Life in the Foreign Service

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The Positivity Plan

I do not see myself as a particularly pessimistic person. I’m not a super optimist either; I will grant you that, but I have my moments. However through this fall, despite all the great things we have had the opportunity to do, I would say my overall feeling has not been upbeat. It is the language training.

Please, do not get me wrong. I really do know that the chance to be PAID to learn a language is an amazing benefit. I do in fact have fun in class and the Chinese department gets high marks from me; I have had wonderful teachers. Yet at the end of the training is a test and I will admit to having some rather strong test anxiety.

I know. Who likes tests? Every time I try to explain my anxiety I am told that no one likes tests, everyone gets nervous. I did not find this particularly helpful. Then a colleague mentioned that she had attended a test taking brown bag and a woman from the Language Consultation Services section spoke about just such a strategy. The strategy of knowing it’s normal to be nervous.

Apparently some study was conducted in which before an exam half of the students were given a card to read and half were not. On this card are simply a few sentences saying that test anxiety is a normal feeling and that some sense of nervousness can actually improve performance. After the exam those who had read the card felt both more calm and performed better.

I did not know if it were a true study or not but I was intrigued, and desperate, enough to soon after make a visit to the Language Consultation Services in search of this calming card. I made it clear I just wanted the magic before-the-test-card, but the consultant had me sit down while she looked for the cards amidst the candy-gram bags she was in the process of making and which littered her desk. As she searched I continued to explain I just needed this card and I would be on my way as the problem was not so much me as the test. Twenty minutes later I am armed with the card, several sheets of paper with strategies for test anxiety, and a suggestion to view a TED talk on YouTube.

A fellow diplomat posted a link to some beautiful bracelets with positive/affirmation messages. I loved the idea of the bracelets and considered their test charm effectiveness a plus. I had already decided that during my test I would carry in a photo of my daughter to both remind me that there are bigger and more important things in my life and also that, hell, if I can give birth then I can get through a two hour language test. Now I would also wear bracelets that would remind me to “enjoy the journey”, to “believe” and that I am “fearless.” I have done a lot of tough things in my life – such as the world’s second highest paragliding jump in Turkey, a six day trek in Nepal’s Annapurna mountains, and a two day slow boat ride down the Mekong River, as well as about a dozen half marathons-I have even taken the language test at FSI before, THREE times before. I wish I felt it had become easier, but I don’t. I would rather run a half marathon.

Now I was literally armed with some positive messages; I decided to watch the TED Talk. The talk is by Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist, who talks on how body language, particularly how one poses one’s body, can affect not only how other’s perceive us but also how we perceive ourselves. She posits that “power posing,” or standing or sitting in a manner that exudes confidence, for even two minutes a day can actually improve our chances for success. Pretty crazy, huh? Yet a few days after watching the video I found myself in my kitchen, with the microwave timer on two minutes, standing with my legs apart, hands on hips, head up, chin up, imagining myself to be doing my best impression of Wonder Woman.

At first I thought, “This is nuts!” Then I thought, “I am glad no one can see me.” Then I thought, “two minutes can seem like a long time…” Then the timer went off, I packed up my things, woke my daughter up and got her ready for daycare, and headed out the door. Just another day.

Except it wasn’t.

I found myself power posing in the car too. Sitting up straighter, holding my head higher. By the time I had arrived at the training institute I had decided that my daughter and I were in fact departing for Shanghai in five weeks. We just were. In other words I would stop saying we “might” depart, heavily caveated my words with the “IF I pass my language test.” Instead, I would pass my test and we would depart on time.

I posted this change to Facebook and launched my hashtag #positivityplan. Each day I have posted something fun concluding I “have awesome Chinese,” which will see me through and including my hashtag. For example, I posted the following a few days ago:

           I had a hair trim yesterday and the stylist found my first grey hair. Yikes! But with age comes wisdom, and for some, awesome Chinese. ‪#‎positivityplan‬

Also, although a month ago the FSI travel agent cautioned me that “Chinese is a difficult language and there are many who buy their tickets and have to change their travel date when they do not pass the first test…” I purchased my mother’s plane ticket. I made reservations for the cats to travel. I paid the difference for my daughter’s and my tickets so we could fly our preferred airline and the State Department would go ahead and pay the rest, this securing our tickets. I am moving forward because this is going to happen.

I expect this may all sound hokey to some. I wish I could say I am now 100% positive I will pass my exam and I am no longer nervous, but that would be an outright lie. Just tonight I started to again have some fairly strong doubts. I have what it takes to pass and I hope my positivity campaign pays off to help mitigate the nerves and demonstrate what I need to in order to pass. After all, I have awesome Chinese.

