With some extra time off from work on Monday for MLK Day, I took advantage of the rainy weather to read indoors in the morning and went for a short, but steep, hike with Jessie in the afternoon. We scaled Tumamoc Hill which, if done about 6 times, felt like it could've been a good training hike for the Grand Canyon. Despite the grey sky, we enjoyed the new view of the city and tried to guess which little lines in the distance were streets that we knew. Try to spot the deer in the last picture!
A highlight from work this week was celebrating the birthday of one of our participants at the Florence Project! This young man is receiving services from our organization and he turned 18 this week. That's a big deal in the world of immigration law because it means that he no longer receives some of the special protections for minors from the U.S. government. I was summoned into the conference room by a woman I'd never met before with a promise of a piece of cake and reassurance that my voice would be a wonderful addition to their birthday celebrations. The 12 of us who were actually in the office that day began singing the Spanish song for celebrating birthdays and then after the first line everyone forgot the words and we started over with "Happy Birthday" in English. It was a wonderfully humanizing moment when a lot of my interactions with our participants and my coworkers are over the phone or through email.
Friday was Jessie's birthday! To celebrate, we went for a hike with our friend, Grace, and had dinner at a fun vegan restaurant. I'm now the only 22-year-old in the house (at least for another week).
Saturday was a day of action! Jessie, Andrea, and I left the house around 9 am in 40 degree weather. We embarked on a 30 mile bike ride taking advantage of the 55 mile bike loop that winds around Tucson. Two and a half hours later we arrived at the house where Andrea is currently house-sitting and Jessie and I decided, what's another 10 miles back to our house at this point? So we rounded our 30 to a 40.
Saturday evening we went contra dancing (as if I didn't get enough exercise already). In contra dancing there's a caller and you have a partner but you actually spend more time dancing with other people than with your partner. There's a lot of movement and we were quickly sweaty, out of breath, thirsty, and grinning from ear to ear. It was very easy to pick up and a fun new activity for our house!
Shalom Mennonite Fellowship has a lot of really cool, interesting, generous people. So, today we got a tour of the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona. My mind was blown in the first 10 minutes when I learned that the telescope mirrors that are more than 8 meters in diameter are covered with a layer of aluminum that amounts to the size of a soda can. We also learned that this layer is 1000 atoms thick. And then my brain melted.
You can find more information and a cool video at https://mirrorlab.arizona.edu/content/gmt-giant-magellan-telescope.
Finally, another puzzle done this week! Missing a piece, yet again... On deck is a Star Wars puzzle and I can already tell the force is strong with this one.
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