Sunday, September 18, 2011

Juice


Watermelon Juice
This past month we have gone out to eat a couple of times as a family. My children laugh at me a little because I love the watermelon juice so much. They laugh that I say, "It's so refreshing." But really, it is sooo refreshing. One of the things i love about living in Indonesia is being able to order fruit drinks every time I go anywhere to eat. It is really great to have fresh juice and so many different types, not just apple and orange. My favorites are the ones that are just the fruit all blended up into a juice. This is how the watermelon comes out. It's not watermelon flavored, but actual watermelon juice. It's so refreshing, I can't think of many things better. (Wait, I think I already said that.) I thought very briefly about the problems I might cause by ordering juice when water had already been ordered for our children, but I just had to have some juice for myself. So I just plunged right in to whatever consequences might result, knowing that the juice was exactly what I needed at that moment. It was so much what I needed that I ordered another.
I also like this one - Avocado Juice

Sunday, August 28, 2011

August flies by

Kids at the Charity Iftar eating
August has been busy with lots of visa interviews, a visit to Manado, and trying to find time to write my "EER". We also celebrated our first and only Indonesian National Independence Day on August 17th. There have been several opportunities for me to attend Iftars. During the month of Ramadan where Muslims fast during the daylight hours, some gather at the end of the day with family or others to break their fast with food and prayer. Our consulate holds a few of these and invites political, religious, or other leaders or students to join for different events. I went to one that was a charity Iftar with my family. We donated money towards gifts, food, and supplies for a school that provides education to children from poor families and then went to break the fast with them, hear their presentations, and give them what we brought. We went to one last year when we had just newly arrived, too. They are a highlight.
On August 17th we had a branch activity where we celebrated the Independence Day (66 years) and the birth month of the Primary (a lot more years). We had a good time. Our children dressed in some traditional clothing and modeled it with the other primary kids and then showed their talents. Our girls shared poems and baked goods. Our youngest played the piano in a last minute entry. (He had told us earlier that he would not be doing anything and we couldn't convince him otherwise, but he decided on his own while there that he could play something he had memorized.)
My EER is my yearly employee evaluation. It's a big deal since it's what is used to determine whether I get tenured and promoted. It is a challenge to write since I need examples from the past year that are good but it also has a word limit. It requires precise wording and a careful choosing of what you will put in and what you will not. My supervisor has a section and the principle officer (her boss) has a section and I have a section. I provided information to all and my proposed changes, etc. I have also been getting advice from others to help me make it good.
View across the sea to volcano "Old Manado"
Mt. Lokon still steaming
At the Yesus Memberkati Monument in Manado
The gas hose is going from the pump THROUGH the van 
A couple weeks back I went on a trip to Manado in North Sulawesi. This area of Indonesia is mostly populated with Christians, unlike a lot of Indonesia. It was different seeing churches instead of mosques but most things were pretty much the same. While there I ate sate (like a little shish-kabob) made from something that lives in the water and is like some kind of clam but in a shell more like a snail. I also got to do some pretty exciting things (besides working 10-12 hour days) like meet the governor of North Sulawesi and attend an event at his mansion. Before I came home I even had a chance to go out on a boat with a glass bottom and see the coral and fish in the coral and jump in the sea with goggles and a snorkel to explore around the coral. It was amazing.
The captain of our ship leading the way
Oh, I climbed with climbing ropes on an indoor climbing wall for the first time in my life yesterday. It was fun, but I spent most of my time "belaying" for all of my kids to climb. They had a good time, too.
Before eating a fish head
After eating the fish head!!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Summertime 2

In the month since I've been back in Surabaya, I have mostly been very occupied with work.
We are extremely busy during the summertime with tourists and people wanting to visit the US for various reasons. There is also a lot more to do when others are out on vacations or travel or transferring to other posts, which usually also happens in the summertime.
Monk
At work for me, this time is also busy because my first employee evaluation is due in August, 1 year after I arrived. This requires a lot of thinking and is critical to my being able to stay in the foreign service in the future, which I definitely want to do.
I am happy to say that after a couple of weeks being by myself in a too quiet home and watching Monk during dinner every night, that my family has returned. It has been amazing having them back. We are now busy getting ready for the kids to start school and planning ahead for the times they are out of school so I can take vacation time wisely.
At Kenjaran in Surabaya
When I have been home with my family we have played games, watched movies, gone to the mall and out to eat, and so on. One special treat since they have not been in school is that each one of my children has come to lunch with me at work once. I loved having them do that. They are all awesome kids.
I have also had fun with a new Ipod touch and I upgraded our internet recently, too.
This month is also Ramadan here in Indonesia so we'll have events like Iftars during the month and then a break at the end of the month when it ends.
Time sure flies!

