Faerie DivaBat On The Loose

Today we had a Group Check-In - sitting in a circle talking about our experiences so far. Originally it was supposed to be just 2 words about how we feel, but that quickly grew to sharing what's in our hearts and minds. Host family frustrations, exhaustion, happiness, all sorts of things.

I talked about the loneliness I felt and how people like Nina came up to help me, though it was something I still need to work on. Knowing people deeper and being comfortable with being vunerable and asking for help. I said I didn't know the crew all that well, and that it would really be a shame for me to leave this amazing program and yet not have a close connection with anyone (since Nanu left).

This sparked a big conversation about getting time to know each other, getting time for ourselves, and just close connections to the group in general. What do we know about each other? What are we telling our host families that we aren't telling the crew? How can we connect?

Somewhere in that discussion Jessica spoke up about needing to know each other better. She then referred to my earlier point and told me (and everyone else) that it wasn't true that I didn't know anyone - my Thank-You Stories (the stories I wrote for each crew member, given to them once they return my NaNo survey) were spot-on, that I captured everyone perfectly through my writing. So really, I did know people more than I thought. Quite a few people agreed with her on that, which surprised me.

This became a bit of a theme for the whole day. I had printed an extra copy of the stories for the whole crew to share amongst themselves (originally the crew members had their own stories to keep). It got passed around, with rave reviews.

Eli kept telling me how amazed she was by the writing, especially the final sentences. She told me that this was really my mode of communication and that it's odd that not many people know about this side of me.

Jessica and Danni were my PR people for this project, always raving about the stories to others. I'm really glad they liked them, I think they were one of the first few to read them.

Krista told me that it was something I should share more. Currently she has the big book; maybe she'll illustrate some of the stories! When I told her that Nina liked my story for her (she told me it was nice and thanked me for it), she said I had perfect timing with the story. I know Nina's been stressed a lot lately but that she doesn't usually show her emotions a lot - she's not extremely affectionate (at least not like Tom, Marco, or I) and she keeps to herself often. I hope my story really did help her feel appreciated, because she is.

Chris came up to me later that night and told me that it was great that I wrote all these notes for everyone and that he really respects me for that. I felt bad because I've been quite an ass to him the first few weeks and here he was being this perfect gentleman. Hopefully things get better.

It's strange, in a way, because I have never really envisioned this kind of reaction. Sure, I hoped people liked it. But it was something I did for a few days because I was ill and bored and needed to write something even though it wasn't November yet. Most of the stories were intensely challenging and half the time I wasn't sure I had captured anyone's personality for real. So all this? Just wow. Amazing.

Now I can't wait till November, just to see how they'll react to the novel. It'll be a lot crazier, but hopefully a lot more fun.

(I'll get to the questions soon! But please send in more!)