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!