Dancing for Joy

Have you ever experienced the true joy of finishing a project that was complicated and taking up tons of your time? That is what I felt this past Wednesday evening at around 7pm as I finished up some paperwork and sent it as an attachment to an email. I didn't actually dance though, that part of the title is much more symbolic of the feeling in my heart at the time than the actions I took. I might have done a fist pump though (which, now that I think about it, is a habit I picked up from my father who does that when the Colts do something good like score a touchdown or get an interception...I imagine anything more overtly celebratory would draw our Mennoniteness into question).

Moving on though, I got to spend some good time with a co-worker Austin before he leaves permanently. After he is gone Nate and I will be the ones here the longest. That is just weird but I guess it has been 2 years as of the end of this month. That ends up meaning that I only have 1 year left but I'm trying not to think about that. I've got enough stuff on my plate for the next couple of months to keep me occupied. There is my milk cow study that I'm going to try to finish before the end of this month so I can give the report. Beyond that, my boss wants me to do a review of the way we measure the income of our farmers and try to come up with a better way. Since we are also starting a trial agriculture education program in a couple of schools next year, he also wants me to come up with a way to compare that to our normal activities. Those both need to be done by January which sounds like a long way away until you think about the fact that I'm going to be working on the milk cow survey for the next couple of weeks, then there are several major holidays in Bangladesh next month, and then I'll be vacationing in India in December.

The MCC Nepal/India/Afghanistan expats invited the MCC Bangladesh expats to join them for a retreat in India. It looks like we'll be somewhere in Goa, India in the middle of December and then it also sounds like I'll be getting together with some friends to head up to the Delhi area after that. I know a couple of the Nepal people and even went to college with one of the SALT workers, so it will be good to see familiar faces again. It is my plan to spend Christmas in India this year. Living in Bangladesh is tough sometimes (for instance I got sick again this week) but some parts of my job really should make everyone else jealous. I think a trip to India qualifies.