I just looked at the calendar and thought to myself - Where is October going??? It's almost gone! Oh no! (a la Seinfeld's "Milk"). It has been a pretty busy time since my last post. 2 days after my last post - my car was hit by a drunk driver (no injuries - except for the car)...so for about 5 weeks, I was paying for a car that I couldn't drive. Luckily, the Lawrence police found the guilty driver and so his insurance paid for the repairs which ended up being close to $7000...which basically means that my car was totaled - except it wasn't. Either way, it was pain and I had to drive a non-cruise control PT Cruiser for 4 weeks including a trip back to Chicago from Lawrence, a trip to-and-from Dayton, and then back to Lawrence...thankfully, I have my car back and life is somewhat normal.
Work has been fairly slow so far since this is our "down season". I'm doing a lot of strategic planning for the coming year as well as reflecting on how to make the Chicago institute in 2010 even better (or at least not worse!). This past week we had our official kick-off conference for all the institutes here in Chicago. We got to discuss this report during the beginning of the conference and while it was pretty incredible to read where the United States' educational achievement gap is in comparison to other countries...one person at the conference started discussing how education should be a "fundamental right of humans". This comment made me stop in my thoughts during the discussion because I couldn't get away from that phrase and where I had only heard it before - within the Right to Life movement...I wanted to stand up and say, "How can we grant education has a fundamental right when we can't even grant life as one?"...but I held back - for now. Anyway, the conference was long and there's a lot of work ahead again this year as another 600 corps members will be coming to Chicago next summer to be trained.
Amid the slow period of work - I've been able to take advantage of some vacation time and have been able to visit the Buschelmans and Lawrence in the past few weeks. I headed to Fairborn, OH earlier this month to hang out and enjoy fall with Liesel, Eric, Dom, and Will...it's always great to see them and see what new things are going on in the new house! I'm pretty sure the thing that Dom and Will (and Liesel for that matter) enjoyed the most about my visit was that I brought Dunkin' Donuts.
Then just last weekend, I drove back to Lawrence for Homecoming. It was a planned trip from the summer - to see the KU game with friends from college and be at the Oktoberfest...but I added on picking up my car from the collision repair shop to the list! It was an extremely quick weekend home, but it was great to be there for the Oktoberfest and Homecoming! Who knows - maybe this will become a tradition minus the 8 hour drive both ways.
-mitzi
3 comments:
What, no mention of the upcoming weekend with us? Free night at the Wilderness resort? gee whiz...
I guess we'll have to update our blog now that you've done yours.
First post!
Lame! I missed the first comment by less than 2 hours!!! But, at least I got a shout out in the post. Take that, Roberto. I like what you said about the fundamental right. That should be applied to a lot of things. Education is not a right. Good grief. It's a privilege. Maybe these people need to get a dictionary. Rights are things like, oh, I don't know : Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I suppose that last one is pretty open, however, most people realize he was talking about : Property. As in, not that the government should give you property, but that you could own it, as opposed to being a serf and never owning it. Get a clue, you know? I think I'm going to use your argument the next time anyone tries to throw the old "fundamental right" thing. OOOO, I'm really angry. Get me some donuts.
Robert - calm down...I'll post about the Wilderness after I go to the Wilderness.
Liesel - ROFL.
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