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.