Giving Thanks: It is interesting and telling that I wrote my last blog at the end of Ramadan. Since then many exciting and noteworthy things have happened - all too real to try to relay here in this limited virtual forum. The most significant and yet the hardest to capture in words is the spiritual journey I have awakened to find myself on. I say awakened rather than embarked, because this has been a long journey, perhaps it even began during my childhood, but I have only recognized it consciously within the past couple of months. Suddenly everything in my life revolves around spirit. The steps we teach students to communicate inter-culturally are all about realizing that your reality is constructed based on your cultural values and perspective. This constructivism is at the root of how I see God, life, creation/free will, happiness, change.



Perhaps this awakening began during Ramadan, which I tried to make meaningful by reflecting on religion (notably my Christian background and experiences with Islam) and my beliefs, which often do not align with religion. Nowadays I dwell over concepts read and re-read in Conversations with God, I take my time slowly digesting words by Alice Walker, I try to have meaningful soul-provoking conversations, I ask a lot of questions. My boss, who bears witness to this process, casually used the term "existential crisis" over lunch the other day. That made me smile.



Perhaps it is all of these nosy essay questions in applications for graduate programs. I lay bare my ambitions, strengths, weaknesses, regrets and lessons within a sincere response and then, coming to as if from a trance, wonder if the admissions committee really wants to know who I am. It has been one of the many pleasant surprises in life thus far - applying to business school can indeed be an introspective and even spiritual process.



Perhaps it is the constant questioning we encourage among our students. They come here often having already planned out their lives - first peace corps, then NGO work, and along the adventurous route of a career in development they plan to go. They arrive expecting these ambitions to be unquestioningly supported and instead we force them to question and challenge the concepts upon which they have built their dreams. Development from and towards what? Are we a good model of 'developed'? Who chooses these standards? Does happiness mean the same thing for everyone? Is the concept of universalism just a cover for cultural hegemony? This is the juiciest meat of our program and the most rewarding. Is it such a leap to connect it back to constructivism and the realm of the spiritual?



Perhaps it is, as auntie Alice might suggest, the gardening. Since my return to Dakar from the U.S. this summer I have been caring for the family of plants I inherited on the roof of my apartment. With the help of a more experienced gardener who brought new nutrient-rich soil and advised me on the needs of the different plants, I have been nurturing them and watching them grow. It is a small but nonetheless miraculous thing to witness - after misting (spraying water on the leaves of) my favorite plant, a frangipani tree, I can literally see it perking up.



I know your eyebrows may well be creeping up incredulously and now maybe you are smiling or shaking your head thinking "existential crisis." Again, that makes me smile. Because if it is a crisis I am going through, I never want it to end.



On this day, so ironically earmarked for giving thanks each year, I continue on my present path, more awake than I've ever felt. And for that I am thankful.