Summertime

Okay, so I guess I need to do another long update since it's been a long time since the last post.


The week after the last post was extremely busy at work due to people being out and high-level visitors in town for government meetings. I was involved in these and also trying to get things ready to go on vacation to the states. We left to the U.S. where I spent 2 weeks of vacation time with my family and a week of training in DC before coming back to Surabaya.
It was time well spent. I had a great time in Utah which made it a little hard to come back, particularly since my family was still there.


Things I did while in Utah:



  • Temple session in Salt Lake Temple
  • Temple session in American Fork Temple with my wife, we were the  witness couple and my Dad officiated
  • Baptisms for the dead in Salt Lake Temple with my son and nephew
  • Completed the Ragnar Relay, over 190 miles for our team of 12

  • Freedom Run 10K with my son
  • Timponogos Cave with my family and my brother and his family
  • Fishing with my parents and a couple brothers and family - I caught a big trout

  • Set off fireworks
  • Watched parades, one in Provo and one in Lehi
  • Swimming
  • Went to the Manti Pageant with family and friends
  • Sleeping in tent in Manti and battled mosquitoes
  • Saw and slept at my wife's sister's nice new house in Provo
  • In Utah for the birth of my new nephew, who I got to hold a few times
  • Helped lay sod at my brother's
  • Mowed my parent’s lawn a couple times
  • Had a barbeque and home-made ice cream
  • Watched "Uptown Saturday Night"
  • Bought new laptop battery
  • Got some new clothes
  • Bought a new pair of shoes

  • Attended the temple sealing of friends from Salt Lake in the Salt Lake Temple
  • Ate sister-in-law's homemade salsa - mmmm
  • Slept in numerous places, including: parent’s bed, parent’s guest bed, in driver’s seat of rental van, on floor of North Summit High School gym, in tent in friends’ backyard in Manti, in sister-in-law's new house on daybed, in father-in-law’s guest bed, in hotel in DC, in wife’s cousin’s home on air mattress, and of course on the airplane
  • Went to DelTaco drive through for ½ lb. bean and cheese burrito with green sauce
  • Had ice cream from BYU creamery
  • Went on tour of Welfare square with family
  • Attended church at parent’s ward, brother’s ward, sister-in-law’s ward
  • Kids won ice cream and hamburger from gumball machine in restaurant in Manti
  • Played board game with brother and friends
  • Played phase ten with friends and a million mosquitoes in Manti
  • Sunday dinner and chatting with wife’s family
  • Ride up American Fork Canyon to a reservoir and Jeep ride
  • Shakes from Dairy Keen in Heber and Iceberg in Alpine
  • Saw Whitehouse and Renwick Gallery in DC
  • Experienced near freezing temperatures and 90+ degree weather (a little)
  • Spent almost 50 hours actually in the air, not counting time in-between flights, at the gate, going through security and getting to/from the airport
  • Went through about 10 security checks at airports.
  • Drove thousands of miles in rental van
  • Watched Movies in the theater - Kung Fu Panda 2, 17 Miracles
  • Went to Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point
  • Went as a family to Boondocks - played LaserTag, Miniature Golf, Video games together
Am I forgetting something?

It was exhausting and fun and refreshing. Can't wait until next summer!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Update

Time for an update and to catch up a little.


Week of April 17-24
Huge grains of sand in Lombok
Almost like quicksand
- Had a good time taking a couple of days and the weekend to go to Lombok and also celebrate my daughter's birthday. It was Easter weekend and we had a good time at the beach, eating at new places together, having an Easter egg hunt and watching some DVD's we had just purchased. I loved the sand at this beach, it was in large round grains instead of small squarish ones and it was white. Even in the heat of the day it felt fine on bare feet and was pretty soft. We watched some DVD's about the history of the United States of America and felt very proud to be Americans.

Week of April 24-May 1

Madura Education Outreach at Public School
The first 3 days of this week I had to go out of town for Education Outreach to Madura. Madura is an island that is right off of the island of Java, where I live, that has it's own history and culture and language separate from Java. For a couple of years now there has been a bridge that connects it to Surabaya, so it only takes a little while to get there and took me a couple of hours to get to the city where I was starting the three days of outreach. Every morning and afternoon I went to public schools or pesantrens, Islamic boarding schools, to talk to them about education in the United States. Every time I have done one of these I have been treated like I'm some kind of rock star; all the kids want to say hi, shake my hand, get their pictures with me, etc. It's pretty fun. It can also be a lot of work and sometimes I get asked by people questions that I have to use all my skill to answer. Some of them are a little easier to answer like one I got from one of the leaders of the Islamic community in Madura about something he read that said that the U.S. needed a new enemy after the fall of communism and so it chose Islam and he wondered if that is true. This one was easy to answer not true, but the idea behind it that even leads them to consider something so absurd also needed to be addressed. This is one of the reasons we do outreach.
Good times doing outreach in Madura
May 1st was my wedding anniversary and my wife and I just spent some time together but didn't go anywhere special. I am happy to be with her and think she is the most awesome person. We spent the day at a district conference for our church, which was kind of a treat because it was different from our normal Sundays.

