The Red Velvet Lawyer

My Bright and Shiny Students This second week of the semester marks the first week in which we hold all classes, labs, and office hours.  Students are also finalizing schedules.   We are beginning to know how the semester will feel and be.  It will be a busy one for me again.   I have two admissions to make.  First, I needed another week of vacation.  Here in Doha, unlike the U.S., we only have about two weeks of vacation between semesters.  This job is more demanding than teaching law in the U.S., so I miss those extra couple of weeks to rest and catch up.  Of course, I created some of my suffering by traveling to Malaysia and Taiwan during the break and then having to nurse a respiratory infection when I got back.  So, as we move through the next two weeks, I plan to assume we are all feeling a little sluggish.   Here's my second admission.  I've got great students in both sections.  They are all bright and...

A New Semester Comes to Qatar University Today, I am teaching my first class in my fourth semester at QU.  In other posts, I have described my students and how much I love and respect them here .  Each semester, of course, brings new students with new challenges, fears, motivation, grit, and desires for success in the class. I always "hold space" for what will unfold over the next several months.  I never make assumptions, because the classroom is a dynamic place that depends on me, but also on the leaders and pacesetters in the class. It also depends on the students who struggle to grasp legal writing in English as a second language. Here's wishing us all a happy, demanding, and successful semester. * I have permission to use the photos included in this blog.  

"Calling it In from  the Universe" As part of my goal setting process at the beginning of this year, I reviewed the materials I assembled during my three entrepreneurial coaching programs offered by Christine Kane .  One of her workbook tools asked me to answer this question: "What will you have created/manifested/attracted in the upcoming year? The tool asked me to list ten things. I must have filled out this "intention and clarity" tool during the February 2015 retreat in Asheville, North Carolina.  At that time, I had applied for the job at Qatar University, but I did not have a job offer. I had visited Dubai in December 2014, and I knew I wanted a job in the Arab Gulf region.   Here is what I put on the list: New circle of close colleagues. New circle of expat friends. Inroads into Qatari culture. Travel in Asia. New fitness level. New home furnishings. New car, New student relationships. New diet. More cultural life.  So let me ...