TALKS...

"TALKS" is a program i am involved in for community service...i have no idea why i havent written about it yet but i have some time on my hands this week with it being break so in thought id take a moment to write! Talks is short for "talks my mother never had with me" (or for the fellas-talks my father never had with me). They have placed me with 1 high achieving student, 1 moderately achieving student and 1 low achieving student (i dont now which is which) and we go through a curriculum together, once a  week!
Other than talking about the importance of family, friends, school, integrity etc..we are encouraged to go through important life skills that are seemingly by-passed these days. Things like how to shake someone's hand and look them in the eye, how to sit up straight, etc...It has been so much fun! my girls are in 5th grade and they are hilarious! It is interesting (and sometimes sad to me) that what they accept as "normal" and acceptable often i find unacceptable and unfair...i have learned tho that i cannot change their circumstances and even if i could there are hundreds of other kids in the school that have the same mind-set! Its not even that i pity them or think they're way of life is wrong or worse than mine...i just wish they had the opportunity to look at it from the outside in, like i do! just to give a little taste of how one of our sessions goes...
last week we did a chapter on family...so the first question i asked was "how many people are in your family"
instantly the girls starting counting their fingers...i got answers like 17, 13, 19...they had counted cousins and aunts etc...i said....what about your immediate family? every girl started her answer with "my mom has 'x' amount of kids" and after each girl went i just bluntly asked "why did you all say "my mom?" they said, "well cuz my dad has kids too!"It made me curious as to how the rest of the kids in the school would have answered!
anyways, when they asked me i said, "i have one brother and one sister" they were a little bewildered at the simplicity of my answer!
part of me was bewildered and caught off guard by their answers tho too...and as much as i try not to feel sorry for them sometimes i do (if im being completely honest)...i cant help it! i guess when i say that i feel sorry for them it is assumed that i think my way, my up-bringing is the better way...thats not it! its more that im upset and disgusted with the part of life where we dont get to choose! i hate that life is unfair...

and YET, it makes us who we are! the girls in my group are who they are because of how they were brought up and the environment they were brought up in...and what i have realized is im quick to point out what needs to change..what is unjust or unfair...when there are a lot of things that need to be admired! like when the girls first answered the family question by counting extended family..what a cool frame of mind to instantly count your extended family..your cousins, aunts, grandparents in as your family! here i have the learned the importance of blood...whether you have common ground or not, you do anything for family!

im sorry if this blog was just a big blob of words...this would be an example of me processing as im writing...i thought about waiting to revise it but with respect to my last couple of blogs and being honest, open and vulnerable i am going to keep it 'as is'!