Week of May 1-8
The great thing about this week was that near the end of the week my parents came for a visit and over the weekend my daughter was baptized! We were all very excited to have them come and felt very honored to have them here for our daughter's baptism. We didn't think they would be able to make it and had reconciled ourselves to that so when they did actually come we were so grateful and excited.
My daughter's baptism was great. There was another young boy of the other counselor in our branch presidency who was also baptized at the same time. So we did the baptism and confirmation in English and they did it in Indonesian. It was a great experience and even better since my parents were there.
Oh yeah, and the 8th was also Mother's day and I had my mom with me! Happy Mother's Day to her and my awesome wife, who is a great, hardworking, smart mother.

We hope the tiger's sedated
Week of May 8-15
Throw me a banana!
This week was really busy at work but I don't remember much else besides having fun with my parents in the evenings. They couldn't stay awake very easily after the sun went down, and it goes down at 5:30 pm! On Saturday we went to Taman Safari together and had a good time seeing the animals and spending time with each other. We also got to see the mud flow on the way down; it's a huge area that was covered in tons and tons of hot mud from inside the earth, whole villages destroyed, after a company drilled in the area and something went wrong. Too bad it rained at Taman Safari the day we were there and some things were cancelled. But we were able to stay for the new night show based on Indiana Jones. They conned us in to sitting in the front row and were kind enough to ask if the children were afraid of explosions and that if they were that we should move. All of the kids said that they were not afraid of explosions, or eruptions, would be a better translation. Anyway, about halfway through the show I understood why they were smiling when they asked about it after water erupted from a "water well" on the set and came down right on us. It kept coming and coming and coming. It must have gone on for a full minute. We were completely soaked and did not, of course, dry off at all. Made for something interesting to laugh about later.

Week of May 15-22
Golfing
I had a day off this week for an Indonesian holiday so we celebrated my birthday and did some things with my parents. Thank you family for making my birthday celebration a good one. My dad and I got professional massages, a first for both of us, we hit some golf balls with two of my children, and then we all went out to eat at one of my favorite restaurants and had the missionaries come along. It was a very memorable time. I had no idea that it would take an hour to massage my neck and shoulders, which is what I ordered. They also massaged my back, head, a little on my arms and legs, hands and feet. They popped all my fingers and toes! When I was getting my back/shoulders massaged it was all I could do not to scream out in pain since they press so hard and keep going on the same spot. Even though it seemed to help my muscles it makes me think twice about going again. Owww!
It was hard to see my parents go since the time seemed to go so fast, but it helped knowing that it wouldn't be a really long time before we saw them again. I think it is helpful for them to have spent some time with us to see where and how we are living so they can understand us, especially my children, better. I'm so glad they came.
Love in Jakarta
At the end of this week we took a special trip and went to Jakarta as a family. We had some fun together on Saturday and it seemed like everyone liked Jakarta. It's a huge city and you can find anything there. We did have to stay at a budget hotel since it is nearly impossible to find a hotel that will let 6 people stay in one room. We had to book 3 rooms! They almost gave us 2 on one floor and one on another until I pressed them to change it since there are only 2 adults in the family. We were supposed to have connecting rooms, but they gave those away somehow before we checked in. At least we were on the same floor! We had a good time seeing some friends who just arrived in Jakarta and going to Kidzania on Saturday. Then on Sunday we had a special treat being a part of an historic day for the Church in Indonesia. Elder Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came and organized the first stake in Indonesia! We felt how significant and special it was to be in that meeting, even though it didn't affect the branch or city where we live since it only includes West Java and Jakarta. But it was a good meeting and a good experience for our children. We are very happy for those who now have the blessings of wards and a stake in Indonesia.

