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Intentional Living

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    About Me

    I'm Nadja. Digital nomad, worldschooling mom, and lifelong student of finding calm in chaos and beauty in everything.

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    • In the night, when the moon is dark, and the Delhi Public Library is all I see 🎶 Even if by pure synchronicity, my bookish love knows no bounds 😍📚 This is the sight with which Delhi greets her latest visitors in the dead of morning 😍🌛
    • Driving through rural Rajasthan today, I absolutely dedicate this Valentine's Day to the scores of dedicated farmers who work tirelessly through scorching heat and habitual droughts. From the unforgiving, largely parched and infertile soil of India's desert state that gets an annual rainfall of only 58-60cm, they produce quality food that feeds a nation 🙏 Farmers don't tend to get the appreciation they deserve, but we all ❤️ you for keeping us fed, healthy, and happy 🍅🥒🥕🥦🌶️🥔
    • The beauty of a digital nomad lifestyle is being able to travel on your terms. This includes seeing a place through whichever eyes you wish to see it. The first time we set foot in Delhi, the post-crop burning pollution had reached its zenith, and it left a lasting impression: a really, really bad one. For that reason, Delhi has always been for me a transit stop: I go there because I have to, not because I want to. On our latest trip, however, I came to view the Indian capital from an entirely different perspective. Instead of checking sights off a to-do list in an attempt to get to know the city, we just walked, and walked, and walked. We stopped where our fancy took us - *going* nowhere, but *seeing* everything. Rather than hip hotspots, we uncovered hidden gems: The structural lines of a building, sunlight through the trees, a past preserved, futures unknown, possibilities being explored, countless people going about their lives because of, or in spite of their parts, nurturing their own hopes and dreams. Slow travel isn't fashionable (although #slowtravel is - go figure 🤷‍♀️), but it's *real*. Always be a traveller, never a tourist 👌🏻 *That's* how travelling enriches us 🌍💕🌎💕🌏
    • An unschooler's desk doesn't follow classroom rules. Some days it's full of books (by choice, not coercion). Other days, wood shavings and broken glass (the later to be turned into crystals, I'm told). He got up at 2am to start work on his wand, and is proud of the progress he's made so far. The decorative pommel he made by melting together hot glue, wax, and an oil pastel. I wasn't familiar with the word, so we debated whether it's pomel with one m, as he suggested, or two m's, as did I. Turns out "pomel" is French, and "pommel" its English derivative. Linguistic etymology lesson for the day, check ✔ The inscription, which reads "Power is Key", is from Commander Keen's Standard Galactic Alphabet (a Game Boy series - initially in MS-DOS - released between the early 90s and 2000s), also used as the language for Minecraft's Enchanting Tables. Afterwards, he debated whether he should've used Viking Runes or Tolkien's Elvish, instead. Techno slash literary history, check ✔ This is what playing video games gets you: A rich general knowledge encyclopedia to feed your already flourishing curiosity, imagination, and craftiness 💻🌠🌈🖲 #learningisnotlinear #howunschoolingworks
    • Our resident Animal Whisperer collects four paw-friends everywhere he goes. His latest two, which he's named Barky and Sparky, are two street dogs who follow him everywhere he goes, including for sunset climbs. It's a very different experience and a definite first for me to get to know dogs as if they're pets, yet accept that they live on the street. One of the criticisms many foreign tourists have when they come to India is the amount of stray dogs in the country (Google says 30 million, which is a bigger population than many small countries), and it's indeed a very challenging life these dogs lead, but I think what foreigners don't see is the other side of it: How every residential or village street has its own pack of dogs and how most households have a particular number of dogs they've "adopted" and set food out for. #indiabehindthescenes
    • First business meeting with a 12yo --> Me taking notes, him (utterly unrelatedly) sanding down a piece of basalt stone for making clay: Check ✔ | Me using an (admittedly ridiculous) example in our brainstorming session, him exclaiming, "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard!": Check ✔ This is going to be fun 😳😭😂🤪 In other news, he's all grown up and joining me in creating a very special story-telling course ... watch this space! (Cos I bet you'll want to know if that clay mixture works out 😉🤔😝)
    • Thinking about perceptions of India today 🤔 As a foreigner who has made the sub-continent my home, I have an ear to the ground on both perspectives: Outsiders looking in, and insiders peering out. Usually, in a country this complex, there's always missing elements to any opinion, which is why India can't be explained, only experienced! Life in India can be crazy, incredibly fast-paced, and overwhelmingly insane 😂 or slow, peaceful, chill, and as magical as anything you've ever experienced ... it all depends on your choice of poison. We try to avoid city hustle and bustle and spend most of our free time out in the countryside, so my experience of India is heavily influenced by village life. My own existence as a writer, as a mother, and as a person takes on a different dimension when I leave the house before dawn and start my day out in the sticks watching a shopkeeper make samosas while warming myself next to a makeshift fire, than when I wake up and lie in bed checking email or scrolling my Facebook feed in an attempt to wake up cos it's too damn cold to get out of bed, never mind out of the house. This is the India you don't usually visit because it's away from the tourist traps, and you don't see because it's not newsworthy for the media to report on. Neither is this "the real India", because it's all real - same same, but different 😉 What this is, is a reason to wake up and go experience life instead of being a passive digital part of it. #MyIndiaMyInspiration
