My favorite holiday?

I think that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

So many of the things I like are part of it. This includes eating, watching football, playing football, watching the BYU-Utah football game, being with family, having a short work-week, enjoying a long weekend, eating Cranberry Cream, eating my mother-in-law's and now my wife's amazing pies, thinking of all of the things I am thankful for, relaxing in general and probably a bunch of other things. So many good memories.

This year was different.

I can't say that the biggest reason was because I now live far away from family. Unfortunately, the biggest reason this year was different is that I got sick. I started feeling really unwell on Wednesday at work and stayed as long as I could stand. I left at about 2:30 and rode home on one of the most packed Metro trains I have ever been on. I was pressed on all sides by at least 4 people and they were all jammed in too. It is a 10-15 minute walk from work to the Metro, I stood waiting about 10 minutes for the train to come, stood crammed on the train for the 20 minute ride to my station, and waited about 5 minutes outside for the shuttle to come. I was miserable.

I was sneezing, had a cough, was congested, was sore all over my body and had a fever. I rested after I got home and took some medicine and still didn't feel any better that evening. To spare all the gruesome details, I can just say that the only time I left my apartment from Wednesday through today was to go to the InstaCare for 2 hours and have them tell me I likely have H1N1 since I tested positive for the type of flu that includes that and some seasonal ones that don't start until December. It has been pretty miserable.

I feel bad, but also for my family. We had some pretty fun things planned. At least they got to go down to our Thanksgiving get-together. I did not get to play in the Turkey bowl, have Thanksgiving dinner, go on a Friday-night date with my wife, watch the BYU-Utah game (since they don't show it here or on the internet and you have to have satellite TV to get it), spend any time with extended family or friends, or do something fun as a family on Saturday.

The good news is that I am starting to feel better, I did get some of my wife's pies, my children already had the H1N1 vaccination, my wife is very helpful and caring, Kleenex works, OJ is good, BYU won and I could listen on internet radio to the game, I finished reading a book, I have a family, and I'm still alive.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. But, I wonder what future ones will be like?

Creative and Flexible

The theme this past week had to be creative and flexible.

Four of my days were in workshops that had something to do with that theme. I was even in an actual creative problem solving workshop a couple of days. Added some tools to my pack for getting the creative juices flowing. One idea I liked that is apparently scientifically proven to help with creativity is humor. Sometimes it helps to look at things we are dealing with and find what could be funny in them and laugh at them. I think that's something I can do. It's okay to look at it in a strange way because sometimes that's when new ideas and breakthroughs start to happen. One of my workshops was emergency medical training, which I found out could require a lot of creativity. If some serious situation happens and I don't have splints and bandages readily available, I can create them! It's sounds a little like McGyver, but you can make a splint and bandage out of so many common things, sticks and shirts, etc. I also learned that tourniquets might be making a comeback since it's so much better to save a life than lose a limb. Hmmm. I agree with that but do hope that I don't have to make that choice for someone.

Also, in some big news, I found out late Friday that there is a change in my training schedule and I will be starting language training earlier, in just 2 weeks! I am excited about that.

In other creative news, I went to the National Art Museum and saw an exhibit of armor and helmets from Europe. There were some truly amazing ones there, like the helmet that looked like an animal's head. I loved the exhibit.

It's all about being creative and flexible sometimes.

New-nique Week

This week was full of new and unique experiences for me, and I love new and unique.

Wednesday was the first time I have ever had the day off for Veteran's Day. And not only did I have the day off, but it was right in the middle of the week and my children were in school, except for the youngest. My wife convinced me it was a good time to shop for some new shoes. I bought some new casual shoes, which has been very rare for me over the last few years of wearing suits 6 days a week. I caught my oldest as he got home from school early and we played a game we have never played before, St. Petersburg, for a couple of hours and had a blast.



Another unique first for me was the work schedule around the mid-week holiday. The first two days of the week I did not have anything in particular scheduled in my training so I am supposed to find productive things to do. Monday I went in to the training center and did some administrative business most of the day and also read up on Indonesian history and culture. The really unique day was Tuesday because I really didn't need to go in for anything. Instead of wasting an hour of my day commuting, I stayed at home and read and did other work. I have never had that experience before. I liked it and did manage to get a full day in with almost no interruptions and a much more comfortable place to sit.

I had a negotiating class on Thursday and Friday and had a good time being selected by my group to be in the final negotiation scenario. I probably could have been better at interest-based negotiation except that sometimes I am a little stubborn and I like to pick at details for fun. I think I may have had more fun with it than I was supposed to. The only sad thing about these two days, besides all the rain, was that my children were out of school while I was in!

