Beauty and Radiohead

Hi everyone, how's life? I've had a really encouraging week, and wanted to share a few things with you. First of all, I'm learning how important it is to appreciate the small things that happen. This has been a recurring theme of my time here, but it's still a novelty to me and it's making life a lot more exciting! Not that strange things are happening to me, just that I'm smiling more often because I'm taking time to appreciate the beauty of life. I recommend this to anyone who feels like life is getting hectic...just stop once in a while and look at God's creation or watch a parent interact with their kid or listen in to a conversation between two kids. I know we can't all afford the luxury of sitting around, but the magic of these situations is that they happen while the world is bustling around about them and for just a second, you remember why you're here, or what makes you happy, and that's when the smile comes. This week I was reminded of some of the happiest times in my life when my oldest and dearest friend sent me some hilariously nostalgic pictures.

Sometimes I laugh at myself, because I just know that if my too-cool-for-school-badass-high-school-self could see me now she'd kick my ass for being such a sap. But that's what growing up is, and as I've grown up, my true self has been revealed as this sentimental marshmallow-human hybrid. Don't get me wrong, I'm still badass as ever, I still like rap music and sometimes I drink coffee, but whatever tendency there was in me towards rebellion has pretty much been replaced with a constant longing for Christmas, and an aching in my heart when I realise Celine Dion will never supply a personalised soundtrack to my life.

I've not got much more to say right now, apart from the fact I'm super excited to come home for Christmas and see those of you in Glasgow and tell you all some funny stories! For now, I'll leave you with some more snippets of my life as a Wanderer:

1. There's a real character of a woman who plays guitar at my local church and today in mass I'm almost positive she played Creep by Radiohead during communion.

2. I'm currently sitting in a cafe and across from me there's a guy playing spot the difference in the newspaper with his daughter and they're both getting really into it. These are the things we miss if we're always in a rush.

3. I got called English again this week, and before I could say anything one of the kids I teach was all over it like "she's not English, she's Scottish. Calling her English is like calling us Portuguese!" At this, the person apologised profusely and I just laughed. My work here is done.

4. There's a festival here called Magosto which basically celebrates the existence of chestnuts. To cut a long story short, I explained the game of Conkers to a class of 16 year olds and they were all fascinated and wanted to play!

Thanks again for reading and for the continued love and prayers, I really appreciate it all!

Dios te bendiga,

Eilidh