What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

In terms of concrete skills, my Spanish and Maya have both improved tremendously during my time here. My Maya abilities in particular have improved a lot, given that I have spent so many hours listening to interviews and taking notes on their content (a process that I actually just finished today!). I've also gained linguistics-specific skills, like conducting elicitations and working with certain software. Beyond this, I've noticed just as much growth, if not more, in more nebulous areas like communication and resilience. As I've gotten more comfortable here, the hesitation I once felt to contribute to conversations/ask questions has dissipated; I feel more open to making mistakes and having new experiences, and I hope to continue this trend once I'm back on campus. 

Working alongside my supervisor and his colleagues at the university has taught me a lot as well. In particular, I've learned some valuable lessons in leadership from the project's administrator, who also works as a community lawyer/advocate, representing Maya speakers in court (which operates in Spanish). Hearing her describe the cases she works on has left me with a clear impression that beyond the actual arguments she makes, what matters most is her communication with a client, and her passionate support of the client. She takes on the work with enthusiasm because she recognizes that it is necessary, although it may be frustrating or undervalued, and because she knows that she can do the work, although she doesn't have extensive law training. I've emulated her example in my work with the corpus, helping out as much as I can, as often as I can, despite my lack of formal qualifications or previous experience.