Saturday was a beautiful day and we were lucky because we had chosen that day to visit Baltimore. I have never been there before and will have to go back. We did something we thought our children would love and we were right. We visited a children's museum near downtown. We stayed the entire day from near opening time to closing time there and went through everything. I was happy that they encourage the adults to accompany their children since they had some really fun stuff like a huge climbing jungle thing. I am happy to report that I can keep up with them and fit through small spaces almost as well as they can. We also took some time to walk along the dock and go to a restaurant. It was such a beautiful day and we had a good time.  It definately tired me out.

Something else I did this week that I have not done in years is exercise, running or weight-lifting or both, every day this week. Usually I just go running three times a week. This week I added weights and my wife helped me figure out how to get something in every day like she has been doing.

There are probably a few other things I am forgetting, but I have really enjoyed my new-nique (new and unique) week.

Kick Sick

So part of what I have been learning this week is how to kick being sick. I think sleep is one of the absolute best things. I also believe that it is possible to minimize the possibility by eating healthy, getting regular exercise, and sleeping the right amount.

There are so many people all around us right now who are, or have recently been, sick. Mostly it is colds but there have also been some people with strep and some with fevers and other symptoms that may indicate H1N1.

This week after not sleeping very well one night I also started sneezing and needing to use a lot of tissues, etc. I still felt pretty well and even did my usual run that morning. So I didn't think twice about going to work and did my best to stay away from people. It helped that there were only 7 others in my class and we could spread out in the classroom. I also tried to get a lot of sleep that night and all those after that. I slept between 8 and 9 hours a night and got to rest before going to sleep for a while. This is the most I have slept for more than a couple of days in a row since "I-can't-remember-when." Besides feeling more tired than usual for a couple of days and needing to use tissues at the breaks those days it wasn't too bad.

I think it was on the same day this happened that we had all received what I would call "an Email lecture" at work about not coming to work sick because it is irresponsible. I totally agree. But where do you draw the line? I have a hard time staying home from work, especially when it is literally impossible to do it again, when my symptoms don't seem that bad. Do I draw the line at a cough, a sneeze, a headache, a fever, a stomach-ache, a doctor visit, a stay in the hospital? I don't want to get others sick and I do want to be responsible. I was glad I went and don't think I made others sick. (But that's probably what someone else said who got me sick.) What do you think? Where do you draw the line?

I was able to take all but my oldest to get the H1N1 vaccine yesterday. They are still only offering it to adults who are "high risk." It went pretty quickly. I was grateful for that. My youngest threw a fit because he decided just before arriving at the mass vaccination that he did not want the nasal vaccine, only the shot. Great. He wouldn't talk for about 20 minutes, only scream, grunt, and gesture. We finally persuaded him that it was okay to spit so he could talk to us. The good news is that everyone was in good spirits again after a Slurpee.

I loved learning more about Southeast Asia again this week. I had a ton of reading at the beginning of the week, but it was interesting. Learning is a wonderful thing. I am done with the course and received a certificate of completion! Now on to other training, formal and informal.

Now, if only I can keep the sickness away from me and my family as it swirls around here. I better stop writing and go to bed so I can keep kicking the sick.

Getting Acquainted

This week I spent getting acquainted with "someone" new: my future-new-home and it's neighbors in Southeast Asia:

There are so many things I didn't really understand about this region of the world and one of the beautiful things about this week is that it is now coming into focus.
One of the "aha's" during my learning was the point that each country in this region is so very different for a variety of reasons: political, economic, geographic, religious, ethnic, linguistic, and historical. There are some commonalities, but the influences aren't of the same mix for different countries and places. Most of the region has an ancient influence from India and also an influence from China to varying degrees. They also have influences from ancient kingdoms that existed at various times. Some are Buddhist, some are Muslim, some are Christian, some are Hindu, all have their own flavor of the religions. There are many historical tensions from the past that don't necessarily meet up with today's borders. They have governments that range from democratic to communist to military dictatorship and even a monarchy. There are tens of thousands of islands and peninsulas and mountains and volcanoes and jungles and rivers great and small. There are at least three different, unrelated, language families.
The beautiful thing is when they somehow get along and understand each other. Hopefully in our everyday lives, even though we are so very different from each other and different experiences and families, we can figure out a way to get along and communicate. We can begin to understand others when we first try to "get acquainted" and to understand them and their experiences.