nauticgrrl

who hasn’t encountered the bully?  i survived the grade school bullies.  i even managed to get past a teacher in 3rd grade who shamed me in front of the class for my lack of language skill in an institution where only spanish and hebrew were spoken.  yeah a blond haired tanned california kid found herself quite suddenly uprooted in a foreign place. this teacher tapped my frustration and if i dared cry she rocked me on her lap like an infant in front of the class.   generally the bullies who used physical threat didn’t bother me.  i stood up to them.  i am not a fighter and have often come out on the losing end. but i never once backed down.  before leaving california (at the age of eight) i acquired an impressive bloody nose when the much older sibling of a hispanic girl took exception when i refused to yield my spot on the merry-go-round to her sister.  that was in griffith park and adult bystanders did nothing but pass me napkins fro...

“the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things but their inward significance.”  -aristotle i attended a nursing conference some months ago.  i sat down at the opening session next to four nurses...all were from china.  they had travelled 17 hours by air to come there.  i marveled at their willingness to journey so far to pursue excellence and knowledge in our profession.  later at lunch i was joined two jordanian nurses.  they had travelled 22 hours. in all over 7500 nurses from around the globe converged here.  each to learn and to network and to glean from one another.  in simple terms we were here to understand our practice of excellence in nursing.  what were our stories and the common threads in them i wondered? i began to think about my profession and what brought us all here to this place.  i wondered at how culture might influence and change it.  two speakers stood at the podium...one a ...