Catching Up

This morning I met with my faculty advisor to discuss my Fulbright report. Turns out, she thought it was pretty good. I'm glad to hear that, but I thought it still needed (needs) lots of work.

She mentioned that if I wanted to, I could work on an article with her. However, then I would need to do a lot of work to present my data in a more rigorous way. Right now, it works as a report, but as an academic paper, it needs more.

What's funny is how she then followed that up with: "But I think you're more interested in moving toward policy and organizational management areas, no?" Haha. Dead on, I'd say. Hence, she said the decision to write an article is up to me, since I would have to evaluate how valuable I would consider such a project—and whether I even have the time for it.

I feel very blessed to have such a great advisor. I'm taking her to lunch in a few weeks as a thank you. And we've already agreed to stay in touch, especially since we have many mutual interests around education and policy, though from different approaches.

After my meeting, I came home early and promptly took a two hour nap, since I have been sleep-deprived from the HIA Conference and the activities of the subsequent days. When I woke up, Brandon was on his way over so we could have our afternoon to catch up.

He leaves for the U.S. later this week, so our time together in Germany is quickly coming to an end. In fact, tomorrow will be our last time hanging out together this year, since he doesn't return to Berlin until after I head back to Seattle. He's staying for another year. 

We made some food and drank beers, while swapping pictures and music from the past year. 

Fun stuff, making food.

We had sauerkraut, potato salad, and baked chicken. Yum.

I also got a bunch of pictures from Brandon from the past year, which I hadn't seen before. So I'll post some of them in a future post.

We then headed to Kreuzberg for dinner with some friends from Seattle. They're in town for the UW Honors in Berlin Summer Program. They are also all Dream Project friends, so it was an  especially joyous reunion.

Based on Ben's recommendation, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant not far from where I used to live. It was delicious!

We were all excited to eat it.

And of course, we all took pictures of it first.

Ben even posed with the cover to the food. Looks like a sombrero...

The last time I had injera was in January with Michelle, Brandon, and Matt. This was also pretty dang good.

Between eight of us, we put away two giant platters. But one of the platters was bigger than the other. Funny that the four with the bigger platter cleaned the platter off while we who had the smaller platter still had some leftovers. Haha.

Temneet was also so kind as to bring me some gifts from home, like these Oreos. :) She also brought me some much needed allergy medicine and my new Scholarship Junkies business cards! They look way better than my old one, though I also am always critiquing how I can make them better.

After dinner, we headed over to Oranienstraße for some drinks. As we walked into the bar, the German women's national soccer team wrapped up their victory in their World Cup game. Then I saw this great poster on the wall—the Germans do love them some Native American stuff.

Tomorrow, Ben is heading off to the next leg of his adventures, and I will catch up on the millions of emails I have neglected in recent days. I also need to prep for my English lessons tomorrow. After all the action and responsibilities of the past few weeks, I am looking forward to winding down with a day of nothing on Friday. I need it...

Till then,

Sam