Juggling

Sorry, sorry, sorry I haven't been posting more often. The reason is that work responsibilities have kind of gone through the roof lately... seems like, now that I can hear again, they're starting to realize how much they do, in fact, need me around here :) They've ratcheted my hours up to 35 per week. So I'm full-time again.

I am currently (along with a bunch of other stuff) conducting a series of focus groups around the province. It's a bit astonishing, isn't it? A few months ago, I was as deaf as a stone; now, I am facilitating focus groups of four to twenty young people (target group: multicultural youth, aged 15 to 29), sometimes raucous, sometimes rowdy, sometimes I say, "Whoah, whoah, whoah! Remember the Ground Rules? Only one person speaking at a time! I gotta keep up with y'all!" And I'm keeping up - even though almost all the participants have strong accents - and keeping the conversation going, and asking challenging questions and gleaning tons of interesting information.

It means a lot of travel (on Friday night, Husband said, "Wow, Hon, I'm glad you're here for 36 hours in a row!!!"). But it's so interesting, talking to young students and workers and kids all over the place about their lives.

And it's just one of several really interesting balls I've got in the air at the moment.

At the same time, I'm still looking for something else. It's hard to explain, but it's clear to me that it's time for me to move on to something else - hopefully something else in the same general field (multiculturalism/diversity/immigration/settlement) but it's time to move on. Keep your fingers crossed for me - I'm now searching from a position of strength, as opposed to my fear when I was suddenly relegated to part-time status, and everything seemed tenuous. Let's just say I've got a couple of aces in my pocket, and I'm already playing with good hand.

ronnie