a valuable lesson: Determine your focus, your priority. Then only take on projects and tasks that help you make that goal a reality. You'll have to cut out the things that eat up your time without satisfying any of your needs or true desires.

Book 1 at Irene's went well. They are taking ownership of the responsibility to fulfill the practices that are part of the book. We ended with a popcorn party to celebrate Irene's cast coming off. (Her foot was broken.) The episode of The Cosby Show when Denise wanted to be a teacher without going to college was on. I love that show! She wanted so badly just start teaching in a classroom and having a positive impact on children's lives, but everyone told her she needed a degree first. With a small experiment she realised that she has so much to learn about how to be effective with challenging students, etc. It reminds me of me. So, yes, I am seriously considering going into teaching. I never thought planned to skip college to do it, but I do have plenty of evidence that I have a lot to learn, just from the several classroom experiences so far. Then there's Bahá'í children's classes, which is a whole other animal. Everyone in the world who has completed Book 3 for the sequence of courses offered by the Ruhi Institute is expected to be able to teach children's classes. The concept has certainly been demystified with my weeks and months of children's classes at the Centre, but is definitely hard and requires plenty of creativity and perseverance.

Bible study is back. It is not spiritually enriching for me. It doesn't seem to be for the participants either. Well, I'm being extreme. Like One Common Faith says, there is, of course, still life in the Bible and living by its teachings surely merits confirmations. However, I see the limitations. From the games that tested the collective Bible knowledge of our teams, I gathered that the highest level of spirituality and religious devotion in the lives of the women on my team was to attend and support their church and memorize stories from the Bible. I am of course not saying there is anything wrong with that, but it is sad to see that that is all they are aware of. It is my hope that either we find a way to offer an broader, effective way to serve God by serving humanity to these souls, or we get out and use our time for something productive. Despite that, I will be patient and keep going; CJ loves it and I wouldn't want to not be a part of it because of my impatience.

We went to Ruby's to pick up materials for tomorrow's social skills session. We found out we will be getting a stipend for this volunteering. The assignment is visiting primary schools three days a week for these kind of sessions. There was a bit of a misunderstanding: We aren't looking to get paid and initially rejected the idea. Because of a small cultural difference, we though there was funny business with getting a stipend, but it was cleared up and we understand that it is customary for volunteers to receive stipends. I shouldn't complain if someone wants to give me money.

I am currently working on an application for employment at the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Talented Youth in the summer. With this and the book editting project, I have been staying up until 2 and 3 a.m. for the past couple nights. It's just like college! :-)