First day at Journal writing

5^th July, 2014, Saturday

I am so excited about the whole thing. Had a long, relaxed meeting with SM and AM at SM’s house. I am unable to figure out what is turning me on and motivating me to work, it’s the people or the work. But I am sure its SM and AM who are making my journey more meaningful and interesting. They are wonderful as a person also. Their independent research has also added flavor to this social development work. Working with them keeps reminding me of Ken Robinson’s description about the importance of like-minded people in finding out the ‘element’, the passion of an individual. The feeling is parallel to the first term of M.Sc. Biodiversity when I used to say that ‘this is the first time I am enjoying my education’. ‘This is the first time I am loving my job so much.’ I am realizing why I used to think that I am not a group person as I rarely encountered a group where I was best fitted.  

This also reminds me of the FB post: 

I have been trying to balance my family requirements and work for last 15 days for the special event of my younger sister joining air force today as flying officer.

I could see that I really wanted to give more time to work and was doing odd things to accommodate it.

For SM and AM, Saturday Sunday don’t make any difference. They continue to work. I personally feel that the break from work (even if you like it a lot, not the break, the work I mean) is important to reset your brain for newer perspective towards the same things, unless you reach a stage where you can play devil's for your own brain child as SM does and did today as well. Also, to get off the 'time train' for some time is important to run according to time most of the other times. But surely I am not looking forward to weekends now. And a last minute call for a meeting from SM and AM is more than welcome even on a weekend.

That’s exactly what we had today. A very long, at length meeting at SM’s house about the planning of 1. sector analyst start up meeting and 2. the meeting for tools and techniques of community participation work.
We also had many other discussions and its a treat to hear discussion of  committed, devoted seniors in the field.    

I wish, i had felt the excitement much before and had started writing the journal when I started working on it. But its better late than ever. I also fear that as usual my enthusiasm of writing blog/ journal would end soon. But I want to continue for sure. 

I made few calls today  morning  to ensure that the Sector Analysts (SAs) are available for the start up meeting on 9th July, 2014 Wednesday from 2 pm - 6 pm. A person who was involved with the process since its inception 6 months ago, frankly confessed that his enthusiasm has lowered in the process because on the long 3 months break and the start-up problems that the project went through due to uncertainty of and delayed funding. I could accept it easily without playing the blame game and could convince him to join the meeting once to revive his enthusiasm. 

A report to the funding agency expected us to report exactly how many workshops we are going to take in the year and I had to find that number from a previously prepared proposal document. An overwhelming number of 29 workshops are going to be conducted to make participatory budgeting more meaningful for citizens. I, myself am overwhelmed with the scope of work and the envisioned impact of work. 

I am also supposed to do the process documentation of this historical  event. I am still learning on that front. The best part is this is best place for any learner where everyone feels that they are here to learn something new. Its a perfect atmosphere for learning. I learnt that the minutes of the meeting could be taken a tabular format where all the discussions could be segregated into 4 columns: Agenda/ topic, Discussion/ Decision/ and action. This reminds me of the B.Ed. year when I had really difficult time especially with respect to documentation. It was so very clerical that it didn't enthuse me to do it then. Now that i have the bigger picture in my mind, I have taken up the work which I am weak at and I am enjoying it thoroughly. 

The meeting was followed by an interesting life event sharing by AM which according to him is his reason of not being punctual. We, in our core team have been having issues and discussions about punctuality. It hasn't become a conflict yet. Also, we know each other's strengths and can't afford to let the weaknesses come between us to hamper the strengths. But some of us are really keen on using system's thinking approach which we are currently using for understanding the Urban Health and Transport sector in Pune, to resolve the issue of punctuality. I certainly see the value of it in building organisation. I am eager to use it for the same. 

God!! (by the way I am an atheist!) I have so many things to say and such low typing speed and the brain processing speed as well (somewhere around 3G!!). I surely want to come back to you, blog and tell you what has happened in the last few months when i wasn't writing and what is happening now. See you tomorrow.