I’ve been meaning to take my new, big zoom lens to work for a while to capture the amazing insect world out there. Finally I remembered this week, and then the problem was that I had a lot of work to do. I kept trying to leave the office a bit early in the evening to have some time to crawl around on the ground and take pictures. It was such a photo-taking bounty though, that I could never leave myself enough time or, better said, as much time as I would have liked. Even 10-15 minutes was plenty given the grasshopper population on the path between my office and the parking lot. I will just have to keep hauling the camera and big lens out there I guess. Oh my hardship in the Peace Corps.

I also may have accidentally talked myself into something resembling Tech Transfer at the office. That’s what I get for trying to have a project conversation in Spanish. The next conversation, to clarify the details, should probably be in English, but it was great that the first discussion was in Spanish. I felt it was important for the social aspect of the interaction.

I’m trying to keep a good attitude about this conversation I had with my counterpart yesterday afternoon. My attitude about primary project work is an ongoing challenge. I generally feel more passionate about my secondary project work and the opportunities that I’m trying to develop. However, those are supposed to be secondary projects. I’ve thought about some ideas for projects at the office, but I have not been working to implement them except for teaching English. We are almost 6 months in site, and I realized that if I don’t actually do anything about these ideas, then the 2 years will slip away and it will be my fault, laziness, and probably bad attitude that kept me from trying to support the Tech Transfer program. At least now, whether the projects succeed or fail, I will have tried and I will have something to talk about come mid-service training. I’m being vague on these “ideas”, but I’m sure to write about them in the future when things are actually happening. Balancing pessimism and realism, it is still to be seen how much of the conversation yesterday leads to real action, but I am going to continue forward with positive expectations. (Anything that will keep me away from that damn microscope…)