These last several days are the longest I have ever gone without posting here. No, I have not quit working and become a beach bum, spending my days drinking Pina Coladas and my nights sleeping in the sand. As my lovely children commonly say, "Dude, don't I wish!"
The sad truth is far more boring than that. We finished the final draft of the Ethics Course. That has taken a fair bit of work. Erich (a.k.a. Dr. Longie) has been working his - well, his something - off teaching workshops on every reservation in sight, snow storms or no. He has collected almost all of the data needed on the on-site version of the workshop, so, if you want to attend, you will need to go to our on-line version and enroll. It is still free until the end of January. Erich has also been going to points far and wide teaching our workshop on Special Education Rights. I think he just heard one too many stories about children not getting the services they needed or school districts not listening to parents, because he has been from one reservation to the next meeting with parents and school staff explaining to them exactly what rights children have under the law.
With Erich off fighting the good fight and collecting data at the beginning and end of each workshop to boot (the government is smarter than you think - no, I am serious - and they insist on data to show we are making a difference) - well, I have been back at the office analyzing all that data, creating a PowerPoint presentation for our webcast on December 14, analyzing the data for our final report on the Disability Access project (now renamed to the Family Life Series) and other research in progress.
I am also working on our next grant for the Tribal Leaders with Character project (Phase II) and doing a lot of minor and major changes on our website. Does it ever drive you crazy when you click on a link and it comes up "not found"? Yeah, me too. So, my helpful assistant, Jenn, found a few that I fixed. I am also working (slowly) on adding media features, especially video, to our virtual library and adding better menus to the disability-specific section of the virtual library. Okay, well, honestly, we don't have any menus for that section right now, so anything at all will be better.
With the end of the year approaching, we are winding down data collection and training a little, which allows me to get caught up. Then next year starts up with the grant due by the first week in February and I will be tearing my hair out again.
Oh well, at least there is never a dull moment around here.
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