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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

running around


Happy Wednesday, everyone -

Today in Doha - 75 degrees and sunny.

I got a lot accomplished today, and I'm very happy about the process so far in getting things arranged for my study. While I had hoped to get as much done ahead of time, the reality of being here and working in Doha means that sometimes things have to be done with less notice. In the case of my study, that has also proven to be true.

My meeting with Cyndy went very well this morning. I've got a space to work out of for the interviews at Texas, and already two students lined up with three or four more to come for next week. I'm very excited about that. I also have one confirmed student from Northwestern, and will confirm the others on the 9th. Things seem to be shaping up, which means I'm worrying less about reaching the number of students I need. A good thing for sure. :)

After my meeting I called my driver guy and off we went to Villaggio so I could grab a bite to eat and figure out my phone situation. It's going to be much easier to communicate with interviewees by having a local cell phone, and so I figured I'd check out Qtel and Vodaphone and see which is better for a sim card. The Qtel place had only one service rep working and a line of 10 people, so I didn't wait around there. The Vodaphone place was much quicker, and I got a plan I can cancel if I want to when I leave (but also works in the UK and Germany). Not bad. So, I now have a local number...very happy about that.

Tonight I had a great time - Denny invited me to come along to the LeaderShape event happening in Al Khawr and it was my first time attending one of the LeaderShape events. The students did excellent work, and the panel of speakers was excellent. Of particular note for me was Dorthe Bergholdte's brief talk about leadership and power. I appreciated her thoughts based on her position and that just because you have power in a position doesn't mean that you have to wield it - sometimes its better to let employees work from their strengths and be available to assist or coach when needed. It reminded me a lot of our discussions with Terri on the role of power and authority. I also ran into Jill and a few others from YPI, so that was fun too.

Overall, a good day.

1 comment:

  1. In case you decide to stay there, learn some Arabic. Assuming all the language teachers look like that, it's a no brainer!

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