Busy

I have been very busy lately. I've got big things going on in 3 different areas of my life.

First of all I have my JVC commitments. ReO/DisO, the annual retreat with all South America JVs and JVC staff, is the second week of October. The last week of October is the JVC staff site visit. Both those events involve some significant preparation. Some of the preparation is logistical (scheduling meetings with the bosses, buying bus tickets to get to ReO/DisO, requesting time off), but most of the preparation is reflectional. There is a 22 question document to be filled out as a community that gives the JVC staff a sense of how we're living out the commitment. Then there's the 52 question personal reflection journal. It takes many hours to complete (if you put serious thought into it) and helps you reflect on your entire experience. Both require a lot of work, but the work is definitely worth it. When we talk about being “contemplatives in action,” this is the contemplative side. The last JVC task is communicating with the office about departure dates, travel home, and travel reimbursements.

Secondly, I have my FyA 44 commitments. Being away for a week means finding a movie to leave for my students to watch. That's not too difficult, but the interruption in the normal flow of work means I should do some more preparation than I usually do at the start of the month to make sure things go well. On top of the usual responsibilities, I have one last big Pastoral Coordinator duty to perform. On the last weekend in October, I'll be chaperoning 4 FyA 44 high school students to the Jesuit Colloquium, a 3 day event that brings together young people involved in the pastoral side of Jesuit projects across the South of Peru and the North of Chile and Bolivia. Getting everything in order for the Mini-Congreso (LINK) was plenty of work. Because the travel will take us farther, there's more work involved. We'll need special notarized permission forms for all 4 students. We need to fundraise so that the costs aren't too heavy. We need to coordinate with other Cusco based youth to make sure we come prepared. I'm talking to Hermana Rosario, 3 different Jesuits, and 4 families to try to get this all to come out well. Say some prayers for us!

Finally, I have applications to work on. Remember when I talked about pivoting LINK? Well a big part of that is getting my grad school applications in. I'm applying to 4 Master's of Teaching programs in the Boston area. Each program has its own due date and its own specific application. Oh how I miss the Common App! But of course, me living and working in Peru makes applying to school in the US more complicated. One of my supervisors at FyA 44 is giving me a recommendation. The problem is that they don't speak English. It would be unethical for me to do the translation myself (for obvious reasons), so I have to pay an official translator in Cusco to get the letter in English. I'm explaining this to each program ahead of time so that there won't be any problems when they receive the original Spanish document with the English translation attached. Any calls with admissions departments has to be carefully scheduled across 2 time zones (imagine missing a meeting because you thought it was at 3 when it was actually at 2) and are sustainable only when the internet signal is strong (which, mercifully, it has been). I'm working hard to get all applications in before December (though the first deadline is November 9^th) so that I can have that last month to live into my goodbyes. So far I'm on track.

As you can see, there's a lot going on. But that's to be expected. It's the fourth quarter, and you have to leave it all out on the field.