Philanthropy

Week-long meetings tend to burn me out. Not to mention ones when lots of new things are coming down... like some new additions to software to learn, facilitating training, giving a presentation to my colleagues, meetings about how my job is going to change (we're expanding), etc, etc. The cool thing we did last week was VTI Day. This day used to be reserved for head office employees only until about 2 years ago when they started having our national meeting in April and we got to join in the festivities with the rest of the company. Each year is different and this time they set up the biggest tent I've ever seen in the parking lot of the office - apparently it took about 5 days to set it up. They gathered us together at the lunch hour and sent us all off in groups on different buses to places we'd chosen ahead of time to do community service. I went to the YMCA daycamp with 40-50 of my closest friends to set up the camp for the new season. We painted picnic tables, the pavilion, cleaned out the offices, the shed, set up the canoes, and cleaned up the walking paths, etc. of debris and garbage. After returning to the big huge tent at HO we all sat down to a very nice dinner and they presented employees with awards of recognition (for which they were nominated by their peers). The MC was a Canadian comedian (I don't know who - I don't pay attention to those things). Then Tom Cochrane came out and gave us our own private concert! Crazy night. Crazy day. It was a lot of fun.

After the trip to Panama, I started feeling a little burnt out from traveling. When I've thought about it I still get that feeling of longing to see the world. But with all of the work travel in the last year, and everything else I do, I haven't been able to imagine physically going anywhere. I started thinking about just sticking around town for a while - at least this summer. Ride my bike, do some tours that are within driving distance, etc. For the first time in several years I don't have any idea of where I might travel to next. I'd like to do an overseas bike trip with some of the people I cycle with, but I'm not sure if that will come to fruition. I guess part of me is waiting to see what might happen there. And then this week after participating in the volunteer day at work I started to think about visiting places that I want to see and experience and while I'm there, give back to that community. So I started looking into that kind of thing. My next trip might be quite the departure from what I've been doing up until now. And with that, I have started to think about where I might go next! But that would be next year, and first I have to see how work goes since next year will be a pivotal one for the area in which I work. I'm not sure what time of year I might travel. For now, I'll keep you posted on the small bike trips. Those should be fun as well. You don't have to go far to have an adventure!