11 Day Hiatus, Sorry!

Wow, it's 11 days since my last post, time flies! 

Our level of comfort continues to increase here in the UK. It's becoming more natural to know what words to use. It's slightly easier to quickly realize how other people are thinking and feeling. Over the past few weeks, I've mostly learned that a heavy percentage of our decisions are based in the short term. Even in a culture here that is quite long term conscious, based in historical bedrock, there is still a tendency to react in the moment. Ill probably keep looking up research to learn more about cultures, personality types and decision making.

I was fortunate to travel back to Henley University last week. Such a great group of people. I was meeting with their project management professors, as opposed to their Organisational Development and Knowledge Management folks. I was impressed how connected they were to each other, how aware and intelligent they were of not only the progress in their own college, but in many others as well. 

From a family perspective, we had a good conversation about which groups and activities that we'd like to join. My oldest daughter requested cooking lessons, and acting lessons. As a family we researched both, found some great ones, and got her right in. We learned that most cooking lessons last one hour. We were hoping for more of a curriculum, a series of lessons that build upon themselves. We found one! Sure, it's an hour drive, which is similar to a 4-6 hour drive from a cultural comparison to the states, but it's great. Very popular class, our daughter loves it and immediately says she wants to stick with it. We also found a great acting class, which culminates with an accredited certification. She likes that class too, it's walking distance from the house. 

We don't have a tv, so we've been somewhat keeping up through Netflix and Hulu. I clicked on the first episode of a TV show called Breaking Bad and found myself immediately hooked. Now I'm feeling guilty as I watch hours and hours to "catch up". 

In the middle of winter, daylight is at a premium. It's light from about 8am to 4pm, with dawn and dusk just before and after. The temperature doesn't shift much day to day, so I find myself much more aware of small fluctuations in the temperature. That's a strange feeling for me, I think I literally used to just "absorb" large temperature changes and not even think about it.

As a closing thought, the grocery story is an 8 minute peaceful walk away. A lively playground is just two more minutes further. And yet, we find ourselves choosing to drive there. There's something overly rushed about that, I'm starting to notice. It's pretty probably a mentality that's similar to the one that's driving "high performance" and "productivity", always looking for the quickest, fastest, cheapest way. Whilst that's probably quite valuable in a work environment, I'm just now realising that maybe we can dial it up and down for different situations. Maybe choosing an 8 minute walk, with some good chit chat along the way, as opposed to a 2 minute drive, might help us appreciate things. I'll give it a chance :)