Land of deliciousness.

So that it doesn't look like I despise the entire British cuisine, I'm following up the post from last week (you can read it here) with this list of delicious foods that I have discovered after moving to the UK. And there is a bunch of those! 

Trifle is by far my favourite dessert. I still haven't got the guts to try making it myself, but I've been known to eat the entire 6-serving bowl all on my own. I wouldn't recommend it, it might make you sick. But this is as much as I love trifle. For those of you who are not familiar with this concept, trifle is three layers of deliciousness: sponge, fruit and custard topped up with whipped cream.

On a similar note, I absolutely adore rhubarb crumble. I love the the combination of rather tart rhubarb which melts in a mouth with a sweet and a little crisp topping. It takes minutes to assemble and I really enjoy it topped with cream. Or custard. Though I think I prefer cream, it adds an extra flavour which is not purely sweet. It's a shame really that rhubarb is in season for such a short time, I can never get enough rhubarb when it's around.

Baked beans are a controversial one here. I know many people who have rather strong feelings about them. As far as I'm concerned, baked beans are a staple in my kitchen cupboards. Delicious for breakfast, can be easily turned into a quick dinner if need be. I love the convenience of those little tins.

Mr Magic got me a selection of cheeses for birthday a couple of years ago and I loved stilton, especially paired with almond and cherry toast. Apparently stilton is the king of English cheeses and I'm ready to believe that. Blue cheeses are not everybody's thing, but stilton is amazing, superior to gorgonzola in my opinion. I would happily eat it on its own as an afternoon snack.

Here it is then, I told you English cuisine is not all grim and unappealing. There are so many things that I've grown used to over the years. What is your favourite English food?

Sunday Special: The Little Flower: St Therese of Lisieux.

My first closer encounter with St Therese took place after my grandmother died. In her collection of religious items was an old medal with the image of St Therese. It was rusty and the face of Therese was lacking its former beauty. I carried the medal with me everywhere, to the point that it has disappeared just after my interview at Oxford. I remember dad jokingly saying "She has done her job, so now she's gone", but I was devastated at the loss of one of very few keepsakes. It took year before Mr Magic finally found a worthy replacement. 

Therese lived in France and joined the Carmelites in Lisieux when she was 15, after petitioning the Pope himself to let her join the convent being so young. St Therese had a short life, she died at only 24. Her life was not glamorous, but she grew to appreciate the smallest of things and it was her great charism to show love on every step of the way.

I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies.

I've become really fond of Little Therese and she has been present in my life on a regular basis. What I like about her is her focus on the simplicity of the way to sainthood. She doesn't call for grand deeds. She's all about everyday little sacrifices. Doing the dishes. Going out of your way to get something for an ill friend. Always having a smile for a passer-by. Being there in the middle of the night for your loved one. Letting another driver in front of your car. Giving a seat up for somebody on a train. No heroic acts of virtue!

What is amazing is that St Therese was designated as the Doctor of the Church. There are only two other female saints with this title: St Catherine of Siena and St Theresa of Avila. What these women have in common is the desire to become close to God and to draw others closer to Him through their unceasing commitment to do His will in their daily circumstances. They submitted themselves completely to the will of God and really stuck with it through any difficulties.

Therese was so extraordinary in her total ordinariness. I sometimes want to do something fabulous for the glory of God. Become a missionary, run a parish prayer group, organise wonderful worship. Instead, I struggle to pray, I am short-tempered and often bored in church. Therese brings me a message of hope: the ordinary can be as holy as the experiences of mystics:

Jesus deigned to teach me this mystery. He set before me the book of nature. I understood how all the flowers He has created are beautiful, how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wildflowers. 

And so it is in the world of souls, Jesus’ garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daises or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances when He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His Will, in being what He wills us to be.

 The message of St Therese of Lisieux is the message of Love. Our lives will be transformed if take seriously the call to serve one another with a smile. The glory of God shines on us in the ordinary. 

Land of culinary disappointments.

I love this country, but England is not on the top of my list for good food. When we travel, an Italian place is usually a safe culinary choice. Pizza and pasta are delicious. "Traditional English food" is not something I would be naturally attracted to. And this is because I have experienced so many culinary disappointments here! More so than in any other place where I spent an extended period of time. Here they are, in no particular order.

