Sunday, March 02, 2008

List #2: Lessons learned - my Sunday Summary

1. If someone says, "We'll just stop in for 15 minutes," plan for an hour. We made short stops at two district hospitals on Friday - while the visits were interesting and useful, we got back to Vientiane late on Friday night.

2. Be cool when people have changed things around without letting you - the boss - know.

3. Exercise is not just for physical activity but it's a time to get away and put things in perspective.

4. The same with meditation. I seem to be able to exercise more than I'm able to meditate.

5. One of the trainers told me, "It's difficult to give this class; everyone has different levels of knowledge." The reality is that people are not stamped out of a mold - even if everyone has exactly the same schooling, speak the same form of Lao, and all come from the same culture, there will always be differences. That's the challenge of teaching.

6. Always expect that travel will take longer than you plan. On Tuesday, we had to wait for a bus, which had gotten stuck in the detour around a destroyed bridge, to unstuck itself.

7. Remember to check papers and documents that I bring to the field. I thought I had packed the assignments for my school work. Oh well, couldn't do them. I wasn't too disturbed.

8. Bring some cats down south with me next time. Gotta do something about the mice in my house.

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