    • Life with a budding naturepreneur 😂 It always amazed me how this kid comes up with his entrepreneurial endeavours, perfectly suited to what he knows I'll "buy" from him 🤑 He put on display this dried wild mushroom collection after foraging in the hills close to the house 🍄 And don't expect him to just name his price and hope for the best: He created a classification system and grouped it by price, even going as far as explaining to me the rationale behind each price category 🤓 This is #unschooling in action - who needs a kids entrepreneurship course when there's real-life supply and demand right here 😍
    • There's a 50% chance we went goat shopping today 🛒💃 Ok, *maybe* I'm the only one who saw it that way - the official reason might have been that I freaked out when I saw a dozen goat babies while out driving in the countryside and my patient - oh so very patient! - love was kind enough to stop and indulge me 🙏🏻 But I'd like to think the seed I've been planting for months now with my constant "I want a goat!" yelp every time I see one has, after today, levelled up to seedling status 🌱📆 They're 15 days old and the Labradror-looking one and I decided it's simply destined to be my baa-baa baby 👩‍👦 Now just to figure out how to make a goat live on a balcony (it has a fantastic mountain view so it should feel right at home 🔭⛰) and a goatsitter for when we're off to travel to the other side of the world every so often, and I'll be back to bring home the new addition to the family 😍🐐🏡
  • Latest Posts
    • The Worldschooling Classroom
      Skillschooling December 19, 2018
    • A Digital Nomad in India
      Digital Nomad December 15, 2018
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  • Archives
  • In the night, when the moon is dark, and the Delhi Public Library is all I see 🎶 Even if by pure synchronicity, my bookish love knows no bounds 😍📚 This is the sight with which Delhi greets her latest visitors in the dead of morning 😍🌛
  • Driving through rural Rajasthan today, I absolutely dedicate this Valentine's Day to the scores of dedicated farmers who work tirelessly through scorching heat and habitual droughts. From the unforgiving, largely parched and infertile soil of India's desert state that gets an annual rainfall of only 58-60cm, they produce quality food that feeds a nation 🙏 Farmers don't tend to get the appreciation they deserve, but we all ❤️ you for keeping us fed, healthy, and happy 🍅🥒🥕🥦🌶️🥔
  • The beauty of a digital nomad lifestyle is being able to travel on your terms. This includes seeing a place through whichever eyes you wish to see it. The first time we set foot in Delhi, the post-crop burning pollution had reached its zenith, and it left a lasting impression: a really, really bad one. For that reason, Delhi has always been for me a transit stop: I go there because I have to, not because I want to. On our latest trip, however, I came to view the Indian capital from an entirely different perspective. Instead of checking sights off a to-do list in an attempt to get to know the city, we just walked, and walked, and walked. We stopped where our fancy took us - *going* nowhere, but *seeing* everything. Rather than hip hotspots, we uncovered hidden gems: The structural lines of a building, sunlight through the trees, a past preserved, futures unknown, possibilities being explored, countless people going about their lives because of, or in spite of their parts, nurturing their own hopes and dreams. Slow travel isn't fashionable (although #slowtravel is - go figure 🤷‍♀️), but it's *real*. Always be a traveller, never a tourist 👌🏻 *That's* how travelling enriches us 🌍💕🌎💕🌏
  • An unschooler's desk doesn't follow classroom rules. Some days it's full of books (by choice, not coercion). Other days, wood shavings and broken glass (the later to be turned into crystals, I'm told). He got up at 2am to start work on his wand, and is proud of the progress he's made so far. The decorative pommel he made by melting together hot glue, wax, and an oil pastel. I wasn't familiar with the word, so we debated whether it's pomel with one m, as he suggested, or two m's, as did I. Turns out "pomel" is French, and "pommel" its English derivative. Linguistic etymology lesson for the day, check ✔ The inscription, which reads "Power is Key", is from Commander Keen's Standard Galactic Alphabet (a Game Boy series - initially in MS-DOS - released between the early 90s and 2000s), also used as the language for Minecraft's Enchanting Tables. Afterwards, he debated whether he should've used Viking Runes or Tolkien's Elvish, instead. Techno slash literary history, check ✔ This is what playing video games gets you: A rich general knowledge encyclopedia to feed your already flourishing curiosity, imagination, and craftiness 💻🌠🌈🖲 #learningisnotlinear #howunschoolingworks
  • Our resident Animal Whisperer collects four paw-friends everywhere he goes. His latest two, which he's named Barky and Sparky, are two street dogs who follow him everywhere he goes, including for sunset climbs. It's a very different experience and a definite first for me to get to know dogs as if they're pets, yet accept that they live on the street. One of the criticisms many foreign tourists have when they come to India is the amount of stray dogs in the country (Google says 30 million, which is a bigger population than many small countries), and it's indeed a very challenging life these dogs lead, but I think what foreigners don't see is the other side of it: How every residential or village street has its own pack of dogs and how most households have a particular number of dogs they've "adopted" and set food out for. #indiabehindthescenes
  • First business meeting with a 12yo --> Me taking notes, him (utterly unrelatedly) sanding down a piece of basalt stone for making clay: Check ✔ | Me using an (admittedly ridiculous) example in our brainstorming session, him exclaiming, "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard!": Check ✔ This is going to be fun 😳😭😂🤪 In other news, he's all grown up and joining me in creating a very special story-telling course ... watch this space! (Cos I bet you'll want to know if that clay mixture works out 😉🤔😝)

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