Stuff

At our consulate we have dubbed this month "Education Month" and have made plans for extra efforts to promote education in the United States. I have been asked to help coordinate this effort which is why I am thinking about it and writing about it. There are so many little things, plus a couple of bigger ones. One of the things we like to do is go to talk to students about the benefits of studying in the United States of America, what the process is, etc. We're making an effort to get to many more schools and students over the next couple of months and trying to get all of the Americans at the consulate to go out to a local school every month. This month is the kick-off of this effort. We also have a photo contest about what education is like for the students here, plus there are some film screenings, radio talk shows, and a bunch of other things. It's a good thing and a bit different than what I usually do every day.

On Wednesday I got to do something a little different because I was asked to go to the Consulate General's residence to watch the election returns from the U.S. (As the Tuesday night polls are closing in the US it was Wednesday morning here.) It made it really convenient to invite Indonesians from the local government, university officials and students to watch it and ask questions to learn more. It was pretty fun to answer and ask questions. One student was a little shocked to find out that I don't drink alcohol as he assumed that all Americans do. He also kept asking me about the vote on marijuana in California. A lot of them asked me if I thought the president would get reelected in 2 years, which, of course, I have no idea or even care to speculate at this point. Pretty fun.

But the two biggest pieces of news come last.

The first one is very exciting and made the second one possible. After a very long time, we finally have our own things again! Most of it we have not seen for over 14 months. We have our own plates and cups and books and games and pictures and it's awesome. We also got a bunch of food that my wife was smart to buy and have sent to us. I just hope we don't use it all up too fast! There are so many boxes and paper in our garage right now. Everything came on Friday in big wooden shipping crates much bigger than the picture here but similar. Inside each crate was all of our things in cardboard boxes and paper. We still don't have everything organized but have put a lot of things away. It has made our place feel a lot more like our home.

One of the things that came was our bikes. We have not seen them since we left Utah in the summer of 2009. That summer we had not really pushed the two youngest to ride bikes without training wheels. The youngest was just a little young and not really interested and the older of the two was certainly old enough but we knew we wouldn't be seeing our bikes for a while and maybe there was a little fear there too so we didn't feel like it was something we needed to push. But both of them on Saturday learned how to ride bikes, starting, turning, stopping, everything all in just a few minutes! It was awesome. They probably rode for a couple of hours straight. It was so much fun and made us feel great that our stuff arrived just before a weekend so they could have some time to ride while it was light outside.