May 22-29
My family went home Sunday night and I transferred myself to another hotel closer to the Embassy and then stayed the whole week to work in the consular section at the Embassy. I wanted to forge a closer connection to the officers and section there in Jakarta since we need to work with them frequently and don't want to be forgotten. I hoped to pick some things up that would help our section now and in the future and perhaps give them some help also, which I think was accomplished. It also was a fun experience staying at the hotel where I stayed. That was an amazing hotel, the Mandarin Oriental. I could go on and on about how nice it was, but I really enjoyed the room, the view, the bed and pillows, the desk space to work on, the friendly service, the cool gym equipment and workouts I had there, and the cool "rainshower" shower. I definitely want to go back. But I was happy to get back home after being there for a week and see my family again.
On Sunday I had to teach a lesson about temples for our combined Priesthood/Relief Society 5th Sunday meeting. I think I was tagged for it, even though it may have been a struggle for everyone to listen to my imperfect Indonesian, because I have been to the temple way more than anyone in the entire branch since the closest one to here is in either Philippines, Hong Kong or Australia, which are all very far and expensive to get to. I was happy to do it and there were some good questions, and a lot of hope that someday there will be a temple in Indonesia since there is a stake here now.

May 29-June 5 (today)
The greatest part of this week is that there were 2 holidays, one U.S. and one Indonesian. So I worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. It felt like I had a lot of Saturdays: Saturday the 28th, Monday, Thursday, and Saturday the 4th. All of them felt like a Saturday and it was nice. But the days I had work, work was extremely busy and will be for the next little while. There certainly is not even a second of sitting around; it's a challenge even to keep on top of things. Even though it is really challenging and there are some extremely frustrating and not-fun things, I still think I have one of the greatest jobs ever. I really like it. Anyway time has really been flying.

To me it's pretty easy to see why I have missed so many weeks writing in the blog. Hopefully it won't go this long in the future since there is already so much I leave out. Good times.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

New Normal

Lately I keep thinking about my "new normal."
It's things like how I feel cold if I'm in an air-conditioned building for too long and need to go back outside to warm up. Or how I never think about the weather anymore except to notice when it's raining, but not really about any forecast. The only time all the motorcycles and different roads and traffic seem strange is at times like these when I'm really thinking about it. I don't blink an eye about seeing a palm tree, they're everywhere! I kill spiders now (almost) without any hesitation. The open buildings here where inside and outside space really seem to blend is also barely noticeable. My wife mentioned the other day how she marks time differently and has a hard time now comparing when something happened here compared to previous years because there used to be seasons where here there isn't much change, except more rainy or more dry. Our months are all getting mixed up.
Kahyangan Restaurant
Also part of my new normal is my kids growing up. We went to a swim meet much of the day Saturday. It was pretty fun to watch but a lot of sitting around, too. It was fun to see my child compete. Hope he had fun.
My wife and I went to a restaurant by ourselves that night. (That is also a new thing with our children getting older. We can leave them at home sometimes.) They put us in the corner of the restaurant, which is pretty much all outside, in a little hut with pads to lean on, sitting on the floor, fish swimming around underneath and around us. It was awesome having a nice quiet corner to ourselves. I ordered some baked fish and rice and we shared some mango juice and had a good time talking. This is the kind of normal I hope will always be.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Still in business

Highlight of my weekend: Priesthood Session of General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ with my son. I have looked forward to attending this session of conference with him ever since he was born because I love going to this meeting twice a year myself and love the bond I feel with other priesthood holders while attending it. The challenge this year is a couple of things. First, priesthood session is live 7 am to 9 am in our time zone but not broadcast over the Internet, only by satellite. Second, our branch holds regular meetings, starting at 9 am on that Sunday. Third, if they did the broadcast before church over satellite at our church building it would likely be in Indonesian since that is what they speak here. So I decided instead of going to the church the next week to listen to the meeting in Indonesian that I would download it and watch it at home with my son. We put our church clothes on, got some ice cream at a local market and then settled in to watch it after the other kids went to bed on Saturday night. It was almost like the real thing, except I didn't back my car in to the parking space at our house.
LDS General Conference

U.S. House Chamber
Highlight of my weekend 2: Watching all of the sessions of General Conference at home. Since our branch, and all the others in Indonesia watch the Conference the weekend after in Indonesia at the meetinghouse in Indonesian, we watched the sessions at home in English on our own. I downloaded all the sessions and connected my computer to our big television. It was awesome. Our kids even listened some of the time!
Frustration of my week: Waiting for Congress to pass a budget. I work very hard and wish they could pass budgets on time so I can do the work they've mandated me to do more efficiently.
Relief of my week: A budget passed and the government will not be shut down.
Frustration of my week 2: A couple of days or so of sickness bad enough to make me feel a little miserable: congestion, headache, tiredness, etc.
Relief of my week 2: I feel like I am getting better after going home from work early one day, skipping a meeting and getting a lot more sleep than usual. Just an occasional cough lingers on.
Question of my week: Why do mosquitoes love me so much? I have been bitten this week at least 20 times. Almost every one while in my own house. Not sure how so many are inside my house all of the sudden or why if the numbers were always the same why they're biting me more now. But I itch everywhere. I have them on my neck, arms, elbows fingers, knees, calves, and ankles. The night before last I woke up a little after 3:30 am because one buzzed so close to my ear that the sound woke me up.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

What's interesting this week?

