Mambo Taxi

I returned from FGC Gathering on Saturday, which was an excellent experience, but I've been slightly pressed for journal writing-time since then. I really want to write about my time away, but it'll have to wait until the weekend (at least), because I have a paper due Friday in my Peace and Conflict Studies class.

The topic is (in part): "How effective are practices of negotiation, mediation, and dialogue in conflict situations that are characterized by severe inequality in social status, or in economic and political power?"

On Monday, I thought I knew what I was going to say, and I had absolutely no oomph to work on it- though that's fairly easy to explain. One of the reasons I took the class was to try and see if it would give me hints for service-work that would speak to me, and I had just spent a week where I did a pile of service that I felt surprisingly (to me, at least) quite good at. And it was an intense week with not enough sleep. Monday night I felt so uninspired that I was fairly convinced I wanted to outright quit the class, though I changed my mind again by Tuesday afternoon, and got back to it.

Well, I'm less worn out now, and I've been making progress on the paper, and I even slept fine last night. I hope to finish the content of the paper in an hour, get in to work slightly late (hi boss!) and write up the references properly for tomorrow morning.

Whether I will want to follow up this class with another one is a question for another week, though I'm tending toward a fairly strong "no" at the moment.

Things to be happy about:

* flexible work hours. I had half a day's extra time "banked" informally, which is being ever so slightly useful this week.

* understanding sweetie. I didn't see him for a week, and now I've got a paper to write in evenings. (I'm not sure how it ultimately connects that it was partly his nudging that I'm taking the class in the first place...)

* understanding family. My parents called last night and I told them I couldn't talk even though we hadn't talked in... almost a month, and it'll be another week until they can call again.

* contact lenses in the proper eyes. Yes, I swapped my contact-lens covers some time last week, which explains why I've felt like the vision in my left (stronger) eye was a bit blurry since the middle of last week. (Huh, the astigmatism really does exist...) Feel free to laugh at me now, I have been since yesterday when I tried experimentally swapping them and yes, the problem went away.

...and now after writing for 15 minutes here I feel warmed up and I can finish writing my argument for the paper.

On the balance, this has been a good week, (and it still can end up a good week assuming the drain augering and fixing goes smoothly tomorrow morning, but I'm trying to not think about it).

A few high points in the last week:

- Work has been rewarding. This week I worked on: php, shell scripts, sql, perl, and WebObjects. I have challenging tasks, and more importantly, I have a plan; and the things I do will make my group's jobs easier. This is most excellent.

- Last Saturday afternoon, I participated in a community witness that went more smoothly than we deserved (given the weather forecast, number of participants, and the structure of the event). And the food at the reception was excellent. And it included home-made lemon meringue pie.

And we learned that our Quaker Meeting is going to have another wedding, next year. The couple met on Lavalife. He's 70, she's 50.

- Ye's sushi with my sweetie.

- semi-wild strawberries from the front yard. I've eaten a few, and they're delicious.

- In a week, I'm seeing a huge pile of Friends at FGC Gathering, in Johnstown PA this year. I'm fairly intentionally making the week a challenge for myself, as instead of taking a workshop, I'm doing service work. Which could be draining, and it could be extremely rewarding. The only thing I know would make the week better would be if melted_snowball were able to come, but I expect we'll both do OK. My car will have at least one rider, and possibly 1-2 others if they get their acts together. I don't know any of them, but that's fine. We'll talk about workshops and figure out who we know in common...

- And not one but two successful real-estate hunts among friends! chezmax & the_infamous_j bought a house locally that sounds well-suited to them, and sulle_stelle bought a stunning-sounding house in Tampa! Both were long shots, of a sort. Congrats, guys!

Friday I took a vacation day, but I spent half of it at work, because my time was flexible for the morning and I wanted to release a project for people to test on Monday. At noon I zipped home, mowed the lawn, turned in my first homework for my Peace and Conflict Studies class, and drove to Yorkdale to catch the subway to Toronto.

All of that was an exercise in "what do I *need* to do now?" which I managed well, except for the failed bit of spending so much time at work- when I didn't absolutely need to- which meant I got caught in 3pm traffic on the 401. Ah well.

Around 5 I met up with melted_snowball at our hotel, we had a yummy dinner at Jamie Kennedy's Wine Bar, and then off to the first of two percussion concerts. We shared an elevator with Adrienne Clarkson. She's so elegant. She read well in the concert. But my concert review is to follow when I have my program handy. I will say: it was too long. We fell into bed some time after 11. Yes, we are old; but neither of us had gotten enough sleep the night before.

Saturday included St. Lawrence Market, art-browsing at the Distillery district, discovering they had Doors Open Toronto exhibits in the Distillery, which was sort of neat, browsing two of the huge brick buildings that used to house spirits and now just have ghosts. We ate brunch at Fran's, and caught the second percussion concert; then a subway and drive home, getting home well before dark.

