Fulbright Ambassador Program

I may be involved with the Fulbright program again. I was nominated to be a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador for 2012-14. Now, I have no idea what that means, so I went to an orientation meeting in Washington D.C. last week and got the scoop. I took the picture you see to the right just in case it's my last opportunity.

What I found out is the Ambassador program was developed in 2009 as part of an outreach program on the part of CIES (Council for International Exchange of Scholars). Former Fulbrighters go out and talk about their experiences and what the Fulbright program is all about to audiences of interested people. Sounds easy, right?

Here's more. The Fulbright Ambassador program is a U.S. State Department Public Diplomacy program, although this, like the Fulbright Scholar experience itself, is not political. The program is still to promote "mutual understanding," and Ambassadors are educational and cultural ambassadors. Secondly, this effort that began in 2009 was part of trying to diversify the Fulbright applicant pool. Who knew but many people have the false idea that the Fulbright is for elites and is unattainable. Well, I am here to tell you that you do not need to be a tenured faculty member with a fancy PhD background. The Fulbright program is looking for regional diversity, cultural diversity, and institutional diversity.

On the left, I took a picture of some of the ideas tossed out by recent Fulbright Ambassadors on what to do or expect while "out in the field." All of these bullet points spoke to me and are useful but "People will come armed with excuses" is one I've already heard. Since I was awarded a Fulbright in early 2009, I've talked up the program with all sorts of people, especially non-traditional academics, also known as #alt-ac types, whom I feel would be perfect for a Fulbright. Most have some sort of excuse for why not to apply. People, if I get to do this Fulbright Ambassador thing, I am coming after YOU.

So, I really hope I can do this program. I will be the first in line to cheer-lead for Fulbright. The Fulbright experience is a remarkable program in countless ways. Oh, and I was put up at the Sofitel Hotel (TripAdvisor review) right next to #OccupyDC (before it was shut down).

More soon.

Beach Running

I used to think that the best exercise location ever was on a sandy beach running, especially in Barbados and even more specifically along Carlisle Bay. It is pretty sweet there. See the funky panorama below.

But today I got to jog again at Siesta Key Beach in Florida like I did the last time I visited this blog with a post (bad, negligent blogger!). This time I took my 11-year-old daughter who seems to enjoy running.

View Larger Map

The sand at Siesta Beach rivals the packed, fine sand anywhere and is perfect for running on. The maps shows this. I prefer to run barefoot. This beach may have convinced me that Florida beaches are first-rate.

Photo of runner on beach is from Creative Commons-licensed Vicky & Chuck Rodgers Flickr collection. The panorama of Carlisle Bay is mine.

Running On the Beach

I am in Florida for the week. The kids are off of school and we're visiting the grandparents. I decided to give a 5K run a try and looked for one in the area of Sarasota. I found a great one on Siesta Key - the 4th Annual Siesta Key Beach 5K Run/Walk for Mental Health Awareness. It was so fun, yet so very hot! I got to about 2.5 miles and started to walk, fearing that I might pass out and totally embarrass myself. But then a woman in headphones, a good 20 years older than I, came up from behind and tapped me and waved me to keep going. She ended up getting first place in her age division.

Though I've been running at the gym at home (it's been too cold for running outside!), I got used to running outdoors on sand. All last year a sandy beach, my backyard, was my "treadmill." This race was so great because it was all sand, no pavement. If you're on the west coast of Florida around this time next year and you like running in 5Ks, go to this run.

Added April 25: I came in fourth in my age category. Who knew!

Creative Commons photos by stephthegeek.

Shipping Barrels To and From the Caribbean

I never wrote on this blog that we needed to ship back a bunch of stuff once it was time to return to the U.S. from Barbados. I realized that small but significant oversite when I saw this short piece in today's New York Times, "Shipping Christmas to the Caribbean."

Yes, Christmas is pretty huge in Barbados but what is even more huge are the prices of things like laundry detergent, dry cereal, and clothes. Prior to moving to Barbados for the year we were advised to "send a barrel full of stuff because everything is so expensive here." I looked into this but never did happen upon any information about shipping a barrel. All I found was that I could get a portion of a shipping container but that seemed overly large for our needs. I even thought about sending one of our cars over to Barbados, filled with extra "stuff," but worried about getting slammed with a high tariff.

The airlines have made it so that in the year we were away, we could bring home even fewer bags than when we came. We could pay extra for each bag, of course, but it was going to really add up. That is when we got on the stick and found out about shipping a barrel. The only place that does this type of shipping in Barbados is Laparkan whom we bought an empty cardboard drum from (similar to the one in the photo). We took it home and filled it up with 300 pounds of books, long pants, a rip stick and beach towels. Laparkan then came to pick it up and facilitated our shipping the barrel back to New York. We were told it would take about a week. It really took two and a half weeks (not bad) and we had to go down to JFK to pick it up. By the way, our barrel was opened and inspected somewhere along the way, not in Barbados and not in the U.S. but all of our stuff was there, though we had Lego pieces flying everywhere.

