Living Abroad Makes you More Creative

Katrina received her latest professional journal "Monitor on Psychology" published by the American Psychological Association last week while I was visiting. As she came across an interesting finding, she shared it with me. One of these tidbits was "Living abroad makes you more creative."

John and I have been in training for this all spring and summer! I don't know that we have been especially creative, but have definitely been learning to make changes and adjustments to our regular routine that have been established over the years.

Thanks to technology help from our daughters, we have set up a Thunderbird account. I can't explain it, but it allows us to download email when we are online, but then read and answer it off line. This should really help as we will probably not have consistent and reliable internet service in East Timor any time that we want it.

We have temporarily moved into a new house. With the generous help of family and friends, it was a smooth move. As everyone knows, there are numerous differences between your old house and a new one. Although they aren't major obstacles, it does make a difference in your daily life since one has to stop and think about what you are doing rather than operating on autopilot. We've found such changes as the shower controls, kitchen organization, closet storage space, location of light switches, and traffic routes to and from the house. Then there are the things that you are used to, but are no longer there like familiar neighbors, favorite flowers, shade trees, and furniture.

The most commonly asked question of us is "Do you miss going back to school?" We hope we don't offend anyone when the answer is, "No." We have been so busy preparing for our future that we haven't had time to even think about it.

All of these changes could be viewed as bittersweet, but it hasn't been that way at all. It has simply pointed out to us once again that we are ready to move on. A whole new adventure is awaiting us. We are stepping out on faith to a new career that is meant to be.

There have been unexpected results to the article about us in The Leaven, our archdiocesan newspaper. We have been contacted by several people in this area that either have connections to Maryknoll or East Timor. We are hoping to be able to meet with these new friends to learn more about their experiences and stories before we leave for orientation in about two weeks.

The APA finding about being creative is much more flattering than another one Katrina shared. "Women's ability to learn may become impaired shortly before menopause . . . "