I'm not a reader. But recently I read an article by Morten Hansen, a faculty member at UCB. Hansen's work suggests that people who find purpose in their work perform better and bring passion to their work. Now I don't know if Hansen is familiar with Cooperative Extension or the Agriculture Experiment Station, but there's no doubt in my mind that if he were to study the work of UC ANR he would find volumes of examples to support his hypothesis. In every county of California and every department where a CE Specialist or AES faculty member resides there are examples that depict the effects of combining passion and purpose to result in extraordinary effort to transform lives.

Because I'm still spending my days as juror #7, I missed the chance to meet with those passionate and purposeful members of the Stanislaus County team on Tuesday. For whatever reason, scheduling and fulfilling that visit has posed particular challenges. Fortunately, Mark Bell made the visit. Hopefully I will get there soon. I'm also unable to participate in a trip with some of the REC directors and REC superintendents to see a couple of ‘RECs' in 2 different states and talk with the leadership of those sites. It would have been a very quick trip but hopefully one that stimulates some ideas not only for the group traveling but also those of us who were unable to travel. I'm looking forward to hearing the reports from those who traveled when we all meet in May 11.

Instead of moping about my situation, I've decided to find the positives:

• I am practicing patience as we sit through the presentation of evidence
• I've had an opportunity to put my calculus skills to use rather than just trust the witness' numbers (part of how I'm dealing with boredom)
• The time period on this jury represents what might be the longest consecutive number of nights spent at home in quite some time
• My daily commute is less than half my normal commute, even on my Davis days
• I'm reminded how fortunate I am to have never needed to be part of a jury trial as anything other than a juror

The list, though perhaps interesting, remains fairly short. But perhaps I will be able to work on my negotiation, facilitation, or conflict resolution skills when we deliberate and can add to the list a bit.

This experience doesn't exactly call for me to bring my creative self to work. I wonder if the court attendant and the court reporter are able to bring both passion and purpose to their positions. In addition, I'm trying hard to find something that I can bring back to UC ANR – a prospective partnership, a programming gap, something….