Tea

British people drink 165 million cups of tea each day. Before moving to the UK, I thought it was a land of delicious tea. I couldn't be more wrong. Most tea drunk at homes around the country is nothing more than a bag of powdered leaves with no taste whatsoever. It's only when I started buying more upscale tea that I could truly enjoy a cuppa. 

Fish and chips

This was another great disappointment, regardless where I eat, be it a chippy a pub or a restaurant, there is always too much batter on the fish and the chips are no good. I'm not sure why people religiously visit fish and chips shops on Friday nights rather than opt for something more tasty and more nutritious.

Bread

Most of bread in Poland is delicious and there is so much variety that is readily available in every bakery. Here, sliced toast bread is everywhere and I hate it. It has no taste, it doesn't hold any shape and there is no nutritional value in this bread. Thankfully, many places now sell sourdough and different types of bread which are actually nice. Even packed Polish bread sold in some supermarkets is better, with plenty of seeds and dense texture. And you can learn to make bread. I made a few attempts at making buttermilk soda bread. Delicious!

Sausages

I don't eat meat anymore, but when I did. sausages were a big disappointment. I couldn't really taste any meat at all in them. Just a blended mass of something gray. Even sausages from the butcher's are not amazing most of the time. I was generally not that keen on processed meats of any kind here.

Bread and butter pudding
This last one is a disappointment, because it such a hit and miss.I had some really tasty bread and butter puddings and some extremely stodgy and excessively sweet blocks of stale bread. Not impressive. Maybe I should try making it myself.

I feel like I need to follow this post up next week with all the delicious food that I only discovered when I moved to England. And there are many dishes that I enjoy. So stay tuned for next week.

Sunday Special: Restless heart: St Augustine of Hippo.

In my struggle with sin, bad habits and vices continues each day, but the story of St Augustine inspires me on my way of holiness. He was a thief, had an affair, fathered a child outside of wedlock, abandoned the faith to Gnosticism. He has famously recorded his prayer “Grant me chastity and continence . . . but not yet.” and I can 100% identify with this attitude of wanting to do something about my spiritual growth. But just not at this moment, not today.

This is probably why St Augustine speaks to me so much. His history resembles so much of my life. Augustine was brought up in a respectable family, he was a learned man with a truly devout mother, St Monica. And yet he got lost. He got engrossed in the life of drink and sex, completely lot the sense of what was right or wrong. His heart was restless, always looking for being filled up with something, but never being satisfied. 

“Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” (Augustine, Confessions (Book 1)

 

It has taken Augustine many many years to realise that nothing can fulfill him but God Himself. Coming to the knowledge of God may take time and not be straightforward at all. I like Augustine because he is not one of the polished saints who wanted to reach heaven from a very young age. I could never fully identify fully with such saints. But Augustine had his struggles just the way I did. He resisted the call to conversion just as I did. He eventually finally realised that God should be at the centre of his life, just as I did.

Augustine was instrumental in the development of the doctrine of the original sin. Human heart is weak and prone to falling away from its Creator. The only way to stand up to sin is to totally depend on the grace of God for the gift of salvation. As St Paul writes in the Letter to the Hebrews, Jesus made a one and final sacrifice for our sanctification. We will struggle with our will every day, but the consolation is that we have the reinforcements coming down from Heaven, helping us to make better choices today than we made yesterday, helping us to be more charitable, more patient, more willing to serve others.

If ever you struggle with a particular sin, think of St Augustine who turned his life around and became one of the most important theologians and philosophers of his age. Nothing is impossible to God.

Sunday Special: The Apostle of Mercy: St Faustina Kowalska

God has a strange way of choosing those seemingly least suited for the task of giving others the message of His glory and goodness. Like this Polish nun.

Faustina was born into a poor family of twelve. She completed only three classes of primary school before starting to work various jobs as a housekeeper and a childminder. She strongly desired to enter a convent, but faced rejection after rejection. Her parents did not support the idea and multiple religious congregations that Faustina approached refused to accept her because of her insufficient material resources.

