Rocco Maiolo's Ramblings and Musings

... but she's there now. Emily here. Writing to you from the Amsterdam Airport. Wow, what a memorable day it’s been already! First off, it’s Amanda’s birthday! I’m pretty sure it’s one she won’t forget. 5 airports in 3 days is quite a feat! :) We had a few little issues with our itinerary, but we were prepared to be unprepared, so it’s all good. :) In the Toronto airport we found out that my Visa was missing some things... but they decided to let me go along after all! I’m pretty happy about that. Our flight was delayed too, so we missed the connecting flight from Amsterdam to Paris. The new itinerary that they worked out for us takes us from here to London, London to Nairobi (Kenya!), and Kenya to Kinshasa. Which means we get there Sunday morning instead of tonight. Jean-Baptiste (the pastor who’s sort of co-ordinating everything we do in Congo) said that there would be no problems. Something along the lines of ‘Church is 4 hours, I’ll take you straight there and you’ll only miss

A couple of summers ago, Doris, my wife, and I were invited to a change-leadership conference for Ontario principals (neither of us are principals). We attended with 2 principals and 2 other teachers from the school where I teach. Something the two Harvard professors who were leading the conference said has stuck with me. They said that radical change only happens when there's an urgent need for it. They showed us a clip from the 1995 Ron Howard directed film Apollo 13 . Something had just seriously malfunctioned on the mission's return trip to earth. The clip shows the astronauts and Houston doing some serious outside the box problem solving. There is a definite urgent need for change and, if you've seen the movie, you know they get the job done. I've reflected on this in light of my experiences with organizations -- for the lack of a better word -- that have needed change. I teach at a highly academic school. If I had been teaching at my previous school, I think the

(check out their blog: http://confessionsfromcongo.blogspot.com/ ) Sounds kind of romantic doesn't it? To her mother... not so much. She's kind of worried. I'm not really so much worried as I am unsorted (best adjective I could come up with) with thoughts of this 20-yr-old kid -- my kid -- who's been to 3 airports, I think, in a day or so and she's still not done. She's in Amsterdam as we speak. That's not why I'm unsorted in my head and in my heart. I keep having these pictures of a little kid (my kid) in my mind. One of them is of a 3-yr-old sitting in a car-seat in our '86 Jetta asking me some pretty interesting questions like: "Do you have a girl-friend?" ME: "Ya, Mommy's my girl-friend." EMILY: No, Mommy's your wife. Do you have a girl-friend?" ME: "Mommy's my wife and my girl-friend." EMILY: "Daddy..." ME: "What?" EMILY: "Put your seat-belt on." ME: "Oka