Stuck at the airport for 2 hours... good time to blog.

So, I’m sitting here in LAX, dog tired (need to look up the origin of that expression) and yet too full of thoughts and feelings to even entertain the idea of sleeping. During the car ride to LAX I really thought that I would just want to sleep but as I sat here I realized that I was too much in the midst of contemplation to sleep. And then I say to myself (in my head… not out loud… people already think I’m weird enough…) Ah HA! This is REFLECTION, so I should write it down… so out comes the laptop. The lady next to me glances at me, gives a slight shake of the head, and goes back to reading her magazine. Yes… I have now announced my geekiness to the entire Gate 5 area by pulling out a monstrous laptop while sitting in an airport… and yes.. I do intend to play a game on it when I’m done writing (I do have over two hours to sit here)… so Ha. Note to self – perhaps having such a large laptop screen isn’t such a good thing when writing personal thoughts while sitting in very crowded public spaces. Of course, I’m going to publish it to the extremely public web when I get home… see definition of a moot point (boy am I loopy with exhaustion!)

<>This week really was amazing (I need to stop using “really”). I don’t know what I expected, I think I must have expected something but whatever it was is no longer accessible to me. I read everything posted on the VirtCamp web site weeks before coming and felt energized and enthused (like the way I feel right before a huge thunder and rain storm). After reading all of it I was moresure than ever that the OMET program was the place for me – after all the Community of Practice is what so much of my education and endeavors (drama, dance, art, etc.) has been about… but … I still could not have begun to anticipate what I would encounter and experience at VirtCamp. And now that I have, I’m at a loss for how I will be able to describe it to my peers and family. I can tell them about everything we did, the tasks we accomplished, how we got there, how we got to know each other… but the experience is what is important and no description does it justice.

This week was unlike anything I could have expected, not unfamiliar but still completely new. This is the way teams should work. I thought I knew how teams should come together but now I know that I have a great deal to learn about teams and communities. Now – I think maybe what I knew was just a shadow or a distorted reflection and not reality.

<>It truly is phenomenal that 30-something complete strangers could come together in four and a half days and do what we did. I don’t mean the Lego vehicles (although those were beautiful, impressive, fun, and remarkable), nor the webpages, movies, photos, or any of the other ‘things’ we created. All those things were just tangible “take-aways” that help represent what it was we really spent those four+ days creating. We formed a bond and a set of relationships that, in my personal experience, can take weeks, months, or even longer to perform. Even when I was still part of drama troupes and regularly involved in building the kind of community necessary for a cast to work together on stage, bonds like this were not formed so quickly or so unanimously. Everyone has become so genuinely part of everyone else. After a ridiculously short time we have all developed an honestly vested interest in each others success. I’m going to have to rethink all the cynical suppositions I’ve come to rely on in my adult life. I feel like an idealistic kid again (at least at this moment… although I’m watching the other, darker, side of human relationship unfold in the airport around me... interesting comparison).

<>I feel as if I have known many of the members of Cadre 7, and particularly Super7, for months or even years. If someone had said something like that to me last week, about a group of people they had just met a few days ago, I would have thought they were speaking in hyperbole. Sure – you can occasionally meet an individual and feel after a very short time that you’ve “known them all your life,” but when does that ever happen w/ a group of 30+ individuals. I don’t know where these relationships will go or how they will evolve, but I can only imagine them becoming stronger over the next 13 months. I think one of my favorite parts of the day today was watching how everyone lit up when each vehicle performed (even if not quite in the way the builders and programmers hoped) and when each movie was screened. I was overwhelmed and drunk with the palpable sense of genuine support in the room. Everyone wanted everyone else to succeed, everyone knew that everyone else had succeeded and that the only way we could possibly do that was together. All talk of “winning” was disgarded. It’s a profound feeling to be not only present but part of creating that atmosphere.

<>The other thing that is keeping me thinking (and not sleeping) is my curiosity as to what my epiphany will be… I’m certain that it will come… but I have no idea what it will center on. I already believe in the value and necessity of a community of practice. As and instructor and a student I participate in and endorse the fact that we discover learning and that we share it with each other equally (rather than one individual or group of individuals handing it out and others receiving).

That said, in my current thoughts is the fact that within this community I fall pretty much in the middle – by age, by experience, by skills, by talent. This is a new feeling for me… I’m used to being out in front, at least in terms of ability or skills or initiative (if not always age and talent). I am both apprehensive and excited about being in the middle. I’m apprehensive because I’m so used to being the one that shares the knowledge with someone else. I’m excited because there is such a wealth of everything (not just knowledge) in this group and it provides such an open conduit for learning. I’m also excited because, being in the middle, I feel somewhat comfortable with the tools but am still open to learning how to use them (rather than assuming that I already know the best way to go about accomplishing the various tasks). Or, at least I hope that I can remember to approach each challenge that way. Yesterday, in the middle of the day and later in the evening, I was completely frustrated with a tool (yes… Avid) and lost sight of the “process.” I was angry not with the tool – ok… yeah… a little with the tool… but mostly with myself for being mastered by the tool instead of mastering the tool. This is unproductive in itself since mastering a tool is pointless when the tool will not remain the same. I must stop thinking of tools and tasks as things I must conquer. I think that will be rather difficult for me. That is one of the many things I’m making a personal commitment to work on this year. I need to stop assuming I should be able to figure out everything for myself. I need to learn and relearn to not get so hung up on making something work the way I think it should work.

<>Home: (Yeah… I’m only a few moments away from sleeping in my own lovely, large, and antless bed!!!!!)

"I, I, I…. "rereading this before I post it I see a lot of “I” this and “I” that… so … is that what reflection is about… what I’m going to do, how I’m going to change…. Not so sure about that. It is certainly what I am reflecting on… but I’m not so sure it should always be “self-reflection.” Definitely something to think on.

One more thing before I go to bed. This is for rereading later.

<>Our group (the entire Cadre 7) is made up of such phenomenal people. Some of the very best people I’ve ever met. On the ride home from the airport I tried to emphasize to my folks how incredibly honored and humbled I am to be considered worthy of belonging to such a community of people. Of course, mom says that I am phenomenal too… but she is my mom and so biased. This isn’t false modesty, I’m a confident person and aware of my own self-worth but I’m still humbled to be not only part of but embraced by such an impressive group of people.

Ok… Step awaaaaaay from the computer… and go to sleep.