Walking in the shoes of a new Fellow I often think of how other new Fellows felt in their learning journey. We are in a pandemic and there are so many decisions that impact everyones' lives. I often think what it would be like if I could be traveling to get hands on experience in immersion programs and witness language revitalization in other places. I am blessed to be in an amazing PhD Program and learning so much from my peers and professors. My love for reading has returned and oh do I do a ton of reading; mostly for my classes which is as I have said before eye opening, but it is also soul inspiring. I read about struggles and see how language revitalization is so similar regardless of where you are and the language you are fighting to revitalize. As a new fellow I see how there is anger and hate that is a barrier to growth and change. Change is scary and even learning is scary and decision making is scary, living is scary; but I have also come to realize that everything that scary doesn't have to be an end all to forward progress. Life is hard and decisions are hard and sometimes we make mistakes, I know I make mistakes and through this pandemic I can say that I have moved forward, forward in my language fluency, forward in my personal growth and realization that everything doesn't always have to be ok. As a new fellow I witness the amazing work and the struggles and hardships of other fellows and have support and encouragement from them at the same time as previous fellows reach out and offer advice and encouragement as well. I know that I can disagree with someone and not have to tear them down as I have witnessed too many times. I fear for the youth and the struggles and pray for safety and good health for our youth and our elders and everyone. I know that in this time as a new fellow I am learning as a student in the academia world, but I may be learning more about myself then I realized. I am thankful for this journey and look forward for all that is to come. Changing the world is really about changing ourselves because we can preach and cry and scream to get a point across but not everybody has the courage to take that chance, take that risk or make a change. I've had to make life changing decisions that I thought would break me and I know that change is hard and change can be so good, but not everybody wants change. I have tried to write this log a couple times in the last couple of days and my mind and my thoughts have rambled every single time. My learning journey is new and at the same time feels like it is not new, but ongoing and constantly changing. I am so fortunate to be in this cohort with the adversity life has thrown us in human "relations" and treating one another with kindness and living in fear of the pandemic and growing through that fear and moving forward not to mention all the individual curve balls we have been pitched. To my "fellow" fellows, thank you for the strength and courage to continue to want to make the world a better safer place!

Wóphila ečhíčiyapi kštó!