Catching up

I located more tv coverage of the SCTNow event. It's from a French station - V - and I was interviewed for it!
Click here to watch it.

Also here are some pictures from our weekend in New Hampshire this month:

Hanging out with Dan's friend, Brian, in Portsmouth

Discovering Golden Bowl restaurant in Manchester... yum!

Charlie trying to be cooperative for a picture, Dan refusing

And...

Beautiful sunset on our way home

Busy, so very busy

I have so busy that I forgot to write about my last weekend in New Hampshire! And I haven't even put my pictures on my computer so that'll be for next time.

The truth is I'm LOVING school! I cannot even fathom how much work I have to do, and even though I've been steadily chipping away at it over the past week and a half, I recently realised that I've been only working on the tip of the iceberg! But it is so fascinating and I love reminding myself that I am doing exaclty what I want to be doing.

Two weekends ago, Charlie and I went down to New Hampshire with our two very good friends, Geneviève and Dan. Of course I spent most of my time in class, but we were also able to get in some good shopping and eating together and even went to Portsmouth to visit Dan's friend one evening, where I ate a rather fabulous pulled pork sandwich.

My courses went really well, I love my classmates and my professors and feel I'm learning so much. In Principles, Practices and Policy of ICED, we had a class debate, for which I had to argue, to my utter horror, that economic growth is a better indicator of a country's progress than human development indicators (for example, infant mortality rates, literacy levels, educational attainment, political freedoms, to name a few). But my team really rallied and got very good feedback from the prof. In the end, I was glad to argue something opposite my actual opinion because it helps me better understand and formulate what I do believe.

In Project Design, which is my most demanding course this semester, we discussed primary research and problem tree analyses. In the afternoon, we divided into our three groups (the international cohort forming one group) and discussed Theory U (see earlier post for my thoughts of that). It was a great discussion. I have a lot to do to complete my research for this course, but I'm really enjoying doing the literature review and community interviews. Sometime in the near future (when I have a better handle on it myself) I'll write about what I'm researching and the issue I hope to address in my project over the next two years.

Other than that, Accounting was really fun - and I'm not even kidding! It's kind of an easy class, as long as I keep on my doing homework. This class makes me feel like I'm in grade school again, filling in the balnks in my workbook!!

Thanks for keeping up with me, I feel the love!

Posting again

Hi everyone!

I'm going to start posting again. I hope to post once every week or two.

I've really been thinking about putting together a short lesson for people about to head off on Mission Trips or Hero Vacations or any other type of trip that doesn't solely include tourism. Since living in Cambodia, I've been grappling with questions regarding how we treat those that we encounter in these situations.

I'll be going through this process to work through these questions myself, but also to try to put down on screen my thoughts in a somewhat cogent manner. I will really try to keep the ranting to a minimum and the aha! moments to a maximum.

Ok, hope you enjoy!

P.S. Julia just posted so don't forget to read her post too!

What I am reading these days...

Well, if you haven't already guessed, most of my reading these days has been for academic purposes. It's a good thing I'm lovinf what I'm studying, then, eh?

A couple weeks ago, I had to read the summary of a book called Theory U, by Otto Scharmer. He challenges leaders to look at problem-solving from an unconventional perspective. He argues that we are blind to what he calls the “source dimension” of action, which is the inner place from which individuals operate. By listening to the attitudes and opinions of others, leaders can invite those around them into the decision-making process and shape how their teams respond to situations.

As I've mulled over the article again and again over the past days, I think what really stuck with me was his explanation of the different levels of listening that we employ when interacting with one another. He desribes four levels of listening: download, factual, empathic, and generative.

Download and factual listening are superficial ways of listening, wherein we are either reconfirming (download) or disconfirming (factual) our previsouly held beliefs and knowledge. He challenges us to push past that and learn to listen to others on a deeper level, either empathically (e.g. walking in someone else’s shoes), but preferably generatively (i.e. going beyond mere communication into communion with someone).

Really, this theory is intrinsic to being an effective CED practitioner. By learning to listen to those we are working with and for, not only can we move from symptom level response to addressing systemic root level issues, we are achieving some of the very principles that define CED: participation and inclusiveness.

Very fun stuff, no?! Speaking of fun, and because I don't want to mislead anyone by allowing them to think all I do is study, here are a couple picture of the girls and me at B Side last night! It was a blast!