carolina lives next to the clinic. she is 4 and is starting school in january. she is super smart and loves coloring, she really loves coloring. this afternoon she took photos of me and i took photos of her.
there are a lot of battles to fight. sometimes i have to collect fuzzy black caterpillars and burn them before their evil oils burn me. sometimes we trap mice in the clinic because they eat the powdered milk we keep for malnourished children. then we have to drown the mice in the little cage in devastatingly clear water. and of course, cockroaches, with their sneaking and scurrying and you have to stamp on them hard because their shells are tough and when you do it well their guts come squeezing out and you have to clean that up too, cause come on, gross.
the bigger battle i've been fighting is against my personal proclivity to let things happen instead of making things happen. the music video group at the school is only going to come to fruition if i pester the students to come to the meetings, make the meetings fun and productive, figure out how to involve them, etc. i made up this project, now it is my puzzle to actually execute it. same with the young mothers group - i'm excited by their enthusiasm and even a little surprised by it. i'm really grateful to be paid to have the flexibility to take my ideas and make them live. the open-endedness of it is both daunting and enthralling. the battle also enters my life outside work - my default schedule is to get home from work at 4ish, maybe go to the store, make food, read, poke around on the computer. my challenge is to find things to do in the evenings, actually call people to hang out with. actually practice the guitar. it's so, so easy to get sucked into the internet. oh maybe ill look at the nytimes most emailed list. huh, that article looks neutrally interesting. yes, it is. huh maybe another article. maybe i will read stevie wonder's wikipedia page. then BAM 4 hours have passed. i suppose that i am spending more time alone here than i ever have, and i'm not accustomed to productively filling and dividing large blocks of time. anyway, all kinds of learning going on here, folks.
my dad used to ask my brothers and me two questions at bedtime every day. what did you learn today? what did you like today? he wrote down our answers in a notebook. "i didnt learn anything" did not work, and of course, is never true. my dad did this every day for years, and we have many notebooks full of learned & likeds. he stopped doing it eventually, probably because garrett was so whiny (sorry garrett, but you know it's probably true). two years ago, i started doing it on my own every night. it's kind of a mini journal that is easy to commit to and forces you to briefly consider what you did in the long hours since waking up. i really like looking back through it, "this day in caitlin history" style. here is what i will write tonight:
October 14, 2009
Learned - how to lay tile floor (jose taught me)(they are building a library next to the clinic)
Liked - taking pictures with carolina; eating the magnificently cheesy pupusas i made for dinner
now, to be fair, i never use semicolons, but i thought it would help you understand.
the bigger battle i've been fighting is against my personal proclivity to let things happen instead of making things happen. the music video group at the school is only going to come to fruition if i pester the students to come to the meetings, make the meetings fun and productive, figure out how to involve them, etc. i made up this project, now it is my puzzle to actually execute it. same with the young mothers group - i'm excited by their enthusiasm and even a little surprised by it. i'm really grateful to be paid to have the flexibility to take my ideas and make them live. the open-endedness of it is both daunting and enthralling. the battle also enters my life outside work - my default schedule is to get home from work at 4ish, maybe go to the store, make food, read, poke around on the computer. my challenge is to find things to do in the evenings, actually call people to hang out with. actually practice the guitar. it's so, so easy to get sucked into the internet. oh maybe ill look at the nytimes most emailed list. huh, that article looks neutrally interesting. yes, it is. huh maybe another article. maybe i will read stevie wonder's wikipedia page. then BAM 4 hours have passed. i suppose that i am spending more time alone here than i ever have, and i'm not accustomed to productively filling and dividing large blocks of time. anyway, all kinds of learning going on here, folks.
my dad used to ask my brothers and me two questions at bedtime every day. what did you learn today? what did you like today? he wrote down our answers in a notebook. "i didnt learn anything" did not work, and of course, is never true. my dad did this every day for years, and we have many notebooks full of learned & likeds. he stopped doing it eventually, probably because garrett was so whiny (sorry garrett, but you know it's probably true). two years ago, i started doing it on my own every night. it's kind of a mini journal that is easy to commit to and forces you to briefly consider what you did in the long hours since waking up. i really like looking back through it, "this day in caitlin history" style. here is what i will write tonight:
October 14, 2009
Learned - how to lay tile floor (jose taught me)(they are building a library next to the clinic)
Liked - taking pictures with carolina; eating the magnificently cheesy pupusas i made for dinner
now, to be fair, i never use semicolons, but i thought it would help you understand.
BATTLE ON!
ReplyDeleteThat's a pretty super idea, that journal. I might just do it – a friend asked me the other day for the three best things I'd learned that day, and it was fantastic to lay them out. Partly cause I've started reading again after a couple of years really only reading for school. It's like I'm constantly hungry and excited for more more more books. God, how and why did I ever stop before?