Work/Life (updated with photo!)

This is a busy month for us. So instead of 2-3 posts a week I'm aiming for 2-3 posts this month...!

We just wrapped up a week-long learning tour and symposium with three visiting professors. The great thing about these events for me is I learn so much - taking them around places means I see things that I don't see every day, talk to people I don't interact with nearly enough, and hear things that add to my accumulating knowledge. I was humbled realizing how little I know even after four years here.

Our learning tour group visiting a school - photo credit Elaine Barge

For example, yesterday I walked with one international visitor all along the Septima, or 7th St. Since it was a holiday it was all closed to traffic (although even on normal days portions of it are strictly pedestrian). We found the flea market, which I had never been to before, even though I'd wanted to... in daily life I just don't make space for that kind of thing. Buskers, vendors, lots of people on bicycles - it was a fun day.

Doodle, for when I can't knit during meetings

Tomorrow we begin receiving our one-year volunteers from around the world. Due to an unusual confluence of events, this year we are expecting seven, from six different countries. Visas have been an usually major headache which makes me nervous about our own visa renewals next month (but that's another story). So we are gearing up for their in-country orientation, and resolving a thousand little details around their housing, language study, and so forth.

One thing that I have learned in these nearly-four years here is to trust my intuition. I don't always know why I feel a particular prompt, but I've found that listening to that still, small inner voice is so important. When I don't, I always regret it.