some things that have got me feeling like a champion lately (in no particular order):

-i was biking past the sand volleyball courts that are down by the potomac river, in between the lincoln memorial and the kennedy centre, when one of the volleyballs started bouncing in big bounces over to me. while still biking, i kicked it perfectly back towards the people who were playing, and they all cheered for me. haha. it was awesome.

-my former coworkers at the museum were telling me about how there might be non-native people who will be trained to give tours at the museum. my coworkers said they were dreading it, but had specifically agreed in a staff meeting, and told me later, that "if someone like you were doing it, it would be okay. we love you!" that was probably one of the biggest compliments/validations of my life. confirmation that i can be culturally sensitive without appropriating anyone else's culture! that's exciting!

-a dreamy boy has been sending me lengthy letters lately.

-my core team at work now consists of four people: one full-time girl who just earned her ph.d., after spending a couple of years working with a language revitalization program in the northwest coast; and two other interns. one intern in a navajo woman working on her m.a. in social work, i think (i can't remember - she just arrived last week); and the other is an undergrad student who has been working with language revitalization programs with the passamaquoddy (an algonquian language - like cree!). we are a pretty awesome team. our skills are really complementary, we all have the same hopes for this project, we can voice our opinions and disagreements with each other without taking any of it personally, and we just laugh together a lot. i am bummed that i only have 2.5 more weeks left to work with them. we would be such a force if we worked together full-time. anyway, i've been walking on clouds because ALL those girls, whose work and perspectives i really admire and value a lot, have told me that they are very glad i am here and don't want me to leave because of what i bring to the project. wow! they are these bright, sensitive, hardworking women, who really understand the work that i want to do, and they see value in me! that's amazing!

-my boss, the full-time core member of our team, and i met the bureaucrat--who is actually a really neat, bright guy!--in charge of the project we are working on for this bureau (i don't like writing names of organizations, in case people do internet searches for them) last week, when we were in st. louis for the bureau's annual summer conference. we spent a considerable amount of time with him during breakfast/lunch/dinner meetings, and had really amazing conversations about language revitalization and education (he wrote his doctoral thesis on the boarding schools, and he's one of the top dogs in that bureau). it turns out that the guy really likes us and the work we've been doing, which is nice because: (a) i guess i never really consider myself that "fun," but he told us numerous times that hanging out with us was super enjoyable for him; (b) i think his support of our work means that he will continue to push the bureau to financially and... what? morally?... support more culturally-appropriate language revitalization in the states, which will likely trickle over to canada, and all of that is great in a myriad of ways; and (c) i think he will be a great contact to have for the work that i'm hoping to do for the next two years with my master's. it seems like sometimes the bureaucratic parts of his job really bog him down, but he was super interested and animated when we talked about our project. he didn't grow up speaking much of his family's languages (michif and ojibwe), so he's quite passionate about making sure that kids today have the opportunity to learn their heritage languages. that's exciting. i'm glad that there can be something in his job that he can be really passionate about.

-i came up with this really awesome rating scale/template thing for my job, to be used in assessing individual and class proficiency in oral language skills. it is awesome and (i think) culturally appropriate, and i feel really really good about it. everyone that we've shown it to seems to really like it too. i hope teachers and assessors will actually use it! let's talk about it in real life!

-my boss gave me a raise today, because he has been impressed with my work.

-friends have been kind and generous with their words lately, which is pretty special because my friends are amazing people.

in conclusion: i am a happy little clam.