Project Management and Conflict-Resolution

big one for me in growing as a leader and a manager of the discipleship students that work in the ATV (Appropriate Technology Village--the area I am managing as staff). Learning to be a project-manager has had a huge learning curve and conflict resolution has shifted in a great direction the dynamics of the group I have in the afternoon.

On project-managing: 

The eco-ponics fish tank which is about 3.5' tall and about 8' feet in diameter, was losing about an inch a week of water due to evaporation! This is not cool. It will throw off the water chemistry and mess with the process of bacteria creating available oxygen for the fish to live, and also mess with the nutrients like nitrogen that the plants need to grow to then feed the fish. Solution: let's build an upright for a shade cloth!

Complete Shade Cloth (click to enlarge)

What do we need:

1 shade cloth
4 posts
4 carribeaners
4 hook-screws
4 cable clamps
4 concrete blocks
4-8 concrete bolts
4 L-shaped brackets
8-12 wood screws
cable or rope

So my plan of action: dig 4 holes, insert concrete blocks, attach brackets to concrete blocks and wood posts, with respective screws, hand-screw the hook-screws in, and pitch the shade cloth. Should take a day or two (5 hours of work time), right? ...NOPE!

It took 18 hours (worth of work-periods) to do a lot of things wrong before we figured out the right ways.

Ladies: Jesus is Already Our Hero

I have been sorting through the deeper things with God, and well, lets just get down to it, I'm talking about relationships, dreaming of a husband, and all the nervous-exciting things that lead up to it.

I have had my fair share of crushes and heartbreaks, and done my fair share of crushing hearts. And, there have been enough participants in my trial & errors to see some trends. This reflection has brought some good revelations out of my prayer time.

So girls, time to be honest. After meeting or even just seeing a cute guy do you ever wonder if he'll walk up to you and tell you "_______________"? Do you ever think that after an exchange of words that perhaps the next day at work he will ___________ ? Are you ever thinking--while alone and quiet, doing your daily routine--that he might come over to you and compliment you, take that heavy box up the stairs for you, or, Heaven forbid, he be conveniently around that moment you twist an ankle and he can help you up and care for you?

Now, these are general examples not too far from the actual ones I think...almost all the time. It doesn't take much: great eyes, great smile, great pants, cool glasses, sly smirk...to peak my interest in a guy. I mean, if he's a cutie, my imagination is already busy hoping that it's just the beginning of everything I want in a boyfriend--fiance--husband.

Does this ever happen to you? Does a passing thought ever linger and become an obsession we call a "crush?"

I think these things are totally normal, by the way. Relief. You are not weird.

Life in Kona, Again

Living in Kona, Hawaii is so interesting. Interesting because it isn't just the paradise that you think of if you are a casual vacationer or a daydreamer...it is real life for about 35,000 people. It also some form of real life for me, not filled with scuba-diving and dolphin or whale watching, but filled with the realities of proliferate poverty/homelessness, underpaid jobs and overpriced goods and services, being sensitive to the community and doing my job here on campus. Of course it is beautiful and tropical, and the aura around here is 'aloha' and 'ohana'-a slow paced easy-does-it lifestyle. Of course I am grateful and delight in my surroundings nearly everyday (I do my best to remind myself of how much I have to be thankful on a daily basis, wherever I am). My heart feels estranged in the realistic alternative to paradise, but at the same time, I am so comfortable here I call it my home, feeling like I never left it last September. The friends are different, the schools are different, but as they say 'the more things change the more they stay the same...'

My mommasita visited me last week and it was so great to have her here! (Hi Mom!) It was just as confusing though to hang out with her around dinner time during the work week, like she was visiting me at college or I was back living at home working and we were unwinding from a day of work. Saturday and Sunday we did errands and had Panda Express for lunch--everything but the ocean views and Hawaiian Shirts was completely normal to a weekend in Fresno. But...how cool to have my mom pick me up from a long day of serving God and leading students in helping me with projects in the garden & technologies area? Too cool! Also, the best motivation to put on cute clothes (for going out to dinner), as in not my gardening clothes. I foresee all my shorts to have dirt-stained-butts in the rear future :)

It was quite a bummer that the weather was overcast-y and cool the week my mom was here, not that that wasn't a relief from Central Cali high temps, but because she didn't get to see a delightful Hawaiian sunset...that is, until the last night.

Guava!

The things I do here have added up to being pretty random. I measure the oxygen level in a fish pool amidst the garden, I have harvested guava, moringa and cotton, yes COTTON! all from the same garden. I have seen a fish be gutted and cleaned out and had a coconut harvested and chopped at the end to drink out of.

Dragging away a hefty branch!

A false/decorative Pineapple, & mutated at that!