anjali's blog

Please support the Paralympic movement and cheer on some of my fellow teammates and friends as they compete in the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Games!

The best place to watch the live action is: ParalympicSport.TV

Please support the Paralympic movement and cheer on some of my fellow teammates and friends as they compete in the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Games!

The best place to watch the live action is: ParalympicSport.TV

The Gasparilla 15K is growing into quite the event! It is always fun to be at the first race of the season and to see both familiar and new faces. I had a great race, improved my time from last year which is always exciting. I ran a 41:40 and finished 4th!! The rest of my team did very well too: Amanda finished 2nd, Jessie finished 5th, Maggie 7th. On the guys side, Josh finished 5th and Tony was 7th. Way to go Illini! For complete results, click here.

Watching the 2010 Vancouver Games has been so incredibly exciting, and at the same time incredibly difficult to watch. Every day I am glued to the television, in class, (yep, I admit it…and for my professors and classmates reading this, what can I say, I’m just being honest), I am glued to the Official Vancouver Website and various live feeds to get up-to-the-second information---isn’t technology wonderful?

Well, it has been a while since I have updated my blog. There have been several exciting things happening in my life since attending the Hartford Ski Spectacular. After the event, I came back to Illinois for a few days and wrapped up the toughest, craziest, busiest semester of my life. I am happy to report I successfully completed 5 doctorate courses, my early research project (basically like a masters thesis and oral defense), being a teaching assistant for two courses, training 5-6 days a week and the occasional speaking event and on rare occasions, sleeping.

Wow... what an amazing week out at The Hartford Ski Spectacular. I had not been out to the event since...2001? For those of you not familiar with the event, it is an extraordinary event sponsored by The Hartford and put on by Disabled Sports USA that brings in over 800 individuals --- people with disabilities learning to ski, learning to race, adaptive instructors/coaches, wounded warriors, program coordinators etc. The energy is high and it is the kind of week that sticks with people for a long time, if not for life.

I'm a TA for a class and they have to do this wicked awesome assignment to drive home the concepts of transformational learning and how powerful it is. You either have to design your own tattoo, that reflects your values, beliefs, norms, and attitudes or do a name that tune where you identify a song that is your song. It's the song that makes us think about our lives and what's really important in our lives. When I took the class, I did the design the tattoo, which I'm in the process of finding a good artist so I can actually get it.

Day 14

Relationships have never been my strong suit, I guess it's the introvert in me and the fact that I'm very reluctant to trust anybody other than myself. However, relationships with those in need, or with those who lack an advocate or support—those come easy to me. I can walk into a room with a kid who has been labeled as hopeless or abandoned or non-communicative or non-verbal and have meaningful conversation. I can connect to a person who has a lot of dark in their past and just listen.

There are so many things left to do, and we are running out of time! Yikes! Guess I’ll have to come back. That’s always how it goes though—never enough time to get everything accomplished because life isn’t linear. The learning never stops here at Shishur Sevay. The need for love and compassion also never stops. Things just keep on moving.

Today was a busy day, it involved shopping with Gibi and Bijoy and getting 11 new volunteers oriented to Shishur Sevay!! So many exciting things are happening. It is hard to believe it will be soon time to return home. The new volunteers who came are so excited to work with the kids, to help out with anything that needs doing around the grounds (painting, landscaping etc.) as well as assist with the computers! I’m so excited to have a group of eager volunteers to help me finish the tasks that I have yet to finish and to transition them to teach and use the computer programs!