Sylvia's Journal

Today is the last day of the course and I was up early to finish the preparations for the students’ sendoff into the summer, internships, careers and whatnot. Today is also my mother’s birthday which coincides with Switzerland’s national holiday. My mother spent part of her childhood in that country and we spent many vacations there, often at this time of the year. When I was little I always thought that the Swiss were celebrating my mother’s birthday. I was very proud of her then and still am today.

Today is also the last day of an intense month of work and part of me wants to roll up into a ball and go to sleep for a long time. My body is starting to protest the long days and short nights and has sent me a searing headache and nausea as a warning shot across the bow this morning.

Yesterday I drove in to work and then back home with my colleague Cary in her brand new eco-friendly car that had communications and entertainment equipment integrated in a way I had never experienced. I was very impressed. In our 12 year, eco-unfriendly car nothing is integrated; in fact, things are in various states of disintegration.

I holed up most of yesterday in a conference room where some students were working on their final papers while others were meeting with various colleagues about topics or countries of their choice. We had a conversation about careers and how to balance them with families, a question with intense personal relevance for all of the women in the room. Later we reflected together on the course and how to make it better next year, if there is another one. Three years ago MSH embarked on this experiment with BU and we agreed to run three courses. That is done now. What’s next is to be seen.

I had driven home with Cary as part of a plan to go to an outdoor concert at Castle Hill in Ipswich, where she lives. Severe thunder and rainstorms interfered and we ended up at her house where I finally got to meet her husband as well as some other relatives. Other friends we have in common joined us and we ate the various picnic contributions that everyone had brought sitting around the kitchen table while the rain and thunder cracked and poured around us.

Back home we both tumbled into bed exhausted and fell asleep instantly. This morning I put the final touches on a slideshow that will serve as a souvenir for the students of this course, their professors and classmates. I will show it at the end of the morning, before our final lunch together when we will bring this course to its formal end.