Time Management

Time Management.  This is something I need to work on.  I'm anticipating the importance of this skill when actually in the field.  Day to day I will need to get up and make a plan for how to accomplish all I'm working towards right now.  I see the necessity of having a plan ahead of time, but understand that things will change and be unexpected so flexibility combined with good time management and motivation will all be important to make this experience a success. 

Two things that have reminded me of this are that I definitely did not finish everything I had hoped to this last weekend, and it sometimes feels like day to day I am scrambling to keep up - this could just be what it means to be a student at a university, but I could help it with better time management skills. 

The second thing, part of not finishing everything I needed, a very small part, were some hang ups that I had not anticipated.  These re-taught me an important lesson about being flexible and working through problems.  This weekend Utah finally decided to be Utah and it snowed, hard, well...harder than it has.  I found my way to our Tibetan food party that Saturday night in a part of Provo I am not very familiar with and at an apartment complex I was very unfamiliar with.  The snow and dark didn't help.  I was unsure if if I could park in their actual parking lot and not finding a sign I made my way into an empty lot (this should have been a big clue...) covered in snow with two signs at the entrance that I glanced at for a moment and didn't appear to be telling me I could not park there, so I did.

You can maybe guess where this story is going.  After good times eating delicious Tibetan food and discussing travel and culture I headed back out to my car, it wasn't there.  I walked around the area and to the main entrance, from the main road, that I had not entered from.  There was a partially snow covered sign telling me it was going to be very expensive if my car was parked there and caught - clearly I had been caught. 

I walked with my friend across town, in the snow, and waited for the two truck men to show up and let me pay the very large sum for holding my car for an hour.  As I walked and my feet got wetter and wetter and colder and colder I thought about how to react.  I kind of wanted to curse about the people and call them selfish for expecting so much money, I wanted to blame the snow, I wanted to cry a bit just because it was going to be difficult and that wasn't how I wanted to spend my time.  I decided to make a bit of a joke of it, instead, and try to point out (even if semi-hilarious in nature) the positive things.  I was very aware that these were not natural responses, but I wanted them to be and maybe just wanting them to be and acting that way is what is needed.

I know a lot of things will be new in India, in Tibetan culture, and as I try to make a project and then do it not everything is going to work how I want it to -- life isn't' that way and working with people and among people is not that way.  It was important for me to take responsibility for the fact that I had not paid as much attention as I had, but to also not blame myself excessively but move on and do the best I could because it was over and now I just needed to learn.  When I make mistakes and offend people or don't accomplish things quite how I wanted it will work best to learn form it and move on.  It's also not good to get angry with others, I don't think that poor boy I was with would have enjoyed the night any better if I had.  Both of us needing to walk in the cold and not have that time for other things was bad enough, we didn't have to make it worse and could even enjoy what there was to enjoy about it or make it entertaining. 

Tolerance, forgiveness, being open, laughing at yourself, learning...

These are a few of my goals.