Must Have Chocolate

     In Wednesday's class we talked about several different things, including our weekly group meetings while we are in the field. Heather brought a bunch of chocolate to class, it was awesome. In my opinion, group meetings must have chocolate. We decided to have our group meetings on Monday evenings and sort of do family home evenings with them...so there will be a spiritual thought, game, etc. as well as discussion on our projects, progress, issues. We also talked a lot about ownership of this project. Field studies are so amazing because they really do depend on the student for success. Holly, Emily, and I are going to be in a foreign country with no one to tell us what to do or keep us on task. We get to decide what we do every day and whether we really rock our projects or just goof off. On top of that, we will have to solve any problems we run into. Projects might have to adapt if we can't get the resources or access we wanted, and it will be up to us to come up with a good alternative (I really hope this doesn't happen to anyone). We won't even have a field facilitator, not that it is the facilitator's job to tell us what to do, but it will all be up to us!

       On my part, I really want this to be an amazing experience....I have wanted to go to Africa for as long as I can remember, and I always planned on having some kind of international experience while in college. I am excited for the traveling and the culture. I am excited to work on my project. I know that putting in hard work now and going to the field and working hard will be extremely beneficial to me - I will learn how to work with people and survive in a completely new environment. I get to see a different world than the one I have lived in and hopefully have my eyes opened to things I never considered or knew existed. Heather mentioned attitude and how that will affect our project and living arrangements...ha, I have a testimony of attitude, really. I firmly believe we as humans can decide to see the glass half empty or half full. But even though I believe that, it can still be hard to do all the time. I am sure this summer will give me ample opportunities to practice having a good attitude. In my World Religions class we just talked about Taoism and their concept of wu-wei. Wu-wei is inaction....it is accepting what comes and not getting frustrated or put off by hardships. If you are practicing wu-wei, nothing can really be that upsetting. Wu-wei and deciding to have a good attitude are really the same thing and both will come in handy this summer, whether there are travel, project, or personal issues.