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| "A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself he always appears to be doing both." ---Francoise Rene Auguste Chateaubriand |
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| Please visit my WEBSITE or you can find me on FACEBOOK for information on my Rotary Club Port Townsend Sunrise Rotary | | |
| Congratulations to South America, Brazil, and Rio in particular for winning the opportunity to host the Olympics in 2016! This is the first time ever the Olympics have been held in South America. Chicago had no business hosting the Olympics, they are 300 million dollars in debt and the way things get run around here I am sure it would have been a money losing proposition. I am pissed that the President spent millions of our tax dollars to take a trip to Copenhagen to even appeal to the Olympic Committee. This is not his job and we have better things to do with our money these days. | | |
| After just watching a news segment discussion on “Blackwater” I have serious doubts as to weather I can trust the government to run my health care program. This discussion was all about a mercenary group that the government hires to contract its covert military and CIA operations. They currently have more than 130,000 mercenary groups under hire, that’s way more than the amount of military personal that we have overseas. The shocking thing is that the members of the mercenary groups earn a six figure income!! The other amazing fact is that President Obama has actually increased the use of these groups (I think that is the only way he can reduce the military presence in our war zones). The sad part of this also, is while these guys are making six figures, we pay our troops shit, and we treat them like shit! I am either in the dark or just can keep up with current events. HOW COME I NEVER HEARD OF INCREASING THE USE OF THESE GROUPS? Is the government keeping this hush hush? What other deceptions do they have up their sleeves? I am so disappointed. | | |
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Over the years in being involved with Rotary Youth Exchange two things have happened. I have developed a renewed interest in geography. With kids coming from so many parts of the world it is interesting to learn about all the different countries and where they are. The world has changed a lot since I was in school. My other interest is country flags. Over the years I have collected flags from some of the countries of the kids that our club has hosted and that we have hosted personally. We personally hosted a girl from Germany 8 years ago and a girl from Brazil 4 yeas ago and last year a boy from Brazil. This is their room. We are on a project to convert it to the International Room. This year we are not personally hosting but our club is hosting Laerke Dahl, a really sweet girl from Denmark, so........... this year the room is going Danish!!! Ok lets bring on those delicious pastries!!!
Recently we decided we were going to create a wall of honor so to speak with photos of all of our clubs exchange students along with a small country flag from the country they represented and a photo of their club banner (from our club collection). I have purchased all the flags and have some of the banners but the difficult part of this project will be trying to find photos of the kids while they were here during their exchange year. We are currently working on that aspect of it. I really hope we can put this all together. The Rotary Exchange program is one of, if not the best, there is and it is a real honor for us to have these kids visit us and be with us for a whole year. We learn so much from them and love them all! | | |
| On Tuesday we ,along with her first host family, will be meeting Laerke at Sea Tac Airport. She is our Rotary Club's exchange student (from Denmark) for this coming year. She is a very sweet girl and I am anxious to meet her, as I have been chatting with her for months on Facebook. This brings to mind that we are fast approaching a new Rotary youth exchange year (most of the 09-10 kids will be arriving this month) I want to take some time to reflect on this great program. Rotary International has done some amazing things, helped in almost wiping out polio worldwide, dug wells for people in countries where there is hardly any drinkable water, and many worthwhile local club projects around the world, but in my personal opinion the best and most important program that they have is the youth exchange program.
A few years ago when we were hosting Carla I had the opportunity to watch two exchange students from two totally different parts of the world, who had only met less than an hour before interact like they had been lifelong friends. I had an epiphany of sorts and thought if only every kid in the world could go on an exchange, by the time their generation grew up to be adults and took their place in the adult world, there would probably be worldwide peace. You see these kids get an impression of a foreign country by what they hear form the media and the governments of the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know this for a fact because I have had it told to me many times over by visiting exchange students.
These kids discover that people are basically all alike as human beings and the only difference is that we all live in different parts of the world. To give every child in the world a chance to go on exchange would be a wonderful equalizer. Maybe they would grow up and abandon the current world attitudes. We could hope. | | |
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Lifetime
