orbits

A somewhat frustrating week of dealing with the asynchronous orbits of life. Parenting, partnering, household managing, writing as a geographer, preparing data for classes I’ll teach in September. Meanwhile every time some natural disaster occurs, like earthquakes that bury children or cyclones that swamp them, I wonder again why I’m not using my mapping skills for humanitarian work (instead of a life teaching privileged students in higher education). You might say that I’m teaching them so that they can go out and do good deeds themselves, but sometimes I don’t want to be once-removed from a real and pressing need.

Yesterday at Colegio Patris the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders hosted an all-day sports tournament with three of the other local private schools. It’s part of Patris’s celebration of their 10th anniversary. So for hours Eric played rounds of soccer and Julia played rounds of field hockey. By the time I arrived in mid-afternoon I’d missed all of Julia’s games, but others told me she played extremely well. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that she towers over her diminutive, younger peers. She now wants to play field hockey when she returns to the States, something that would be a matter of course in New England, but not so easy in Southern California. Eric’s 5th grade team also made it to the championship round but they lost in the last few moments. I got to hear the girls in his class chanting his name, which sounds like “Aihr-Reek.”

Two weeks and counting …