Let's see. . .
What's interesting this week?
Still a bunch of Emails to go through from the time while I was gone last week to Hong Kong. It's hard to get through them all when they just keep coming!
Work continues to be interesting. There's always plenty going on. I'm never bored. In fact, time seems to be going so fast.
LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake
Today was a busy Sunday for me: I had to conduct sacrament meeting, open and close the adult Sunday School and attend the primary class for the older kids in between conducting Sunday School, conduct opening exercises of priesthood meeting, teach the lesson for the young men in their priesthood meeting, and process donations after church. Luckily, I didn't have any other meetings or anything after that. If I was in the U.S. I would have been watching General Conference today, but since it's broadcast live in the middle of the night everyone here watches it rebroadcast during our day next week. Looking forward to watching it and watching the priesthood session with my son. We'll probably watch it on the internet late Saturday night or something after the younger ones have gone to bed.

In other news . . .
Sometimes found on their backs, legs twitching
I found out that cockroaches actually do fly sometimes! There was one on the curtain in my bedroom a little higher than I can reach. I got a magazine and a container thinking I would sweep it off into the container, cover it with the magazine and leave it for someone else to kill (our house staff maybe?). But it didn't quite happen that way. Just as I pushed the curtain back and began to sweep it off, it began to fly, missed the container, hit my hand (gross!), and flew past me, landing on my bed! I jumped over to sweep it off again, but it didn't go straight down and landed on my bag (sick-o!). I tried to move it so I could put the container down on top of it and it ran under my bed. In the short time it took me to reach over there and look under, I couldn't see it anywhere. It's dark under there, but even after getting a flashlight I couldn't find it. I looked all over the room and behind things and couldn't find it. There's a big space under the panel behind our bed that is part of the wall. My wife and I figured it must have gone under there. When I got up in the morning I noticed the container in the bathroom over a cockroach. It turns out my wife got up very early to use the restroom and there it was. (Hopefully that's the same one and not another).

Sunday, March 27, 2011

March on

The cardboard boat race
I've considered not doing this blog anymore after missing a couple of weeks. I do best when I can just continue on in a regular pattern. If I miss doing it for too long, it will be hard for me to start again because it feels too overwhelming to go back and summarize. But I have decided to march on and keep posting.
March has been a busy month, as they all seem to be these days.
One of the biggest things is that my oldest turned 12 and I was able to ordain him a deacon. It has been great seeing him take on Aaronic priesthood responsibilities and watching him as he passes the sacrament and helps take care of the building. It has also been fun to have him in the Aaronic priesthood meeting with me, since I am still teaching the lessons every week there. It is a little different to remember to say everything twice in the lessons, once in English and once in Indonesian. I don't want anyone to get shortchanged so I try to make sure to repeat things evenly in both directions and translate comments from the youth.
There were also some big things at the school this month. There was a big production where they march all of the kids by country with a flag like the Olympics and then have them perform something that has to do with their country. My wife and children, of course, were really involved in it. It was fun to see. There was also a race on Pi day (March 14, 3.14) of boats that the middle school students built from cardboard and then raced in the school swimming pool. It was also a lot of fun. My son's group spent a lot of time on it in the months leading up to it and did really well.
Buddha on a peak in Hong Kong
We had a really fun vacation in Hong Kong for spring break this past week. We did so many things and spent the entire day every day out and about. Some friends of ours met us there and went around with us which was also really nice and fun for us even if it may not have been as much fun for them to just do family things.
Among other things, one of the highlights was going to Disneyland with our children from open to close. For the youngest it was his first time and for the one just older than that the last time we went was too long ago to remember. I can't believe that our entire family went on the Space Mountain roller coaster at the same time! Since the lines were really short, some of us went multiple times. We also loved going on the Buzz Lightyear ride and trying to rack up as many points as possible shooting the little Zurg targets with a laser. We had some pretty awesome scores. A tip if you go: the ones that move are worth more points when you hit them and you can just keep hitting those as fast as you can to really accumulate points. (I guess it's pretty clear I liked this one too.)
Hong Kong Temple
Anyway, there were a lot of other fun things to do like take the cable car on Hong Kong island and go to the peak, go to the Buddha statue on the tram, check out markets, go on the ferry across the bay, ride the MTR, watch all the people, see the tall buildings, find places to eat, find our way around, etc. The main reason we chose to go to Hong Kong for spring break is so that we could go to the temple since we don't have one here in Indonesia. It was good to go to the temple again even if a little challenging since I do not speak any Chinese languages. The very best part was that my oldest was able to go to do proxy baptisms for his first time. He had a good experience and really wants to go again. We already have plans.
It was great to be on vacation and get away to some place really different from where we're living, especially some place as clean and modern as Hong Kong, but it's always nice to come back home, too. I'm familiar with how things work here and my body is definitely more used to the warm weather. I wore my jacket almost the entire time in Hong Kong and it felt cold since the temperature never even made it as high as the low temperature here in Indonesia.
I'll go back to work tomorrow and tackle the hundreds of Emails that have accumulated as well as all of the rest of the work I have to do. It's a good thing I like the work! Just marching on, continuing the blog and finishing up March.
Hong Kong street

