I am doing all of this in Spanish, which I started learning two years ago; suffice it to say, I have had to be quite locked in. But I am doing important work, and it is an excellent way to spend some time.

This week, I made significant progress in coordinating the in-person engagement phase of my work. Through meetings during the week, I led the coordination of a one-on-one interview segment of the project where we will engage with providers of methamphetamine-related harm reduction and individuals who receive their services. I also prepared detailed interview scripts and an informed consent form. We have confirmed meetings with over ten individuals for the next week, a fact of which I am very proud and which I am confident will help to legitimize the final output. The biggest error on my part this week was allowing the project to stall due to a few work-from-home days in the office. Because of this, I spent those days mostly re-reading what I had already written for grammar and clarity. While this work was important, I could have continued preparing for next week’s interviews instead and therefore lost valuable time. 

The value of “determination” was most visible in my leadership this week as I repeatedly took the initiative to coordinate a sensitive phase of the project. In a meeting on Friday, for example, I meticulously explained our vision for this phase to a service provider and thereby helped to ensure that the policy recommendations in the final report incorporate the desires and recommendations of directly-impacted individuals. This week, the dimension of humility was most directly tested. While I have set very lofty goals for the intense next two weeks of interviews, I also have needed to deliberately recognize my own limitations in order to avoid the possibility of over-extending myself and collecting more data than I can handle. I am proud that I was able to make the split-second judgement calls in meetings to avoid making overly ambitious promises. I relied most on the capacity of process. This week depended upon deliberate planning of interviews and preparation of interview documents. I honestly did not feel incredibly stretched, although accurately communicating my vision for the next phase of the project in Spanish did prove difficult.

The interaction most telling regarding the ethical dimension of this work involved a meeting with a service provider toward the end of the week. I prioritized communicating the centrality of ethical engagement with vulnerable populations, repeatedly checking with the service provider regarding his confidence in the non-invasiveness of our planned interview scripts. My understanding of the long-term implications of this work shifted as I listened to the service provider reflect upon the immense lack of activist resources oriented toward methamphetamine-related issues in Mexico. Next week, I will not make a specific adjustment as much as I will need to add a new behavioral habit: Sensitive engagement. I will engage in several interviews regarding the very difficult topic of methamphetamine consumption, and it will therefore be critical to re-focus upon conversational sensitivity. I will focus upon the character dimension of humanity, and take the concrete action of reviewing publicly available literature regarding responsible interview practices in the realm of methamphetamine use.