Once she saved up enough money, Faustina joined The Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. She had many mystic visions of Christ, all of which she has written down in her Diary, on the advice of her confessor. It wasn't an easy experience for her. Initially, there have been doubts about how genuine Faustina was, she was examined by a psychiatrist and also suffered greatly from tuberculosis.

What I find amazing about Faustina is that we have received such a wealth of spirituality from a simple woman. The theology of Divine Mercy has been a source of hope, inspiration for many people in the last few decades. The Divine Mercy Image is one of my favourite. Jesus is dressed in a white garment and two rays of light come out of His Heart: signifying the Blood and the Water flowing out of Jesus' side after His death on the cross. Mercy is the greatest attribute of God. At the feet of Jesus, there is an inscription "Jesus, I trust in You." This attitude of trust is the very centre of the devotion to Divine Mercy. Trust can be demonstrated in a variety of ways: not despairing in difficult times, following the Commandments, living out the Beatitudes, living a life of prayer and showing mercy towards others. Faustina lived all of these out, without complaining about all the obstacles that she faced, always trusting in God's plan and unceasingly glorifying Him through spreading the good news of God's infinite mercy.

Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood,
Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ,
in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.

"Apart from the mercy of God there is no other source of hope for mankind" John Paul II

Decisions, decisions.

I need to make some serious life decisions in the coming weeks. I have no brain space for trivial matters.

~~~

I reckon I make about 500+ decisions in a day. Maybe more, given that I'm a teacher and I constantly need to decide how to respond to pupil interactions in my classroom. The problem is that my ability to make good decisions is easily depleted. So the key is to minimise the number of decisions I need to make each day.

Ever since I've decluttered my wardrobe, my mornings involve much less decisions, because I don't have piles and piles of clothes to get through in order to pick my outfit. In fact, I often plan it the previous evening. I have the same morning routine every day, wake up at the same time, bathroom, make a cup of tea, take lunch out of the fridge, eat breakfast, get dressed, brush my teeth, get out of the house. Same every day, I don't even need to think about it. I usually mak a big batch of food on a Sunday so that I can just take it to work for lunch without worrying what to eat. I make a rough meal plan for the week so that I don't have to come up with ideas for dinners.

As for my daily activities, I write down what I need to do when I get to work in the morning so that I have a productive hour without wasting time for making choices. Time at work is structured, but what happens in the classroom can be unpredictable, so I need all the energy I can get to respond to anything that might happen in the classroom. Like children trying to turn tables upside down or throwing bits of glue around. All these require me to be super alert and able to make quick decisions. So I come in in the morning with a clear idea what needs printing, what needs marking, which books need to be on the desks. And I have routines for the school day as well. At break time, I lay out the books for the next class, set up everything on my laptop for the next two periods of the day and I have my snack. Every day is the same. I know exactly what to do and how to do it, no need to think to much.

I know that some people might say that it is sad and that there doesn't seem to be any spontaneity in my life, but actually I found that because I've pre-made so many decisions, I have more energy and time for being spontaneous when I feel like it. And I actually really like structure. It gives me a sense of security and lets me really focus on what matters. Like taking time to do my MA or to make better lesson plans or engage with professional development. Time is precious. If I can make a decision about something trivial once a week or once a month instead of every day, I'm going to do it, no doubt about it.

Sunday Special: The Persistent Saint: St Rita of Cascia.

This Sunday, I want to launch a series of Sunday Specials about my favourite saints. Throughout the ages there has been thousands of holy men and women who carried the light of Christ to all people around them. I hope that one day, together with all of you, I shall join them in Heaven in an unceasing celebration of God's love. To get there, we have a score of saints to be our models and to guide us on the journey through their wisdom and example.

~~~

My first encounter with St Rita was about six or seven years ago. I've met up with a writer to talk about studying abroad and it turned out that she was an author of a book about the life of and devotion to St Rita. I instantly fell in love with this saint.

St Rita was born in 1367 and her story is absolutely incredible. She wanted to join a religious community, but her parents wished her to marry, so she humbly submitted to their wishes. The match with Ferdinand Mancini was not an easy one: her husband was said to be hotheaded. Initially Rita tried to confront this difficult temperament, but with time she simply resolved to pray fervently for a change in her husband. Rita gave birth to two sons who inherited their father's tendency to get into arguments. Ferdinand was murdered following one of many conflicts between the local political clans and his sons wanted revenge. Rita prayed that her boys might not become murderers. The story is that the boys died in a plague before they could carry out any of their murderous plans.

