My body is tired. I've been on my feet all of today with various tasks that began with cleaning a kitchen and ended with hauling gallons of bubble tea into a snow covered commercial fridge truck. This Saturday is the 54th International Street Fair. Our office cosponsors the event alongside our student organization. It involves 63 organizations, 43 of which are cooking food to sell. The cooking begins two days before the event and involves a lot of involved details I won't bore you with.
My point in tonight's reflection is on the full day I've had and the ways in which I feel stretched. Last year during this weekend I was managing the death of my grandma and booking flights to get home to CA in the midst of setting up these kitchens and finalizing details for booth layouts. This week I am officially on point for the event, with no Director to fall back on- whether for support or just someone to blame. A few troubleshooting events happened today. It began with the parking spots we had arranged to park the fridge truck not actually being blocked off. I think that my initial reaction to situations like this is very analytical and backwards looking of what went wrong. I was sure that if I gave 10 minutes to my inbox I'd be able to find the email that proved I had arranged this and that it was "their" fault. But after wasting 10 precious minutes that were needed, I'd still be in the same predicament. SO I stretched myself a bit today. I rejected the impulse to sit at my desk and review old emails to prove my prideful point, and got on the phone instead to troubleshoot with my Parking Services colleague and my other colleagues in the division who I thought might help think through some options.
The NASPA session I went to that started this reflection journey had Elisa share a story about a moment where she caught herself being hung up on the details, something about the wrong napkins from catering. I've been thinking about that story because I think it is so easy to get upset and be thrown off course by little things that are insignificant in the bigger picture. Placing the 40 ft commercial truck in an accessible place is no little detail, but really, it kind of is. The day moved on and as far as I know, this large event will still take place on Saturday. I relied on some awesome colleagues to help troubleshoot and at the end of the day am really glad to have not said any words that I wish I could take back or wasted energy on sufficing my pride in being right. Tomorrow is another big cooking/kitchen and final detail prep day with I'm sure many opportunities ahead to stretch my adaptability.
Also- it snowed about 5 inches this afternoon and the university closed down in the midst of my flexing :) On April 4th. Snow. I picked a good day to let things go.
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