Thanks to the Foreign Service Institute, I’ve got two more Afghanistan books to read on top of the history book that I’d already purchased. I think I’m glad I waited to start that one until I got the overview from this week’s quick 2-hour history session. At least I’ll be starting with a little context. (Seriously. I had nothing to go on before. It’s rather embarrassing.)

I also learned how to say “hello” and respond “hello” (because it’s two different phrases – aren’t new languages awesome?) in Dari. I’m also fairly confident saying “thank you.” Fingers crossed that I don’t need more than that.

After all this Afghanistan immersion, I’m feeling like I need a little break. I’m also feeling like I want to go into hiding. (In my defense, I think any sane person could only hear the phrase “The terrorists want to kill you!” so many times before deciding they never want to leave their warm bed again.) I’m trying really hard to focus on the fact that it’s only a year and on the other side of that is our tour in Vienna.

Speaking of Vienna, today happened to be EU Day in Washington. Most of the EU Embassies held open houses with entertainment and food. So you can guess where we headed this morning:

That’s right – the Austrian Embassy. We had some coffee, watched apple strudel being made (and tasted some) and picked up about a dozen maps and guide books. Never too early to start planning, you know. We also stopped by the Slovakian Embassy and started planning our trips there as well. It’s a quick drive from Vienna — check your maps. They were serving up a dumpling, sauerkraut, and bacon concoction that convinced us that we may very well be packing on the pounds during our time in that part of the world. “Light” is not a word I would use to describe their food.

The Hungarian and Czech Embassies are in the same general neighborhood, so we checked (czeched? – ha, ha!) them out as well. We got to hang out with some viszlas and pulis at the Hungarian Embassy because we have that weird ability to find dogs anywhere. And we watched a swordfight and toured the Ambassador’s residence at the Czech Embassy. He’s got a pretty sweet setup — swimming pool and everything. You don’t see many of those in DC.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever learned so much in just five days. It was exhausting, both physically and mentally. We played out scenario after scenario. Things that I can now say I’ve done that I never thought I would do:

• Fired a gun.
• Rammed a car through another one blocking the road.
• Applied a tourniquet.
• Studied my surroundings to determine if I was under surveillance.
• Drove a Humvee.

And I was doing much of this while wearing 30 pounds of body armor. I don’t want to give a lot of details about the course (if I was a little paranoid about putting information on the internet before, I’m very paranoid now), but here are some photos for you:

The “bang” portion of the class. Ignore my terrible shooting stance. I promise I was actually hitting the center of the target. In fact, two of the instructors said that I was “a natural.”

I drove both of these. That’s an armored suburban in front.

They didn’t let us drive this one, but we decided to use it as a photo op in our vests.

Work has been crazy. It’s summer transfer season – that that means out with the old boss and in with the new one. As the program assistant, that meant lots of work for me. But I think the transition went fairly well. Now it’s time to get ready for my own transition. We’ve hired a really great person to take over my position, so I’m confident that it will go well. And she happens to be a friend of mine, which means I can give her all of my tips and tricks for working with the different groups of people that I have to work with. (If it was a stranger, I might feel the need to be a little more “diplomatic”…)

Shawn and I have taken on a foster dog. Yes, we might be crazy. But she’s a Doberman, and we’re suckers for a Doberman…especially one with a sad history like hers. She’s only three years old, but was used for breeding. And neglected/mistreated while she was being used. So she was only half the size Laika was and when she came to us, and severely underweight. We’ve managed to put some muscle on her bones in the past three weeks and teach her that people can be trusted, so she’s ready for a new home. Now we just have to find it. Here’s a before and after of Robin:

We’ve done some traveling in the past month – Green Turtle Cay in Abaco for Memorial Day weekend and Ft. Lauderdale last weekend. Abaco was great for relaxing, as there is absolutely nothing to do there. But we did all kinds of shopping in Ft. Lauderdale and saw Joel McHale(!), so it’s hard to say which trip was better. Now that I think about it, Ft. Lauderdale would have definitely won if Joel McHale had been wearing the speedo from our Abaco trip:

And finally, Shawn has his next assignment (after our year in Washington):

(You all know the flag of Afghanistan, right? That should have been an easy one.)

I say it’s his assignment (as opposed to ours) because I can’t go along unless I get a job as well. So I’m back to applying for jobs again. I feel like I’ve spent most of my life looking for jobs. I thought grown ups didn’t have to do that….

I can’t remember if I explicitly discussed this, but I’ve started working at the Embassy. It’s been almost two months and it’s nothing if not interesting. I find myself getting frustrated at things during the day at work, but then I’ll tell Shawn stories about my morning on the way home for lunch and realize that it’s all just a little silly. Sometimes I wish that everyone knew how to take a step back and look at their “issues” from another perspective. I think we’d all be a little happier.