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Converge

Sometimes a lot of different things converge at the same time. This was one of those weeks.
For months I have been working on assuring that the imposed implementation of a set of consular services by an outside contractor works for our post. It has been challenging and I am grateful for the help of a great colleague in Jakarta who was great about remembering the needs of our small post throughout the process. We are the customers to some degree but it effects our customers for visa services and we want it to be done right. This entailed going over everything that was proposed and making sure that it was as much as we could before it launched. Part of the service includes a Web site for making appointments for visa interviews. The experiences I had in my previous job were very helpful for managing this and also seeing the mistakes that were being made. But after months of delays, it launched this week! Very exiting, but now we still have a lot of work trying to figure out how to make it work for us and pass on lessons learned to others who have not yet made the change.
We also had some trainers in this week to refresh and update us on the consular computer applications we use every day. They are still working with us but have done a great job so far helping us use the applications better and more efficiently.
Meeting with students at a school after a presentation
On Saturday I worked at an education fair promoting education in the United States. We had a great turnout. I got to stand at a booth representing the consulate and answer questions. I was joined for a few minutes by another colleague of mine, and the Consul General herself, and even for a few minutes with the U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia who was visiting Surabaya! I had some interesting questions and felt like I said, "I don't know," quite a bit. "What is the best university for a masters in accountancy?" "What university is the best for a degree in aquaculture?" "How long does it take for me to get an immigrant visa?" "How can I get a scholarship?" That last one was asked dozens of times. 4 hours, hundreds of people, routine and crazy questions. Pretty fun. I also got to speak for 45 minutes about how to get a student visa. Seems like a pretty dry subject to me. I tried to spice it up, but really couldn't think of a good way to do it. It's a little like math, do this and this to get this. Necessary but hard to love unless you love technicalities. (I love technicalities, so I get into it a little but I know not everyone shares the love.) There were probably 100 people in the room listening to my presentation. It was standing-room only! I struggled to find a few minutes this week to put things together for this and some other presentations I needed to do next week that were cancelled or postponed at the last minute. But it all came together in the end. You will probably be able to take a look at information and pictures from the fair on our consulate Facebook page very soon, http://www.facebook.com/Surabaya.USConsulate.
I think I have to thank my previous job for a lot of experience in many of the things I did this week. That certainly made it a lot easier and less stressful than it could have been otherwise.
I guess in a way that means even my previous job converged into my week. And it seemed to work out.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Still warm

Rice Fields near Poso
Last week I went on a business trip to Central Sulawesi, one of the provinces of Indonesia, and visited the cities of Palu and Poso. I had some interesting experiences there, met lots of people, had fun visiting some schools, met some U.S. Citizens living there, and met a family living there who are the only members of my church in Palu. Sometimes in our church we think it is challenging to have a demanding church calling, a lot of church activities, etc., and it is. But it is also a big challenge to not have any other church members to do anything with and always just being on your own. It was good for them and for me to meet.
Drying cocoa beans by side of road
The whole area has beautiful thick forests, high mountains and the sea. The part of the province near Poso has tons of cocoa trees, rice fields, and fish. There were goats, chickens, some dogs and cats, and people wandering around on almost every street. It was great.
I didn't write about it when I got back because our internet was down all afternoon and evening Sunday when I have time to do it. Then during the week I was sick. I don't like being sick especially since I feel sick enough not to feel like doing anything but not sick enough to not actually do anything.
I gave another talk in church yesterday, but the time was pretty well out by the time my talk came up so I had to cut things down and just share a little and do my best in Indonesian. It's a little more challenging to do that in another language, but luckily a week before I had spent a whole week in Central Sulawesi listening to and speaking with people in Indonesian. My usual daily interactions in Indonesian are much shorter and less in depth so this was a big boost to helping me communicate. The talk worked out fine.
Cool Mosque in Palu
I must be out of practice blogging because I'm having a hard time writing. My apologies to any who read this.
Veggies!




