Part 1 of the printers is completed. They are all so shinny and pretty!
The first part of the project (new program management filing system) that I have been working on for the last 5 months is all printed and ready to be distributed/implemented in the office. Part two is at the printers now and hopefully by next week will be ready.

People in the office have been working on the filing system and using it already in the office for the last few weeks. They have been using the electronic version of it in the mean time. Many people have come to ask me specific questions and seem pretty interested in this new system. Its nice to see people actually using it after months of forming, formatting and gathering document after document to complete this thing.

I was under the impression that I would now be in "down time" from my project and my boss discussed me taking one another project and that I should think about what i want to do. I did think about it and then remembered that that pesky thing that I continuously keep getting busy and forgetting, which is my Master's Thesis. I need to have a first draft done by the end of may/early June an I have been so busy with Arabic and work that I haven't even started. I had a meeting with the Deputy Head at MC and basically asked if I could take April off of MC work and come back in May. I figured that would be no big deal at all.

Well, it was almost no big deal. He discussed how I need to be around a bit in the next week or two to really help all of the program manager's understand and get a hang of the new filing system and then kinda remain "on-call" in case there are things that I need to do. Overall, he agreed that I needed time for my thesis and since I cannot cut back on Arabic, since my fellowship is funding that, then I must cut back on MC for a little bit.

Trainings/regional meetings that involve me presenting for the project I've been working on starts back up mid-May and June. So, hoping I'll get maybe mid-April to early May off a bit more from work so then I can finally tackle this thing. Too bad my English skills have only been decreasing the last 7 months because of all of the intensive Arabic in my head...I'm sure that will make for a great 50 page thesis. My poor supervisor that will be editing this thing.:)