All The Blog Posts In My Head

I have to apologize for my long silence but since I joined the "appreciating the work/life balance" crew (full time mom and full time employee) I struggle to find the creative space to sit down and write a post- though I haven't really been as neglectful as it may seem; I think about our blog readers all the time. I see something, I go somewhere or experience a new taste sensation and I think, "I must write a blog post about this!"  Such as Martabak, an amazing dessert that somehow made it onto my fork.

One of my favorite things is my once a month book club. We're a small and loud (I think we would
prefer the word "robust") group but over the months we have read some really good books; some are better than others of course, but a few in particular have been fist-pounding argument-provoking autobiographical summaries of women's lives. I've learned a lot- such as the fact that I am susceptible to mom guilt due to my subletting some of my previous domestic details. The fact that view these things as "my domestic details" proves that I've got a way to go. Even though I am working I still consider my family time as a measure of how well grounded I am to the commitments I have made as a parent- this fact means that no matter how many freeing lines I highlighted in my copy of Lean In, I still willingly invite the mom guilt fairy to come in and nest on my head. Rest assured, as I read the book I had several blog posts bouncing around in my head, such as, Does The Author Of Lean In 
Have Real Problems Or Does She Have Some Upgraded Version Of Reality?" but then I applied
some of her basic "sit at the table" concepts and when that went well I asked myself the one basic question the book asked over and over. "What would I do if I weren't afraid?" The answer?  I got up the nerve to apply for the one job I had wanted since I first learned about it- CLO Coordinator.

This is a pic of a few ladies in my book club on the night we reviewed Lean In and Bossy Pants. Our 

cake says it all!

Here is another blog post that I wrote (in my head)- This Spring I was lucky enough to have my dear cousin Phil and his wife Carmen make the long journey from Texas to visit us. They were such fun guests because they didn't mind a little discomfort (such as picking any random reflexology foot massage place in the rougher side of town) in order to have some new experiences. Well, Phil had done his research on the various fun things to do in Jakarta. He had barely stepped off of the airplane when he said that his goal was to visit the Jakarta cobra markets. And that we did! Phil was a trooper and hung in there as he unknowingly ordered a magical tincture made of the blood of one cobra and two other black and yellow snakes and some local "jamu" (herb based medicine), oh and the "squeezins" of the cobra's gall bladder (or that's what we assume it was). Poor Phil believed he had walked into a restaurant where he could order up a basket of fried snake fingers- not an old Javanese traditional version of Viagra. 

Ah, drink up Cousin Phil, you only live once!  Actually, he didn't want to drink it but once he realized that a few snakes had been volunteered to the cause, he felt morally obligated. What a trooper!

So see... I've been writing all of this in my imagination for months!

Here is another blog post I've had in my head- island hopping. This is a shot from the beach of our favorite Indonesian get away- Gili Trawangan. Gili T. is a tiny island located in the gorgeous turquoise sea between Bali and Lombok. 

There are also the sad blog posts that I feel compelled to write. Here were some wild animals being sold in random outdoor markets. 

Neither one are happy in their cages. It's heartbreaking. 

Jakarta has enough going on that I could write about it every day. I'll try to check in sooner and not let so many things stack up in my mental blog file. 

Btw... I got the job! 

Home is Where the Stomach Is

One of the drawbacks of living overseas is missing all the food from back home. We are lucky and blessed to have a commissary at our post, so if you just can't live another day without your favorite junk food or beer, you can probably get it here, as long as money is no object. Somedays, only a Pop-Tart (c) will do, you know what I'm saying? 

But what you really begin to miss are the ethnic and local foods available at restaurants back home that just aren't available, or even more frustrating, they have something with the same name here but it just isn't the same. But lately, good things have been happening.

We have managed to find, not too far away even, a taqueria. It is a little hole in the wall joint that seats about 17 close friends, it's cheap, of amazing taste but dubious healthiness. Almost like what we enjoyed in Laredo!

Then, last night we had dinner at some Foreign Service friends' house where we got to enjoy for the first time since we left the DC area:

Oh, yeah, all the favorites. Injera, doro wat, that spinach dish :-), and small cups of atomic-strength Ethiopian coffee for dessert. Our friends bring t'eff from America when they go home and make injera for their family every week. They have said come over any time. If we went as often as we liked, they wouldn't be saying that any more.

It was a lovely evening with colleagues who had been posted to Addis Ababa, talking East African politics, eating until we burst, and listening to Teddy Afro.

So, in the last two weeks we have had two homecomings for our stomachs, and things are good, really good. As long as we meet Mexican and Ethiopian friends at all of our Foreign Service posts, we may just be able to make it in this life.

-S

Long Absences and State Brain

So, obviously we haven't written in a while. Christmas Season at the house for L and Christmas travel season at the consular section for me made for a hectic end of the year. So, yes, we are still alive, still in Indonesia, and still gainfully employed. 

Since our last post, things have gotten way more hectic in our lives. L starts work at the embassy tomorrow, and we have had to adjust for two full-time working parents in our household of three kids and a dog. My job has also changed a great deal recently.

In our consular section, we are small enough that every six months or so we rotate through portfolios like non-immigrant visa (NIV), American citizen services, etc. I started, as all new officers do, in NIV. It takes the most time and personnel of anything that we do, even after we rotate away from strict NIV work into one of the other rotations. Any day people are out sick or away, or for some reason we have a large number of applicants, we leave our rotations and go back to NIV for as long as we are needed. So really, when you take a rotation you don't get to change one job for another so much as add one job to another, at least some of the time.

Between this development, front office projects, outreach and VIP activities, etc., let's just say that I have had to expand my capacity for work. Rest assured that in my diseased mind this is a good thing, and I am loving it. The increased pace has led me to adopting what I call State Brain, but any organization that demands a constant high pace probably has the same thing.

With State Brain, your mind is full of one concept or task and completely engaged for as long as it takes, some times hours, some times minutes. Then an email, phone call, or person comes to you with the next thing to focus on. You quickly have to dump out of your head what you are working on, load in the new task, and concentrate fully on that one. Repeat, either several times a day or here recently many times an hour. The capacity for your brain to act like a rail car or commercial truck for which the cargo carriers are being loaded, moved some distance, and then replaced with another one is what I mean when I say State Brain. It's not multi-tasking, just high demand fast switching between tasks. A to-do list is an absolute must to avoid anything being dropped. Lunches are no longer anything other than mandatory nutrition loading. You start taking work with you to the bathroom. Any first year associate at a large law firm or medical resident knows exactly what I am talking about.

Prior to taking the full time job at the embassy, L worked for three weeks on a special project. She is starting to develop State Brain too, for she has begun to communicate with me in dreaded three-letter acronyms, and recently gave me provisional instructions on what kind of flea prevention to buy our dog, because she wanted time to check out different brands and prices. A normal person would say "I am thinking we should buy brand X but let me check around some first before you go to the store." What she actually told me was: "Brand X at Store Y. Get the variety for our dog's weight. Green package. HOLD UNTIL I CLEAR." 

To which I can only say, "Welcome, L, to you your new brain."

-S