Not something I like to do, but I've got plenty of things to do lately.
Maybe I shouldn't be staying up so late, but I've got a few addictions as of late--namely Yahoo! Chat and Skype. Friends and family know they can find me online in the evenings and with them being 2 hours behind me--I tend to be up rather late these days.
Well, that and I tend to think more clearly in the evenings. I seem to brainstorm the best late at night. Spring is almost like a ghost town in the late night and a great time for a walk. Best of both worlds, just listening to the night sounds and feeling the cool sea winds rolling into the mountain valleys while the mind is reeling around 60mph.
Gives me time to think about all the little things I've gotten myself involved with here within the past few months. I never really put them all together until today.
In no particular order of time/energy spent:
- Working (some lobbying in village) to get a community council together. Ideally it would have representation from each church, business, CBO, and other organizations here in Spring as well as be attended by interested individuals. We would be mapping out a community calendar, networking community resources, and striving to bring the community closer through a series of activities with team planning
- Assisting with the local tourism group--Cumberland Valley Eco-tourism Organization (although I reserve my opinions on the "eco" part of it). It is comprised of people from Spring (where am) and our neighbors--Gordon Yard and Coulls Hill. Once the construction finishes down by our beach, the tourism group will manage the site and promote the business opportunities. Crash course in business anyone? Guess that business major is about to kick in.
- After school lessons for primary and secondary school kids. Not as smooth as I'd like, but a valuable service in my opinion. Now I just have to start on the sustainable part.
- Maintaining the internet cafe--of which I'm also building an intrawebsite to host easy access to plenty of 'acquired' e-books....everything from automotive to physics to drawing to encyclopedias/maps (which we don't even have a full set in physical book form) in order to help supplement the physical library. It will also have e-training for the self-motivated with links to the internet on where to learn useful things. Right now, I am the only one working on this and it is taking up many hours of my time.
- Investigating new opportunities for cricket competitions and community volleyball games.
- Reviving the drama club activities. It hasn't been easy trying to get some of the old group members back around, but I'm working on it. Got supposedly a full support decree from the Ministry of Culture. They offered to hold training workshops-a great resource since I know NOTHING about theater.
- Trying to get our community center looking nice and set up with materials to run smoothly on a regular basis---things like toilet paper would be nice. There is a managing committee for the building and I'm trying to work closely with them.
- Creating 'scrabble-like' board games as a teachng tool for the language arts/reading program. I got the wood donated and used a saw to cut up the boards and tiles. Making about 5 games worth.
- Keeping the momentum of our steel pan revival alive. I've been getting asked what was going on with them since I haven't had them out yet. I' still waiting for a kind donation fomr Liz Mannette's Steel Pan Fashion of Trinidad and Tobago. She is sending the proper rubber to create our pan sticks. Still working on getting the stands to hold them up welded together.
- Getting a hand drumming (congo, djembe, and other African-like drums) together. I hope this will serve to be the backbone for our steel pan. I'm a big fan of hand drum and we've got a great teacher willing to help out for the love of drumming.
- Chewing on the recycling ideas. Got an email request from my APCD (boss) to investigate the potential for certain types of recycling. Not finding many positive results yet, but I'm not giving up yet either.
- Reading through an environmental education book that is in progress. I'd like to help connect environmental education into the classrooms. That is going to require some heavy networking and lobbying with the Ministry of Education, Teacher's Union, and many other stakeholders. Got a Peace Corps/Community Development meeting in the morning. You can be that will be a big topic for me on the agenda
- Still haven't gotten my lil home garden started yet....that is big on the to-do list, but always gets left behind for some reason. I'm just not home much during the daylight hours I suppose.
- Get geared up to start teaching computer classes. I had surveys out and it seems that I'll be starting with a weekly intro to computers course. Depending on who and when, I'll also be doing a series on the ICDL and office software. Eventually I also plan to hold workshops for adults focusing on parent/child computer activity, how to be responsible, and basic maintenance.
- Bi-weekly banana shipments. Getting rewarded with bananas and oranges is a wonderful thing.
- Keep trying to forge new resources and cement other ones through what I call handshake meetings at various government and industry departments and ministries every week when I go into town.
- I still help with the North Leeward Sports Association, but they really haven't had much going on lately.
- Study for personal knowledge--A+ cert, poli-sci and math stuff for grad school, languages--Italian and Spanish. Sadly, I haven't really gotten to anything on this section yet.
I could be missing a few things in there still, but you get the idea. ^_^
Yeah, the hardest part of the week is usually trying to find time to do laundry.
So it seems I am being a busy lil bee and it's time for a nap.
Stay happy and well
ciao tutti
~your local wannabe jedi
~Shawn
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