Annalisa en Panamá

Among the kinds of things I'm kind-of-obnoxiously proud of, it's my ability to read and write.   I can read a passage from a book (or a doctor's handout or a memo) faster than almost anyone in the same room with me; moreover, I'm kind of smug about that. (Blood donation centers: you want me to read that 3-page handout before I fill out the 2-page form?  Done with the handout, and done with the form and all its long-winded questions!  So there!) When it comes to writing, I confidently wield those rules that plague lesser mortals:  its-vs-it's, lie-vs-lay, less-vs-fewer, modifiers that are never ever (no, never) misplaced.   This ability has been, at times, a mild form of super power for me. I've had a number of journals accept my submissions quickly and with minimal fuss; that's a rare and precious thing for a scholar, really.  For example, here's the letter I got last December from an editor: The referee enjoyed your paper very much, as did I when...

 Forecast:  87°/76° with heavy rain;  Humidity :  95% Sunrise  6:09 am.,  Sunset  6:24 p.m. This Thursday marks three weeks for me in Panama.  I arrived with my husband, and I have been delighted to have him with me as I get my feet underneath me.  But now he's back stateside for two months, and I think I am actually in a good place to go solo for a while.   So, after three weeks in Panama, how's it going?  Pretty darned good, I'd say. I have a few moments of frustration and occasional fleeting moments of regret, but much more often I find myself in moments of delight, curiosity, gratitude, and awe.  So, as I said, pretty darned good. Here's a quick recap of some of the highlights of week 3 here, with glimpses of what might lie ahead.

When I was applying for the Fulbright, the helpful staff members held several webinars during which the main takeaway was "please read and follow all the directions".  That was before  applying for the grant. After  getting the grant, then came the true paperwork challenges, and how!   By the time I write this, I'm past most of these hurdles, and they seem diminished in hindsight.  But at the time, figuring out how get in touch with the right bureaucratic agency was anxiety-producing, especially for a compulsive organizer like myself, and so I took lots of notes just in case a future me needed a peek at all that heading to Panama on a Fulbright award entails.   And so  here , for your reading pleasure (?!), is the saga of my pre-departure paperwork.

 Forecast:  88°/76° with 59% chance of rain;  Humidity :  89% Sunrise  6:09 am.,  Sunset  6:28 p.m. The local U.S. Embassy asks all Fulbrighters to send monthly updates of what we've done in country, I guess so they can document some of the good things the Fulbright program does.  Over the course of my career, I've pulled together lots of annual reports -- and unlike many of my colleagues, I actually look forward to doing these.   Since there's so much going on here, it makes a lot of sense to do these updates more frequently than I've done them in the past, and I figured I might as well include a version of these updates into the blog.   But even though my first report is only for two weeks and not a whole year, I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to lay my hands on all the information for what I've done!  I certainly haven't gotten into a routine yet, and I guess I've got to figure out how better to keep track of ...

 On our shortcut path through the woods, we pass a river.  The water is very clear lately, and we saw a crocodile! Hard to see in this photo, so let's get closer . . .  . . . and closer.  Can you see it to the right of the  patch of reflected light?   Let's get closer.  The head is in a patch of leaves on the river. Crocodile!!! In Spanish, the name moves the 'r' toward the tail of the word:   cocodrilo . It's probably safer for the 'r' toward that end of the animal.

A wildlife photographer I'm not, but I do try to capture a bit of what I see.  I try, and usually I fail.  But there's so, so much new-to-me wildlife to see here that I do have a couple of cool photos to share. Bugs One adorable little creature is this bug, called a "cempies" (centipede), that we sometimes see crossing the road.

By the time we'd been almost a week in Panama, my guy and I were getting our feet underneath us more and more. We'd been learning our way around; he'd bought a bike and I'd gotten a bus pass; I'd set up my office in the Ciudad del Saber and found a church; he'd tracked down grocery stores and several hills to cycle on. With so much of our arrangements coming together so nicely, when my host let me know she'd be out-of-town on other business, we decided to have a little bit of a date together last Wednesday morning.