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.

My Pick

This week was filled with training and reading and Email coordination. Two days of the week I had training that was scheduled for me about security and safety overseas. The other days of the week I had to figure out something on my own. It is a good challenge to have. Even when I wasn't scheduled to be anywhere, I still got up and went to work to make sure I did something productive. It is a rare opportunity to be able to choose what I will study and when. It was surprisingly difficult! I feel like I spent the time well attending lectures, reading, sending and reading Email, doing research, finding out more about resources available to me for future reference, and working on my schedule for the next couple of months.
Oh, and one exciting thing for me . . . I picked up a map of the world that shows the time zones and U.S. Embassies and other posts overseas and ordered a big wall map of Indonesia!
We had a couple of crazy days this week, too. The craziest was the day the power went out at 8:30 p.m. and didn't come back on until 2:30 p.m. the next day. I went for an early morning run that morning only to realize afterward that our water heater has some kind of electrical component. I had to take a shower anyway. It was VERY cold. After a couple of minutes it wasn't too bad, because my skin was numb by that time. It would have been 100% torture if I hadn't run that morning and been really hot. Anyway, I'm thankful for electricity for sure. I was thinking that maybe when I live in Indonesia and it is 95 degrees every day, I might pick cold showers every day to cool off!

Oath

On Friday I finished orientation and was officially sworn in! I am an official of the U.S. Government, a commissioned officer. It is exciting and amazing to think about it. I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and do my best ("well and faithfully discharge the duties of the Office"). I will do my best to serve my country and the citizens of my country; that is the reason I pursued my job and now it is also the promise I have made.
I have noticed that whenever oaths of service are taken that it is no longer about the individual in the office, but about something bigger and more important that needs to be done. The individual plays a part, but it is about serving the greater good and sacrificing one's own interests for the benefit of others. This kind of selfless service, (isn't service always supposed to be selfless?), interestingly also builds the individual engaged in the service. I think it is one of the secrets of life--understanding the power of service to lift and enrich all those involved in it, particularly if it is done selflessly and for a cause greater than one's own interest. The words "swear" and "oath" come from Old English. They are words that have been around a long time--more than a thousand years. They also have a lot of layers of meaning. When I swear in, which is to take an oath, I feel a weight to fulfill a big responsibility whatever the size of my particular job at the moment and to work for the success of the whole.
I pray that I will "well and faithfully discharge" any and all of the duties I have taken or responsibilities that may be mine. And I pray that I will remember the significance of taking an oath to do so.

What's the news?

The news is . . .

I have been assigned to Surabaya, Indonesia!

Indonesian Flag

Surabaya symbol:

A shark and an alligator battling for dominion

I will move next year, at the end of summer, and will do training of various kinds until that time, including learning Indonesian.

This was one of several places on my list I thought would be good to go to. It will be good. The school is good, the assignment is good, I learn a new language. Indonesia is the 4th most populous country in the world, behind China, India, and the United States of America. Surabaya is the second largest city in Indonesia, after the capitol of Jakarta, and has many more people than in my whole home state of Utah! It also has a couple of branches of the Church and is part of the Indonesia Jakarta mission. When they gave out the assignments on Friday afternoon, my assignment was announced second-to-last! As assignments were announced for others I was trying to remember what was left. It was intense. This is the right one for us.

In other news this week: I had a lot going on at work. I received my Russian score, which was about what I expected and good enough to not need any additional training in that language if I get a future assignment that requires it. (Wahoo!) I also got back results of a test that supposedly assesses my ability to learn a language, not counting the all-important factor of motivation, and apparently I should be able to learn languages really well. Great. This week I also had some pretty intense practical exercises like answering tough questions on the spot and giving a speech. It was also intense waiting until Friday afternoon to find out my assignment.

We went out to eat to celebrate on Friday night and visited a couple of fun sights on Saturday, including Madame Tussaud's, which is where I got the first picture in this post.

Russkii i dom

This week much of my focus has been on two things: the Russian language and the sell of my home.

These two things have occupied any free "brain" time I have had this week.

In the evenings, and sometimes early mornings, as much as I could I listened to Russian news podcasts and read articles in Russian. At lunchtime I did not eat with others but went instead to a place where there are old Russian-language magazines and newspapers and I spent my lunch time reading them. Whenever I could remember, I prayed in Russian and talked

to myself in Russian about whatever was running through my head and I even translated in my head sometimes when people were speaking.

Why all this work and craziness? I took a 2-hour language test on Friday afternoon. Part of it was speaking and part of it was reading. The test is designed to be as difficult as possible to find out where the upper limit of ability is. It was pretty tough when they wanted to get into a technical political debate with me and I that seemed to be about my limit. On the reading they only give you a couple of minutes to read passages and tell them what they are about (not necessarily translate, but describe and give context, and so forth). It was challenging and I knew it would be.

The other thing that took up some of my brain-time and time-time this week was the sell of our

home. After what seems like forever waiting for it to happen, it actually closed this week! Since we were doing it long-distance we had to sign the paperwork on our own, fax it, and send it in FedEx. We barely made it (thanks to FedEx being a few minutes late to pick up). A lot of rushing around and worry, but it is done. Thanks to our Realtor and friend for all of her help.

I also thought it was interesting that on Wednesday night we had a notary come over to certify some of the documents that required a notary and . . . . she was a Russian!

Russkii (Russian) i (and) dom (home) -- done!