One Wild and Precious Life

 Thanks again to everyone who submitted questions.  A couple notes about this video: 1) my voice is a bit scratchy and crackly because there was burning happening when I recorded and the smoke messes with my voice 2) In some of the slides, it sounds like a teapot is whistling--my apologies that was the fan getting picked up by my headphones (its not too loud, I promise) 3) In the slide following my intro, I state that the "ministry of health" was involved when I meant to say "ministry of education" (the error is actually quite obvious, lol)

 In a couple of weeks, I will participate in our mid-service training for the Peace Corps. As is the custom, we have a load of homework to complete ahead of time. I find most of it problematic for one reason or another, but I will say that it has gotten me into a particularly reflective place.  "Mid-service" is a bit misleading because really I have about 9 months left in my service, but things are being framed in the "year one vs year two" context for this training.  In the last couple months I've been thinking a lot about what I want my 2nd year to look like and what I need to do in order to make that happen.  Which brings me to some updates on what is happening at school... The biggest change is that I moved myself out of a classroom and into the library.  Three weeks in, I can tell you that this has been a game changer in terms of my mental health.  I no longer spend my days witnessing beatings while immersed in the frenetic energy of an environment where ch

 I've decided that I'm not quite ready to talk about the start of the new school year, so I'm returning to the blog with a short video with some of what I did this summer.  I soaked in the beauty of a PNW beach, spent time with people who fill my heart and my soul.  I ate, drank, and was merry.  My soul and spirit flew.  It was bliss.  💓💓💓

  Full quote:  Why, I feel all  thin , sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over  too  much bread. That can't  be  right. I need a change, or something. I can't believe its taken over a year for me to pull out a LOTR reference! 😉  But Bilbo's words ring so true for me these days.  A few weeks ago I posted that I had reached the one year mark--and it has been a hell of a year!  The highs were really high and the lows were low, low, low.  As the school year finally came to a close on Friday, I am feeling like I can really step back and take a breath.  A nice, deep, long breath.   I have hope and excitement around the projects at school next year; but right now I need a break and some quiet, reflective space.  As part of that break, I'm going to put  a pause in the blog until school starts again at the beginning of September.  So until then, I leave you with a picture I snapped of myself on my balcony as I was getting ready to leav

This short mid-week post celebrates ONE YEAR IN SAINT LUCIA!!!!  This is a huge milestone for a lot of reasons.  A short video with some highlights of the past 12 months.  💓💓💓

I had originally planned to continue writing about the things I took for granted, but then yesterday happened and I decided that I wanted share the day with y’all.  A little context first—my PCV bestie Alexis is currently living with me as her house is infested with rats.  Luckily a teacher from her school works in my community so she has a ride to/from school every day.  But it was still quite a week—so we decided to try for a nice day out and about on Saturday.   It turned out to be one of those rare days when everything aligned for us--honestly, it was the first time since I've been here that I've had a day like this!  As I was closing the gate to my house, I saw a bus coming up the road.  This never happens!  But what it meant was that we didn’t have to walk up the giant hill to go wait for the bus.  When we got to town and got on our next bus, we only had to sit on it for 5 minutes before we left!  That also never happens, LOL.   We got to the beach and it was just us and