coaching
The Greatest Love Of All
It was the first time I had ever heard the song. It was my first year at university. It was late January, and I had been in Chicago all of three weeks, slowly coming to terms with the unreal winter temperatures. Barely 5 pm, it was already dark as I finished my last class [...]
Choose your best story
It was a very cold winter. She must have been around 12 years old. I don’t recall the exact reason, but she missed the school bus – the only form of transport available to her and her village to get to school. Undeterred, she put on an extra pair of socks, and she started walking. [...]
Are you [still] relevant?
It hits me every time. I watch as an older person (read: over 24 in this crazy world of Biebers and Zuckerbergs) struggles to retain their tried and true role of being the voice of reason, of wisdom, of experience. Yet, over and over again, I see them in danger of being discarded, not unlike [...]
Why re-inventing is good
Starting anew. A concept so familiar to third culture kids and their families, as they adapt and try to blend in with their new host society. As any kid in a new school or new neighbourhood will tell you, adapting to new circumstances and getting it right in the first week makes the difference between [...]
Month Two, Take Two
One minute the goals and resolutions are free flowing, as is the hubbly bubbly, the music, laughter and celebrations. Just on the other side of the midnight gong awaits a whole new life, full of kept promises, shiny goals, glittering new personas. Then, January quietly slinks past, in a haze of post-holiday exhaustion and dreariness [...]
Build your own snowman
It was definitely winter. I can’t quite remember if it was my first winter experiencing snow, but I think I was around six or seven. My parents’ work had taken us to Paris and there I was, building my own snowman in the school yard. My snowman was small, perhaps a foot and half, and [...]
Who gets to write the script?
I’m not much of a TV person, but there are certain series I’m addicted to. Friends. Grey’s Anatomy / Private Practice. 24. Lost (till they completely lost the plot). House. Comedy Central anything. Watching the final episode of Grey’s Anatomy, I wondered yet again – do the actors really know what’s going to happen, or [...]
Are we here yet?
“So if you could be anything you wanted, anything at all, what would you be? What is your dream?”, I said. My son and I have had this and similar conversations countless times. It’s a bit of a game, and often ends up in giggly tickling sessions accompanied by grand proclamations of becoming a dragon [...]
The Fear Factor
Nobody likes to admit that any of their actions are driven by fear. After all, that’s considered cowardly, or at least it is in my home culture of African pride. In fact, that could well be why after 20-some years we still don’t have a stable government in the Horn of Africa – but I [...]
Trust your voice
Growing up, my mother continually re-inforced that I could be anything I wanted to be. Absolutely anything. Armed with this certainty that only parents know how to infuse, and the natural defiance many first-borns tend to develop, I happily experimented in the years preceding university, searching for my “calling”. Safe in the knowledge that I [...]