Saturday, June 28, 2008

Åhe, you can't see

I still need to get a digital camera, because looking at walls of text is undoubtedly boring. There are certainly lots of opportunities here in Guåhan, despite the fact that rainy season just started and every day entails a decent amount of foreboding skies.

Two awesome developments on the project front:

1. My project partner and I are nearly at the end of completing the first round of our project. Basically, our kids were able to interview an elderly person about her time during World War II with a minimum of boredom-showing (they are ranging in age from 4-10 years, after all, and a certain amount of fidgety-ness should be expected) for nearly 40 minutes, and they loved every minute of it. Most of all, I am really proud that I took the interview--done entirely in Chamoru--to my mother, and she listened to the whole thing in a wholehearted way. I don't think I've ever seen her be so interested in a strictly auditory thing, including my old radio show.

2. My project partner and I are trying to write another grant due July 1. I think this brings the total number of grants I've ever written up to three. I am seriously questioning, however, at what rate it is prudent to grow. Specifically, we're considering expanding our project's budget by nearly threefold, and only after about two months of in-depth planning and two weeks of actual implementation. My great fear is to devolve the way of other rapidly grown businesses and nonprofits, their capacities having been exhausted far too fast.

But then again, I'm not a huge business/financial/educational risk-taker. I do want to iterate, however, that I don't think conservatism (regarding risk) and innovation are mutually exclusive.

Bleh. Well, that was another stupendously interesting post. I gotta get some pictures.

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