Trip Prep

As I mentioned last blog, next week I travel to Wyoming to meet with Al and update our plans for the rest of 2015 into 2016. I am also looking for some part-time teaching work to expand my reserves (I originally planned for working with IRI two years before having to go back to work - I made it five, so I'm overdue). As a result, things have been a bit busy for me. This means a shorter post today, and possibly no post next Monday, as I will be traveling, but I will try to post something later this week, to make up for today's lightness and next week's lack.

Schedule Changes Change Things

Well, it appears that, due to both immigration policy changes and some issues regarding water availability in Chimoio, my trip to Mozambique has been postponed for the foreseeable future. The water issues are, apparently, creating a high-mosquito environment that Malaria turns into a high-risk environment, and is also creating water shortages. I don't have all the details on what the background on the issues are, but it is apparently significant enough that our Mozambican Director thinks I should probably stay away for now.

This leaves me with more time to find work, however, so it isn't all bad. With some contracted or adjunct work, I should be able to start rebuilding my cash reserves for the next few years working with IRI. Sometimes, one closed door opens another.

I will be traveling to Wyoming in early August to meet with Al when he gets back from Mozambique. We will discuss everything he has seen while he was there, and work on our goals for 2016 and beyond. There's a lot happening with IRI (even if my personal adventures are a bit curtailed), and we need to make sure we have a plan of action. Granted, most plans don't survive the first "interesting" event they encounter, but at least it gives us a foundation to build and modify our approach.

Exciting things are happening - we just need to make sure we are ready to act on them!

Checking in With A Thought

It seems I'm pretty busy this week. I'm still working on finding work to support my work, so that's keeping things exciting. I'm also working on a newsletter article for this month, and making sure I don't miss any birthdays (apparently, I know a LOT of people who were born in July). I've also been working on follow-up for the last few Incoming Insights articles, which may still take a little while.

In the meantime, I want to make sure that I'm clear about the reason we are looking in to the nature of human cognition, the effects of suppression, and the impact these things have on education and development. Ultimately, it is about building relationships. Not just relationships between ourselves and the people we work with, but how they relate with each other and other (often more aggressive and powerful) cultures around them. It is about identifying what goes wrong in relationships, and how to change things to make it right. All too often, organization or individuals will attempt to intervene in what is clearly a bad situation, only to find that their intervention has had its own set of negative consequences. Sometimes, the overall situation will still be improved, but occasionally, the intervention sets off a series of cultural events that ultimately makes things worse. There has been a lot of work that has gone into understanding what has happened in these cases, and more work focused on how to prevent similar issues in the future. We are focused on the latter. IRI wants to help people understand themselves and the world they live in so that they can build relationships and initiate works that are appropriate to their context. Our goal is to bring clarity and self-development to all areas of life: personal, social, economic, spiritual, educational, and whatever else may be affected. Much of what we have seen tells us that most people want to do good and be good people, but they often have disconnects about what is really good for themselves, their communities, and their environments. Our goal is not to correct them, but to give them the tools to figure out for themselves how to deal with their relationships.

That's all for now.

Preparing for the Fall

I am currently in the process of preparing for my fall activities. When I started working with IRI, I decided to save up enough money to work with them full-time for two years, with a plan to basically take a year off to work to save up enough for an additional few years. That was five years ago. I am now well past the point I thought I would need to get work again, but I have finally reached that point. As a result, I am now looking for work in undergraduate education (as an adjunct or lecturer), Instructional Design, or corporate training. While we still have plans for me to travel to Mozambique in August, this fall will hopefully entail me finding one of those three jobs to make back some of my savings, and finish paying off a few outstanding bills I have accumulated over the last five years. This week involves a lot of visits with potential employers, phone calls, and e-mails. It isn't terribly glamorous, but it is necessary, and I do look forward to teaching regularly again.

This does not mean I am stopping work with IRI - far from it, but the fact is, the current plans we have leave me relatively physically inactive for the upcoming semester at least, and I can use that time to recover some funds to facilitate future work. I will still be working on IRI material, and still posting blogs as regularly as possible. Thank you to everyone who has and is (and wants to?) support me and/or the work being done at IRI. Your help has been deeply appreciated.