Happy Veteran's Day

Today is a very special day. It's an opportunity to say thank you and recognize the sacrifice, honor, and service of the veterans of armed forces. I personally have at least six family members who have served or are currently serving in the armed forces. It has been a huge influence on me personally and on the way that I perceive patriotism and service to country.  I'd also like to recognize the wives and families of veterans. You make just as many sacrifices and earn as much honor in my opinion.

Thank you for your service.

I have also served at an Embassy - and let me just give a quick Happy Birthday! to the Marine Corps - and worked with defense attaches and Marine security guards. Their professionalism, motivation, and job knowledge has always impressed me. I had the opportunity to help the MSGs at Embassy Beirut settle into the community by getting them out to meet youth, serve as real-life examples of Americans to the high school and middle school students that I worked with through our education and sports programs. Their diversity, loyalty and friendliness - not to mention their athletic ability - made a huge impression on the students. Some of these students are from areas in Lebanon where leaders are openly anti-America. This was the first chance to meet an American in person, not just see the hyperbole of reality television.

At the Independence Day celebration

Thank you for your service, not only protecting us but also reaching out and changing stereotypes.

Today is also an opportunity to seriously consider how we treat veterans of military service. It is an opportunity to consider how often we need to send men and women into danger. An opportunity to think about the consequences to the health, mental and physical, of war on entire generations of Americans.  And how much we invest to bring them back to health. It is so important to protect and defend the rights and recovery of those who have protected and defended us.

Reflection on the beginning of the universe

"The first moments of the universe are a great blossoming of astounding creativity. Reflect on the beginning of the universe and its relationship to the world in which we live today. What part of this story of our universe’s emergence evokes awe or wonder in you?" from Journey of the Universe coursera MOOC

Honestly, the part that most astounds me is how we, as humans, were able to craft and test theories so profound about the beginning of the universe. The depth of inquiry and expertise at mathematics evoke such wonder in me. As someone who tends to participate in academics on the literature and language side, I am awestruck by even the questions. How is it that human intellect can observe enough to begin asking these questions. And then learn and know enough to devise methods to find those answers.

The first interview I had after submitting my resignation was with the National Science Foundation. They had an open position as a public affairs specialist. I was very excited about the opportunity and had a wonderful conversation with the hiring manager and another team mate. As we talked, I believe that I was able to meet all of their interests except on one front: I didn’t have a science background. I didn’t even really have a demonstrable interest in science.

They explained that although the job didn’t require an experience in science, they found that the people who really succeed and enjoy their positions at the NSF are people who have always been fascinated by science, who keep up to date on new discoveries, who have side hobbies on scientific topics.

I know now that I could have given several great answers to their “interest in science” question:

• Work on sexual and reproductive health - I have five years’ experience!
• Interest in nutrition and food production - working with rice producers in Togo
• Climate change and environmental protection - did you know that I once had a singing gig on radio to promote recycling when I was a kid? Plus work on environmental protection in Togo
• Investment in girls’ education, particularly in STEM fields. Admittedly, my role was to promote other womens’ interest in science, rather than my own but I set priorities for scholarships, grants, and exchange opportunities that focused on building up women’s participation in STEM fields.

Me (far left) with the TechWomen alumni who put together a Hands-On STEM project encouraging young high school students to mentor middle school students. (Notice my working gear earrings?!?) Album

What I’m trying to say is that I am very interested in science but I haven’t studied it; I do not have the deep knowledge to know how to ask these questions about the origins of the universe. But I love learning about it and I’m so happy to expand my understanding, albeit superficially!

I’ll end with a fantastic quote from Vera Rubin, an American astronomer who helped prove the existence of dark matter.

"In a spiral galaxy, the ratio of dark-to-light matter is about a factor of ten. That's probably a good number for the ratio of our ignorance-to-knowledge. We're out of kindergarten, but only in about third grade."

—Vera Rubin

I love learning

I love learning.

It makes me so happy. I love to improve myself, learn a new skill, get new knowledge, even if it means that I’ve been wrong before.

This is part of why I’ve loved participating in MOOCs. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) were an important part of my work in Lebanon. Each semester, we selected a MOOC on a topic that is relevant to our audiences and then publicized the course, invited participants to fill out an application for why they wanted to join, and recruited an alumni or other expert to facilitate a live discussion to enhance the online material.

It was great - we did topics like Journalism for Social Change, Entrepreneurship, American Government, and of course, several topics to enhance English language teaching. By combining the online content with an in-person discussion, we were able to achieve much higher rates of completion for the MOOC and serve our additional purpose of building a network of engaged Lebanese. It served several goals on our part - first of all, to build the skills of Lebanese people in these areas, and second to promote American universities. Because, of course, all of the courses we chose were created by American universities. It was a great opportunity to expose Lebanese to lesser-known public or small universities and colleges that they might not have considered previously.

But our audience was not just university students, it included many adults who were interested in working on their English skills and re-engaging with learning.

There is no reason we should not continue learning well after university.

Since I’ve been at home, I have enrolled in three Coursera courses, but I’ve decided to focus on just one for the moment, so that I can really enjoy it (and take care of all the other chores and joys of life).

my MOOC companion, Ripken

I’m taking the Journey of the Universe course. It’s an integrated theological-ecological-cosmological approach to looking at the origin of the universe and how humanity has shaped our identity based on our understanding of our origin. I love it.

I’m going to use some of the discussion topics from the course as prompts for my blogging this month.

Here’s the first one:

The first moments of the universe are a great blossoming of astounding creativity. Reflect on the beginning of the universe and its relationship to the world in which we live today. What part of this story of our universe’s emergence evokes awe or wonder in you?

What would your answer be?

I’ll post mine tomorrow for November 3!

A month of blogging

Hello friends and loyal readers!

After a very long hiatus from writing on this blog, I’ve decided to write every day in the month of November!

I had originally thought about participating in NaNoWriMo, but I wasn’t able to come up with any great fictional stories that I wanted to tell this year. So instead, I’ll be writing non-fiction. I’m going for a minimum 200 word count but won’t be too stringent if time gets away from me. The idea is to create something every day, stretch my writing muscles, and reconnect with family and friends.

As many of you know, I’ve left the Foreign Service and I am back in Washington, DC. I’ve got a job offer, but I’m still waiting for a start date, so I’m keeping that under wraps a bit for the moment. And in the meantime, I am unemployed and enjoying having time to nest and cook and reconnect with my wonderful partner.

I’m hoping to use this opportunity to write about the travel I did in Lebanon and answer people’s questions about being in the Foreign Service and choosing to leave it. If you have a question you would like to see a post about - please do leave a comment! I am always in need of a writing prompt.

Today’s blog is brought to you with the help of a delicious cup of Bengal Spice tea and pumpkin spice whoopie pie from the local Dutch Country market.

P.S. Happy Halloween and Welcome Winter!