Modern Family

Modern Family has been the latest series that I have watched and I must say that I really enjoy it and recommend it. It is a comedy about a family that always try to bring some meaning to the episode.

All the characters are great and I think we can all see a bit of our families in the different characters. We see things that we do in our lives and it makes us think a little, laugh a lot and remember fun times and similar situations in our own realities.

I definitely recommend it! It is already on its third season so you will be able to see quite a few episodes without having to wait for more!

Of all the forms of courage, the ability to laugh is the most liberating

Laughter as we know best is part of a fun time but I also think it is liberating. When you are laughing for fun you relax, you become happy.

But besides fun moments, it is also important to laugh during the difficult ones. Having the courage to laugh about something that has been an issue is just as liberating. It makes the weight of the issue just drop from your shoulders. Sometimes it can become a crazy hysterical nervous laugh but it gives you the relaxing feeling too. It doesn’t mean that you don’t care about the issue anymore, you might even care a lot, but by laughing you take the stress off your shoulders and are left with only the issue to sort it out.

So I guess you should be brave and laugh away.

The statute of limitations has expired on most of our childhood trauma

Independent of what happens during our childhood we always have the power to control our future. We can have dreams and work towards them with all our energy and make the rest of our lives an incredible turn around.

I must say that I was very lucky as a child to have good, caring parents and family, have the opportunity to go to school and have no traumatic experiences. However I believe that a person that came from a traumatic childhood also has a shot at making it in life, some of them have even more will to do so and achieve more great things in their lives than some that had all the support systems in place. Of course the opposite also happens, but the possibility is still there.

I guess those with the will to change and make their lives better will not only improve their lives, but break a vicious cycle that would go on from generation to generation.

Christmas

Christmas is coming soon and with it comes the feeling of family and once again I will be away from my family at Christmas and definitely missing them a lot. There is no other holiday or any other date that (I believe) one can miss the loved ones more. The time of cooking together, secret Santa (and secret enemy too!), the time of looking back at Christmas’s that have passed and stories of when we were little, all the fun we have and love we feel on this holiday.

In Brazil we celebrate Christmas in the evening of the 24^th and on the actual Christmas day we do what South Africans do on Boxing Day, enjoy the presents, eat from the tons of food cooked the day before and enjoy the company of our family. The 26^th is just a normal working day.

No kid goes to bed on the 24^th before Santa come by with the presents. I guess that lots of the mid-nights when we were little happened around 10pm. Now at Christmas we talk about how our parents tricked us for all those years and how the family grew as the years went along.

Almost there

I must say that it has been very difficult to concentrate lately, particularly when I think of how much longer we have to go until we finish the year! Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself feeling very anxious and finding it hard to concentrate. One and a half weeks to go until we are on holiday! Can you believe it? A time that, not long ago, seemed so far away and couldn’t come soon enough is now around the corner.

I can almost feel the sense of accomplishment, not only for finishing this year, but also to graduate and being the first member of my immediate family to do so. But I can also feel the anxiety of waiting for the results and the certainty of the job being done. There is also a feeling of “now what”?! For me, and most of the part-time students, it is a prize to have our time back with our families and for the full time students the pressure of entering into the job market.

Even though the degree is finished, I am sure that we will all always be learning and that I will definitely start on some courses that have been on my wish list for a while, but it will definitely not be the same as these last few years have been.

Only bad things happen quickly.

I guess that this statement is true, but sometimes it is only true because we don’t pay attention to the signs of bad things that are coming. This may happen because we are focusing on the good things and waiting for the good things to happen (and quickly) so that when something bad happens it seems to be sudden.

For some reason everybody wants to know about tragedies (one can easily notice this by looking at the kind of news we have in the media every day), but when it comes to things that affect us on a personal level we ignore the bad signs and possibilities (thinking “it won’t happen to me”) and focus on the positive. I guess that it is instinctive so that one doesn’t get depressed just by thinking about what can go wrong, but at the same time it is important to keep things real. Between being positive or negative, be realistic!