River near Poso

Boats off the shore

Homes over calm water

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Rats!

The exiting thing last week was that we found out what has been making noise in our ceiling for a couple of months. We all had our guesses: a mouse, a bird, a lizard, a gecko, nothing. But we had a trap put up there to catch whatever it was (someone went up before that to take a look and told us it was a small tikus, which could be a big mouse or a small rat). Anyway, as you may guess by the title, it was a small rat. The great part about it is that it does not wake us up at night anymore and we don't hear anything scratching around up there anymore. The bad part is that it sat in a cage in front of my house before someone came to take it away and kill it! The bad part about that is that I went to look at it and I thought it was kind of cute in it's own way. It definitely has beady eyes! Anyway, that was about the most exiting thing to happen around here and is still a topic of conversation for us.
The actual rat, and a random snail friend in the corner.
Now the only thing we hear in our ceiling is an occasional drip from the rain. It's rainy season here right now, which does not mean that it is cold. The temperature is pretty much the same as always. The difference is that usually every day it rains for a couple of hours in the early afternoon, maybe again around sundown, and then often during the night. The ground is always wet and mud is abundant. Sometimes we have floods when the rain is particularly heavy which makes traffic even slower. It took me 1 1/2 hours to get home from work a couple of times last week. If there isn't much traffic, like on a holiday, it only takes about 1/2 hour for me to get to work. Most of the vehicles on the road are motorcycles and the rain doesn't stop anyone from driving them. They just put on their rain gear, take off their shoes or sandals and sometimes even drive with their feet up high on the stem  of the bike below the handle bars. Motor bikes still get around faster than the cars since they weave in and out of traffic and cars, not just down the lane between cars but also between the cars as in the tiny space between the back of one car and the front of another until they're at the front of the light. Many of them then don't even wait for the light if there is one and just go if there is any break in the traffic and they think they can make it. It's pretty cool but also a little scary to watch sometimes.
Church is sometimes a bit challenging too. Today none of the Elder's Quorum presidency showed up (it's been weeks since they've been to a priesthood meeting). Today is supposed to be the lesson taught by the presidency. Since I conducted the opening of the priesthood meeting I felt like I should help out. I asked if anyone had been asked to teach and no one (out of the 5 in attendance) spoke up. I was pretty sure that no one had been asked so I started a discussion about something that seemed relevant. It seemed to go okay, but I did get a lot of looks like they were really concentrating to try to understand me. I wish I could speak this language better, and I'm sure they think the same thing!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Surprise

Kind of a long week this week for some reason. By the time it was Wednesday, I couldn't figure out why it wasn't Friday. And that was despite the fact that I had Monday off work for Martin Luther King, Jr. day!

But, the beginning and the end of the week were the best part of the week for sure. Amy and I went on a daytime date on Monday since the children were in school and I had the day off. We went to lunch and saw a movie together. It was fun. And the end of the week we celebrated my wife's birthday by opening presents, going out for banana splits as a family (same place as last blog post), and going out to eat a meter-long pizza as a family. We had a good time.

Mmmm . . . . Mango Gelato
My wife was happy that I finally surprised her with a present thanks to a good friend. She is very hard to surprise for a few reasons. Usually since I always come home after work if I can help it, if I try to go anywhere to shop she wonders where I am and what I am doing not coming/being at home. If I order on-line she might get the Email receipt of the shipment or it goes to our house and she gets it before I do. She usually gets the mail before I do. She can see if anything has come out of the bank account and where it's gone to. This year things are a little different since our mail and packages are delivered to my work twice a week and I access the bank accounts from my computer at work. Add to that our friends willingness and suggestion to do the shopping for me and ship it to me and I have the perfect way to overcome my previous challenges with creating a surprise. My wife has been talking for months (if not longer) about having an iPod to listen to while walking and running that is not so bulky as her phone and she can pick the songs more easily than my old one she's been using. Surprise! Happy birthday. I hope you enjoy it.

It's fun to surprise people. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but I have loved it for a long time. I remember when I was young leaving things for people at their doors or surprising them with some kind of service. I try to find ways to do this at work also. The best things are not things that people expect you to do, but little things that they are not expecting. Just doing something unexpected for the benefit of someone else gives me a thrill. I am not always the best at doing this. Some people I know are practically experts at noticing something small someone else needs and doing it. I admire them a lot and wish I was better at this because it is one of the joys of life. Is this just me or do you enjoy this also?

