Change is finally coming! I am cautiously excited for a new assignment at work. I know it will be a lot of stress, but I am ready to deal with it with maturity and confidence. I guess my writers’ block was related to the anxiety I was feeling before the move was confirmed. I got the news on Wednesday and this is the second post I wrote since then! I may have less time to devote to writing going forward, but I hereby promise myself and you that I will write at least once a week. This blog has started so many conversations with friends all over the world. It feels as if I had the fortune of having coffee with each of them. That can’t stop!

I got an early Valentine last night. My daughter gave me a mini box of chocolate hearts and my love gave me the most sumptuous and gigantic piece of white chocolate I have ever seen and a big piece of raspberry white chocolate. Yes, it tastes as good as it sounds. I feel loved. Remember the end of “Notting Hill”? While Costello sings “She”, Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts relax in a garden surrounded by children playing. It exudes contentment and satisfaction. That is how so much love is making me feel. I must make sure that my new job doesn’t keep me from enjoying it.

Another recent surprise has been the coronavirus or Covid-19. I read that medical masks do not protect you from it and I went straight to amazon to get N95 masks (that actually work!) for the whole family. I pride myself of never wasting time in worst case scenarios, but I couldn’t help the urge to get them, you know, just in case. I tell myself that they would have been useful when my household was hit with the flu a couple of weeks ago. They will most likely stay in the closet until the next flu season, right? How are you handling this outbreak?

I finally spent some time formatting and editing one of my Chapters to submit it for publication in a journal. It took me this long, almost a year, to be able to carefully read it again and distill something from it. After all that work, it would be great to see my ideas in a legendary journal like CEPAL Review or World Development! Wish me luck!