Weekend Reflections
Friday was administration day: a time to plan travel, book accommodation and do some reading. One tip I would offer Fellows is to make sure to build time in for planning and reading. I came away from my visit to John Hopkins University with enough reading material for at least 3 months!
Being in the US on 9/11 brought home a deeper insight into the emotion that Americans still feel as they remember loved ones who perished in the attacks on that fateful day nine years ago. This year it was made even more emotional with the threat by a Pastor in Florida to burn copies of the Koran (thankfully cancelled) and the debate over the plan to build an Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero. The nation remembered 9/11 with ceremonies held at Ground Zero in New York and at the Pentagon near Washington. I spent the day visiting the sights around Washington DC; most memorable for me was the Lincoln Memorial that honours the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is also from here that Dr King made his famous ‘I Have A Dream’ speech in 1963.
After nine continuous days of glorious sunshine, it rained on Sunday. By the afternoon it had stopped, when I set off from Maryland for Alexandria, in Virginia to attend a two day conference: “ The National Summit on Family, School and Community Engagement".