But work is only four hours a day. And it gets me out of the house. To be honest, I was going a little stir crazy before I started working. Of course, Witty Designs has suffered. Production has, well…not happened at all since we got to Nassau. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I am going to try and get started working on bags again. Soon. I mean it. Right after I take that nap.

]]> http://greatdiversions.com/patchworkplanet/2010/01/04/2010/feed/ 1 http://greatdiversions.com/patchworkplanet/2009/06/23/taking-care-of-business/ http://greatdiversions.com/patchworkplanet/2009/06/23/taking-care-of-business/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:14:17 +0000 Jennifer http://greatdiversions.com/patchworkplanet/?p=487 As some of you may know, I spent a lot of time while we were in Kyiv working on starting my own business. Witty Designs is a line of handbags and accessories – both designed and constructed by myself. It has kept me busy over the past two years, but the biggest stumbling block in Kyiv was that I could not ship products anywhere. However, I was able to hold a few trunk shows during our last year in Kyiv. I am so grateful to members of the Embassy and expat community there who encouraged me with their ideas and, most importantly, bought my bags.

Now that I am back in the US, I am happy to say that I’m able to sell my products online! Please visit my Etsy shop and see what I have available. Even better – everything’s on sale for the summer! I hope to be able to keep my shop open and offer shipping from Nassau, but that’s still not definite, so if you see something you like, now’s the time to get it.

Yesterday was the annual Yolka Party in the Russian section at FSI. About 3 weeks ago, the Russian students were called together and told about the party and the fact that we were all expected to participate. And that it was going to be the most fun we’d ever had in our lives. “Or else” seemed to be implied in that last statement. (Seriously, I was a little frightened.)

My class had already been preparing a poem in anticipation of the event, so I was set. Shawn, however, was forced to join the choir along with the other students that didn’t want to make a toast or perfom a pre-written skit. So as we left that meeting, all seemed well; it would be a party, it would maybe be a little fun…even though we were told all speaking at the party would be in Russian, so I knew I had no chance of knowing what was going on most of the time.

Then the rehearsals began. Many, many rehearsals. Apparently when Russians say “party,” they really mean “recital.” Not my idea of a super-fun time. But after 3 weeks of frustration, we all survived the event yesterday. It was okay….it wasn’t exactly fun, but I suppose it could have been worse. At least there was food after we all finished performing. And it did mark the end of Russian classes until January 2nd!

And in the other half of my life….customers have been absolutely crazy at the store. “Yes, sir, we’ve run out of most of our Christmas wrap. Why? Oh, that would be because it’s 3 days before Christmas! But don’t get upset at yourself for waiting this long, please, take it out on me because, well, that’s just easier to do now, isn’t it?” Yes, my shifts have become 5-hour long challenges of not letting smart-ass comments out of my mouth. Shawn now has the daily pleasure of hearing all of them when I get home.

But in just a few days it will all be over. Oh, the joy of Christmas!

Besides giving his vital stats, I managed to explain that he enjoys running and other sports. And at the end of my report, I was even able to say that he bought his first house last summer. All of this in Russian! Okay, so it took a little help and prompting from my instructor, but I think this is a great improvement over my report on Portland.

So that was the end of the first part of my day. In quite a shift of focus, I have spent the last 4 hours hand-making bows. For fake Christmas presents. To sit on shelves and in every conceivable nook and cranny you can find at The Container Store. That’s right, Christmas has arrived in Arlington. More specifically, “Gift Wrap Wonderland” has arrived at The Container Store. Nearly half of the first floor of the store is covered in garland, fake trees, gift boxes, and, of course, gift wrap. But do you know what the really sad thing is? I want it all. That’s right – I walked up and down the aisles this evening and found about at least 15 different gift wraps I want to buy. At $8.50 a roll, that’s not going to happen, but I think that it might be an indicator that my Christmas spirit has returned.

(For those of you that may not know this, I spent the past two Christmases working at Trinity Repertory Company, running wardrobe for their production of A Christmas Carol. It was….uh, let’s just say it was enough to beat the Christmas spirit right out of me.)

My only concern is how long my Christmas spirit can last once the they start pumping the carols into the store…

I hate job interviews, but I really hate retail job interviews. There are only so many ways to discuss the merits of clear communication in the workplace and the importance of customer service. And nothing makes you feel more overqualified than when the “education” section of the application goes all the way back to elementary school.
Honestly, do any of these people really care where North Newton Jr/Sr High School is?

So after weeding through all my job offers, this week I started a job at The Container Store. If you check the website you will see that I am now officially a “neat person.” Thank you very much.

This week has been a lot of training. Some of it is interesting, but most of it is pretty boring…and a lot of common sense. I’m ready to just get out on the sales floor and get going. Hopefully by the middle of next week that will happen. And if Shawn thought the apartment was organized before, just wait until he sees what I can do with an employee discount and unlimited resources!