We spent a while trying to figure out why we don't live in Toronto. So sure, there are fine reasons: our jobs aren't there; rents are quite a bit more expensive; but... Yeah. I wonder if there are any U of T profs who need someone to watch their St. Lawrence-area condo on weekends while they're off at the cottage?... (A guy can dream, no?)

Sunday morning, I was off to Lucknow with a carload of Quakers. The day included some thoughtful conversation, a committee meeting, and an on-site meeting to help plan for a wedding which is to be held in three weeks. It's a beautiful setting- a farm at the top of a hill, with rolling countryside surrounding. And I got home around 5, which was too late to go to catbear's open-house or Home Hardware.

Then I did laundry and looked forward to work. (Which is a bit of a hazard for me right now. Those of you who are at all obsessive, and are excited about your job: how do you manage to not obsess about it? Perhaps I'll become blasé soon enough, but right now, thinking about what I'm going to do next at work's sort of keeping me from getting enough sleep at night. Have I mentioned that this feels like my dream job? Hm, I did, didn't I...)

I'm feeling a bit ragged at the edges, but on the whole, fairly OK.

I'm looking forward to starting my new (old) job in my new (old) office. (Yes, I have the same office I had when I worked for the CS Department before. Well, the second of four offices in that job. I chose the size and location of the white-board and cork-board, though my predecessor/successor chose the wall and furniture colours. Confusing? Yes, slightly.)

I moved my stuff on Friday. My new boss asked me when I was coming in on Monday. I said 9ish. He said he hoped I wouldn't be offended if I got in before him. Not at all, sir; not at all.

Friday afternoon I borrowed a projector from the KWLUG and pnijjar, and in the evening, went to help set up the Quaker Meetinghouse for a "half-yearly meeting" to be held all day Saturday. We expected 20-30 Quakers from the region (which covers the southwestern part of Ontario and also the Niagara area to the East). I was nominally leading the committee that put it on. I say "nominally" because my experience in hosting such a meeting is, um, nil; and I relied heavily on my committee. And ultimately, I'm proud of how we did!

There was an afternoon presentation by two local people in their mid-20s who went to Africa on service projects. Lisa and Rachel impressed me when we got together to plan: they both had serious questions about the appropriateness of Westerners' "best intentions" in African communities. Their presentations balanced each other well.

Lisa has a social-work degree and she spent much of her time while in Burundi this winter trying to fit her theoretical understandings around the project, designed and led by African Quakers, to heal communities torn apart by the Hutu/Tutsi genocide. She went with a skeptical mindset, and came back fairly strongly convinced that this particular project is useful, though she still has questions about the appropriateness of Westerners going over to lead similar such projects.

And the other presenter, Rachel, went on a North-American led (Friends United Meeting, for those who know the name) project in 2002 that went totally awry. The leaders went with a mindset of "we will fix what's wrong with your community, for you." They broke the rules that had been set for them in advance, ignored the local community leaders, and at the end of their two weeks, they were chased out of town by an angry mob. Rachel had never been debriefed or had a chance to fully process the trip; until now, she hadn't felt up to the task of talking about it in any depth. And there were discussions, and after the presentations we led a session on the query, "What draws us to service? Is it primarily to satisfy our own feelings and needs? When we enter into service, are we willing to be the people receiving?"

The day was quite full, and somewhat exciting as to whether things would work out properly. And so they seemed to.

And in the evening I stayed home with my sweetie, who was having a rough time.

And today, d. wanted some quiet time alone, so I went to Quaker Meeting and afterward helped polish off some of the leftovers from yesterday's wonderful food prepared by seasonalontfood a.k.a. ferdzy. You know, I think with Quakers it's mostly about the eating. The distressing Quaker events are those with bad food. OK, it's getting late and I won't follow this thought to any conclusion tonight.

But I will say I'm glad melted_snowball is doing somewhat better tonight. And tomorrow's a new day.

I'm waiting for my flight home from Minneapolis; it's boarding in about 20 minutes.

The weekend was in a few ways exactly as I expected: I saw dear friends, did committee work, and put myself out there beyond my comfort levels, and was rewarded for it.

In other ways, it blew past my expectations. So much love shared. I feel so blessed for my Friends here. The plenary, by d's and my dear friend Wendy, was on the topic of courage. She shared stories from her life and from mutual Friends' lives, and gave us queries that we might consider. These queries fed directly into what we did in small-group discussions, and I got direct feedback that the way I led my small-group was exactly what people needed.

I'm sharing this here because, precisely because, it is so difficult for me to talk about doing things well.

This is something I will do differently. I have ideas, which I hope to write about.

I have told people who asked, this morning, that I feel well used. I get a lot out of service; I knew this, but I felt this weekend like I was able to stretch and do things I hadn't done before, and do them well.

Right now, I'm looking foward to being home!

ps- And just as I was about to send this, Natasha Bedingfield's Unwritten came on the XM Radio in the restaurant I'm waiting in.

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you can not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten


Amen.