If you're moving to the Caribbean, be aware that the prices of all the things you know and love (or at least the things you rely on) are going to be really high. If you're in the New York area, check out this Times article for some advice on who ships barrels to which countries.

Severe Storm in Barbados

I heard that tropical Storm Tomas hit Barbados pretty hard on Saturday October 30. It struck at 6 am so, fortunately, there were few people on the roads driving to work and school. I also hear that there were, thankfully, no fatalities. These two videos not only show the severity of the storm but also show where I used to live. I drove along this road - the Coast Road on the west coast in St. James parish - everyday.

This one shows the same route only driving south on the coast road, going towards Bridgetown.

I hope everyone is doing okay there in Barbados and that the recovery is quick.

Getting Back to the U.S. - Clearing Up Mail Forwarding

I got back to the U.S. August 16 after living in Barbados for nearly a full year. I've needed to write this short update to express some frustrations with the U.S. Postal Service upon my return.

Oddly enough, it was easy to forward my family's mail down to Barbados but going in the reverse took months to rectify; we started receiving mail addressed to our Poughkeepsie adress on October 11. In my mind it was a simple "Turn off the Forward" that should have been easily handled at some sorting center somewhere in my county. I'm including here that the problem, in the U.S. Postal Service's eyes, stems from receiving mail from an adress abroad...note the "We don't handle from foreign addresses" written in under Other. Sheesh! How U.S.-centric can we get!

I was so frustrated with the situation of multiple phones calls and run-around and finger pointing - "It's not MY job" - that I contacted my local state representative. It's an election year, so why not? The assistant to the Senator told me she made a call and got the same crazy run-around that I got and said, ultimately, that because the U.S. Postal Service is a Federally-run entity, I should contact my U.S. Senator. Oy!

I'm not one of those "take your hands off my money" kinds of people and I agree with paying taxes for services for the public good. A functioning mail service is a public good. Our U.S. Postal Service is not, at present, a well-oiled machine.

Funny. I went to a small island nation in the Caribbean and had no problem with my mail getting to me.

Coming Home - Making a New Normal

I've been back in Poughkeepsie, New York, for a month. Hard to believe. There’s still stuff to unpack from our year in Barbados.

Yesterday I received an email from a friend/ colleague/ mentor and in it she said "How're things back in New York? Transitioning back to the old normal can be difficult (so we make new normals)."

This resonated with me and moved me to write as this weekend (starting Friday evening) was Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – and the start of the Jewish New Year. At the Saturday morning service I sat and listened to the rabbi’s sermon. He started by talking about the idea of resurrection, a foreign concept in Reformed Judaism, but something that was part of early Judaism and still believed by Orthodox Jews. In discussing resurrection, the rabbi said that he felt that one's dying and returning could be looked at more of a metaphor. He thought of it more to mean rebirth, or in my mind renewal, that we may or may not come back from the dead. Who knows? Who among us has seen Moses or Abraham Lincoln? (Though some have claimed to have seen Elvis.) Rabbi said that when we feel we have hit a road block or come to the end of a long road or when we feel the most lost, there will be something that turns it around, we're shown a new road, a new door opens, there's a clearing in the forest. So rather than the literal interpretation of resurrection, he gave us something akin to resurrecting a life, a new beginning a new normal.

Barbados, for me was a glorious journey that fulfilled me beyond measure. After a long spate of personal and professional trials, I was presented with Barbados where my family and I flourished. How could I go back to New York after such an amazing year abroad? They say you can never go back. But it is just not true. Sometimes, you have to go back. And who could not wish to return to the beauty that is found within the Hudson Valley in autumn? The weather is now turning cool and crisp, the leaves are just beginning to change. I love this season. My house is spacious and welcoming. I see neighbors on the street who stop and ask how my year was. They missed me. They missed my family. I am home. You can go back.

For the first time in my life, I do not have a clear plan. Since I was a teenager, I’ve known, career-wise, what I was going to do. I came back home to New York following a terrific Fulbright experience without a paying job, but I am more clear-eyed than ever. I am taking a sabbatical. I am resting. I am excited about the present moment picking my kids up from school, moving back into our house, supporting my partner as she goes back to work, and planting my feet back into my Poughkeepsie community. This is my new normal, a new beginning. What the future holds is still to be determined.

To a sweet, happy, good new year, L’shana Tova!

Photo of the Hudson Valley is from Flickr Creative Commons taken by b.reynolds.