Spring in Switzerland Parades Past My Window
Spring parades past my Swiss house that perches on a slope overlooking Lake Geneva. Puffy gray and white clouds hover over the mountain range where Mount Blanc, the highest peak in Europe, sticks its head out like an apparition of my imagination. On a clear day I can see as far as the water jet […]
World Class Olympic Swimmer on Wheels
Think your life is tough? Imagine learning to swim without legs? Then go out and break the world record. Not once, but twice. In the Beijing Paralympics 2008, Teresa Perales broke the record for 50-meter freestyle (35.88), the 100-meter freestyle (1:16.65), and collected 3 gold medals, 2 bronze medals and a silver medal. From Sydney […]
Senseless Racism, a songwriter’s opinion
The inspiration of children from around the world challenges each of us to work together to create a better world. Etre né quelque part, a song by French singer, poet and guitarist, Maxime Leforestier, loosely translated in English shows the nonsense of racism. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GTCtvs4KwM&NR=1[/youtube] On choisit pas ses parents, We don’t […]
Education, Racism, Football, and Mama
« Don’t worry Mama, football gonna take care of me. » said the first black man to play for Chelsea in 1981, who still remembers that pain of racial abuse when even his own fans called him animal names.
I am X-Pat, a feisty globetrotter. Teacher, writer, coach, speaker, and trailblazer with the down-to-earth, open-armed persona of The Heartland and a European twist. I have lived in four different countries, speak three languages and raised two bi-cultural kids with one très bon Frenchman. My passion is inspiring courage, breaking barriers, and creating connections.
Down and out? Hopeless and helpless? No matter where you are in your journey, my stories can help pick up your spirits, make transitions, gain new perspectives or just escape the daily grind.
If you deny a woman’s history, you erase her identity. I reveal the athlete’s untold story, from the passage of Title IX through forty years of social change. What makes it different from other sport biographies is the voice of a woman who walks the talk, who dribbled the ball and tells the story. Learn more by clicking here