February 17, 2010 by Jim Sluyter ·
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions.
It’s not that I couldn’t lose a few pounds, or exercise more, or change my drinking habits for the better. It’s just that I am no better at keeping resolutions than the next guy, and I’ve admitted that to myself.
This time it seemed different. I have felt like I was playing “catch up” at work for a while now and the solution seemed easy: resolve to take on no extra tasks or projects until I was on top of my schedule. So, I did.
The first tests were easy. I turned down a couple speaking requests at conferences I was not planning to attend. So far so good!
Then last week, out of the blue, came an invitation to fill a sudden vacancy in the U.S. delegation to the International Symposium on Community Supported Agriculture in Kobe, Japan from Feb. 17 – 22.
The offer came from French-based URGENCI, which stands for Urban-Rural Network: Generating New Forms of Exchange between Citizens (I have to think the acronym works out better in French).
“How can I possibly go?” was my first thought. But then “How can I not?” quickly followed.
We (my wife, Jo, is joining me) left yesterday morning. So now I do have a New Years resolution: A daily blog from Kobe. Watch here or here to see how I do.
Jim Sluyter leads the Michigan Land Use Institute’s Get Farming! project. Reach him at jimsluyter@mlui.org.
