"I want to be a nuurse or a teacha."

"Oh I can just see you with the red pen - do you remember Jo - its almost Freudian that Emily is now the teacher and Jo is the perpetual pupil"

Mum, reminding me of our childhood games - me, the teacher with the essential red pen, checking my homemade school books and inputing the scores in my homemade registers (I was very serious about playing 'schools') and Joanna and her friends always the students. Now I am in Thailand doing exactly that (except the student lists are real) and Joanna is starting her 18th (and possibly not final) year in education.

***

In a video of me when I was around four years old sitting in a chair in my Grandmother's living room, I declare in my strange but cute Scottish influenced English accent that "I want to be a nuurse or a teacha".

Maybe there is something in the innocence of a child's wishes that makes them smarter than the 20-something year old trying to decide what to do with their life...and maybe thinking a little too hard about it.

Desert Island Discs: "When David Heard" - Eric Whitacre

"When David heard that Absalom was slain,
he went up into his chamber over the gate and wept,
and thus he said;

My son, my son,
O Absalom my son,
would God I had died for thee!"

I first heard about this piece because my sister was involved in a concert in which it was performed. During the performance of this song members of the choir began to cry.

*Between 7:30-9 minutes into the song, one of the most emotive pieces of music I have ever heard.