There are times when all of us agree to obligations, especially when it is a lone post in an empty square on our calendar, then, as that date rushes toward us and all the adjacent squares are bursting with other events, life can start to feel like too much. That’s pretty much how my spouse and I were feeling as we drove to the Burlington Hilton to pick up two Japanese teachers visiting Vermont as part of their Teacher Exchange Program for Education for Sustainable Development. Excited, but weary. As an alum myself of the now defunct Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program ( it morphed into this new IIE program) I felt honored to be able to host and in effect give back to this extraordinary program so I jumped at the chance to do so, but when the pick-up day arrived, I questioned my over-extending nature.