Miss Dee's Corner

Do you like you ? No, I don’t mean your job, your career, your family, your nationality, your hobbies, how much money you make, your life experiences … For a moment, let us focus on the qualities or traits that make you the person you are. There is no denying that external aspects of our identity such as family, race, career, etc are important. Also, the external influences in our lives can shape our personality traits to a great extent. Genes play their part too. However, there is also the factor of choice. We can choose whether to forgive or retaliate, to be kind or cruel, empathetic or judgmental, caring or callous, humble or conceited, etc. We make these choices either because of or despite our environmental and biological background. They are choices, nonetheless. A good deal of readers may disagree, and my goal in this article is not to prove that free will exists. That, in fact, is my premise. And if you don’t like or agree with it, you have a choice: you can either go alo...

Dear fresh kindergartner, About to embark on your first day of school? No need to fret! Here is a list of things you should know and remember about someone who will soon become an important person in your school life, your meess.   meess :  (noun) a person who teaches and/or cares for young children in a formal setting, often at a school. The word is derived from how Amharic speakers often pronounce the word, “Miss”. It is pronounced as “Miss” where the short i is replaced with a long e. 1.     She may be tall or short, chubby or thin, young or old. She may be well-educated; she may not. She may love kids or not. She may have always wanted to be a meess, or she may have become one because she could not find another job. Regardless, you will find traces of her influence in your life for many years to come. 2.     A meess is someone you may end up remembering fondly for the rest of your life. A meess is someone you may not remember at all....

Aisha Arianna Caleb Christian Hasset Liya Marcos Michael Matheo Rekka

  A sand castle built with care and toil stretching into days and into years There stand my thoughts and theories Steady on the bay of my mind Only to be washed away by a wave of “I might be completely wrong”.   In search for the essence of arguments, Their loop holes, their logic, or what seem to be Words, reasons, facts, and their chemistry Everything lines up; it seems to Yield a golden answer, A final judgment! And yet I hear a voice inside of me, “I could be wrong.”   An undeniable gut feeling A nudge that cannot be ignored or explained A sixth sense, an intuition, An accumulation of knowledge that renders An instant judgment with a CLEAR message! And yet a faint voice in my head stops me in my tracks, “I could be wrong.”   A shared opinion is twice as strong. Even more so when it is with those Whose judgments are relied upon, With those who deftly employ their unfailing powers of reason and gut  Or ...

I could start this post by writing "It has been said... Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". However, I won't do that because that would be quoting a cliche and a crime against good writing. There is also the added pressure that I am an English teacher and that I should be good at this, even setting a good example for my students whom I would tell to steer clear of starting their essays with cliches. Let me start over. I will do so by quoting something a little less cliche and a little more boring ... a curriculum. As part of the underlying values of Finland's education, the Finnish curriculum states that "Basic education supports the pupil's growth as a human being who strives for truth, goodness, beauty, justice and peace". Now, which word stood out to you from that glorious quote? Well, I don't blame you if you thought "pupil". (Seriously, it is beyond me why they couldn't use a more tongue-friendly word like... I don't know......