Rita found consolation in prayer and sought to enter an Augustinian convent in Cascia. However, time after time, her requests to join the community were rejected. Finally, after many attempts and after facilitating a reconciliation between her family and the family of Ferdinand's murders, she was allowed to start her religious life.

Her life in the convent was full of acts of penance. Rita spent days considering the Passion of Christ and said "Please let me suffer like you, Divine Saviour." She received stigmata as a response to her prayer: a wound appeared on her forehead, as if a thorn from Christ's crown has pierced her. The wound never healed and caused Rita severe pain that she bore with patience, always offering it up in prayer.

Miracles followed Rita's death immediately. Rita's body is still incorrupt today, it can be seen in a glass coffin in the basilica in Cascia. My dream is to make a pilgrimage to Italy and visit the basilica there. St Rita is is considered a patron of impossible causes and is often depicted with a rose. This is a reference to a story from her monastic times. One day in January, Rita asked another sister to go to the garden and bring her a rose. Surprisingly, and against all odds, the sister returned with a beautiful rose.

St Rita is remembered in the Church on May 22nd.

O God, Who in Thine infinite tenderness hast vouchsafed to regard the prayer of Thy servant, Blessed Rita, and dost grant to her supplication that which is impossible to human foresight, skill and efforts, in reward of her compassionate love and firm reliance on Thy promise, have pity on our adversity and succor us in our calamities, that the unbeliever may know Thou art the recompense of the humble, the defense of the helpless, and the strength of those who trust in Thee, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

Juggling a Master's and a full-time job.

What a lovely way to spend a Saturday. Grocery shopping, putting together an IKEA storage system and spending hours reading educational journals.

Doing a masters degree is a challenge. Doing it while working full time is even more challenging.

I've done my PGCE while working, but it was very different: I didn't have a full teaching timetable at the time and my life was much less demanding in general. I've started my two-year part time course last year and I can already say that this year is much more challenging. I work more hours this year and I have very limited time that I can actually commit to focused for on my thesis.

By next September, I have to have my thesis completed regardless of work circumstances, however, so I had to quickly find ways of making it work. Part of it is simple organisation, part of it letting go of my ideas what studying should look like.

And so I've created a schedule. I love planning, so it was was an easy task for me. The key is to be both realistic and specific about what needs to be done. By Christmas, I should have my literature review ready (ha ha ha), but it is not a specific enough goal to have. So I broke it down into manageable weekly tasks: reading specific articles, books, calling my supervisor etc. It is not a perfect schedule and will evolve with time, but it gives me some structure to begin with.

Now I've also created a home office in the spare bedroom so that I have space dedicated exclusively to working, be it school work or MA work. I don't have a massive need to have a special room for work, I live on my own so I don't have many distractions here (bar a cupboard full of delicious tea and chocolate), but sitting in my little office puts me in the work mindset straight away.

Finally, I had to accept that whole day study sessions are not likely to happen this year. I might manage to spend a couple of days over half terms working on the thesis, but on the whole, it will be just using these little pockets of time here and there. I need to find my own rhythm. I usually have a little bit of time in the evening between dinner time and relaxation, so I use that time to read an article or think about my ideas (I sit around thinking a lot. And talking to myself). But this is probably my biggest struggle at the moment. I'm used to long stretches of time dedicated to studying or writing and I don't get many of those now. But the only way to do it is to make it work.

I must say I have a love-hate relationship with this Masters programme: it's yet another thing that I need to do think about and schedule into the week, but at the same time I really enjoy reading articles and learning about new perspectives on the Mathematics curriculum. I know that this is probably the best time to do it, before my careers becomes even more demanding and before I become a mother; and I will benefit immensely from it in terms of my professional and personal development. But for all of you out there thinking about studying part time and working full time at the same time: it's not  piece of cake. But you can do it with plenty of cake at hand.

Enough, back to juggling now. :)