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Short post

Not sure I have a lot to talk about this week. Things were pretty normal and work was not overly busy. A lot of people missing at church this week; maybe they're all sick? It is still about the same temperature it was when we arrived, just more rainy. The couple of times a day it downpours cools the temperature a little - to about 90 F. I conducted our church meeting in Indonesian today, also. But not much out of the ordinary.

Anyway, one thing I can say for certain is that I love it when my wife comes to my work to have lunch with me. This is one of the unexpected benefits of my wife choosing to be a stay-at-home mom and having all of our children in school. It means that sometimes she can come to my office and have lunch with me. It's the best. This week we went to a place where we have been before called Harvest that has good sandwiches and calm American music playing in the background. We ordered our own sandwiches and we ordered one banana split to share. If you're not really specific about things here you can be surprised. This time was no exception. We ordered our meal and dessert and a few minutes later a huge bowl of bananas, ice cream of different flavors, shavings of chocolate, and whipped cream showed up, . . . before the meal. We both looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and said at the same time, "Well, I guess it's dessert first!" It was delicious.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Happy New Year

Over the new year holiday both last year and this year we spent time on the beach and time in the rain. But this time it was a lot warmer and less family. This year we went to Bali over the weekend and had some fun as a family.
We went whitewater rafting, rode elephants, swimming, boogie-boarding on the ocean waves, eating at a lot of different restaurants, going to church with a very small group of members of our church, visiting an organic restaurant we had to walk through rice fields to get to, playing games together, talking, watching a Balinese play at night, seeing a man fire walk on burning coconut shells, walking, riding in the car for hours, and taking short plane trips to and from as a family.
View from organic restaurant

Fun and memorable, along with a little fighting, yelling and missing other family and friends. We couldn't even get on the Internet much at all and so couldn't call people, text, Facebook, Skype or anything. Sorry.
Some of my best memories from the weekend are the times we spent eating together talking and playing 20 questions as we ate. Some of the places were quite an adventure. At this one place that had Mexican food, and barbecue ribs, you had to fight for a place. Not sure how to describe it except that at the front of the restaurant it is just open to the sidewalk and street like no wall or door or anything on that side. This is not too uncommon around here as so many things within walls and under a roof are open to the outside too. But it was very crowded the first time we tried to go and just as crowded the next time and people waited in line for 1/2 hour or more just to get a table. To me this said that it must be pretty good and worth trying for. So we started standing in line. Well it's a little hot and the kids are getting tired and the everyone is antsy to get a table and we're right next to the barbecue where they're grilling ribs which is at the front of the restaurant and it's a bit of a challenge. In order to eat you have to wait in the aisles near the tables and when someone finishes their meal you better hurry over and sit in their spot, even before they're dirty dishes, etc. are cleared off the table or you will be waiting a lot longer. So we stood in lines and kind of schemed, helped some, watched others, and kept a close eye on everyone eating their meals of burritos and BBQ spare ribs in order to get our turn. I spotted some people who were finishing up at a table that would be perfect for our six but it was in the other aisle and a man who started waiting at about the same time was standing near it. I had moved over closer to that one and we both did a sort of slow dance getting closer to the table so I decided to ask him how many people in his group, not wanting to give up what would be a great spot for us and thinking that I could be helpful to him to also get what I want. He wanted the same big table and the big one next to it for his group of 16! I protested that his whole group of 16 was not here before our group of six and some of them may need to wait. (The restaurant probably only holds about 35 at a time.) I think I got him on that one and he was civil enough that he allowed me to hustle onto the bench a couple minutes later when the people there stood up. He got the larger table next to us at almost the same time, but that left some of his group standing. They got lucky and were able to order first, and they ordered enough for the whole group! Oh well, at least we were sitting and it wasn't too long before we could order. As happens all too often, some of what we ordered was "out" but we got most of it, avoided being in the downpour of rain that started while we were waiting in line, and enjoyed eating it. It was an adventure in eating, for sure.
Inside Mexican/Ribs place with random people
In Indonesia, people smile and say hi and seem friendly, but when it comes to driving, getting off airplanes, and getting a place in a restaurant, they have a unique way of both going with the flow and getting what they want even if it means edging you out. For us to go with the flow we also have to squeeze in, push to the front, jump out first or whatever it takes, but smile as we do it. Then no one things anything of it and it's all good. It's  just a different kind of polite than we're used to.
Happy New Year.