#positivityplan

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The Last Oil Change

My love affair with my Honda Civic is about to come to a screeching halt. China is coming between us.

This week I had the oil in my car changed, for what is likely the last time. At least it will be the last time for me and this car. It could also be quite some time before I take another car in for an oil change. I am not even sure when I will next have a car.

I feel really torn. The Honda is only the second car I have ever owned. For most of my Foreign Service career I have had this car as I bought it primarily because I would be heading to a Mexico border post. I also bought it because I was pregnant and becoming ever more so and the logistics of getting myself to and from my doctor’s appointments without a car presented a challenge. (The one time I walked from the Foreign Service Institute to my OB-GYN’s office 2.5 miles away at the Virginia Hospital Center while experiencing “morning sickness” was a wake-up call)

So I have driven this car to and from Mexico – 2,000 miles each way – and traveling to/through twelve U.S. states. This is the car I brought C home from the hospital in. The car she has thrown up in several times… on the way back from Fort Davis, Texas, on the way to Santa Fe, New Mexico, once while waiting on the bridge to return to Mexico, and once while I was taking her to the pediatrician in El Paso. (Do not tell CarMax).

I have enjoyed the freedom of getting behind the wheel of my own car. So much so that although I dislike the time suck of my current 50 minute one-way commute, I do not mind the drive.

Most of my adult life has been spent without my own car. While living in Decatur (Georgia), Beijing, Seoul, Manila, rural western Japan, Singapore, Jakarta, Honolulu, Monterey (California), Hyattsville (Maryland), and Washington, D.C. I had no car (though in the spirit of full disclosure I did have a motorbike my last two years in Japan). I had to figure how to get around without my own wheels by train, bus, taxi, subway, a car sharing network, bicycle, my own two feet… Sometimes it was annoying, sometimes it took a tremendous amount of time, but it was almost always an adventure.

Therefore a part of me quite excited to get back to living without my own car. Most certainly I will be happy to say goodbye to the costs and responsibility of owning a vehicle. Goodbye to car insurance, registration, taxes, parking, toll, gas, upkeep and so on and so forth. Including my monthly car payment, I figure that selling my car rather than taking it to Shanghai is akin to gifting myself a $500 a month raise. Thanks me, I’ll take it!

Shanghai is a huge city of some 23 million people; I considered taking my car for approximately a nanosecond. The thought of driving a car around the city, well, it does not fill me with happy thoughts. I imagine myself hunched over my steering wheel, eyes darting right to left, wiping my brow of sweat attempting to navigate the streets with signs and traffic laws I do not understand. Power to those people up for the challenge, but I am opting out. I know me, and subjecting C and I to that added stress is just not worth it.
This selling the car and adjusting to life again without one is but a small part of this whole adventure. It just feels like a big thing right now.

Less than seven weeks to go.

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The Problem with Christmas

I do not know what to do about Christmas.

Christmas should be fairly straightforward. Millions of Americans manage to do the traditional holiday thing every year. I checked. According to statistics some 94 million households (79%) will display a Christmas tree in their homes this year. This was in a survey conducted on behalf of the American Christmas Tree Association. (Yeah, there is an association for Christmas trees in the United States.)

I also found online a number indicating that an estimated 20 million households will decorate their homes with Christmas lights. I have no idea how many people hang wreaths and stockings and put out Christmas cookies, but I would expect it to be a lot. Likely millions.

I have never purchased or set up a Christmas tree. I have never purchased nor decorated with Christmas lights. I have never owned a Christmas wreath. To my knowledge I have never independently (i.e. not “helping” my mom) made cookies.

Does that seem weird? Probably. Especially as I serve overseas as a U.S. diplomat, one that could possibly be called upon to present or discuss U.S. traditions, especially at times of major holidays.

Then again the Internet also told me that more than 99 million Americans regularly drink beer while 100 million Americans regularly drink coffee. I drink neither. So, I guess that means I am not exactly the average American.

Until this past week I had never purchased Christmas stockings. Now C and I have a set of matching stockings – hers is white with a red C on it, mine is red with a white T on it. They both have pom poms.

I am not sure where I will hang them. We are still living in a hotel. There is no fireplace. I think I will hang them from the TV console in the living room. Yeah, I guess that will work.
But we will have no Christmas tree. On Christmas morning we will likely head to my sister’s home. That afternoon we will fly to Florida to visit my aunt and uncle. We crash Christmas.

I do not have a track record of celebrating Christmas as an adult. I have spent many years overseas and even when in South Korea or Japan, I chose to travel elsewhere for Christmas. I liked to be on the road, most preferably somewhere very warm. I have spent Christmas in places Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Myanmar. You know, those really Christmas-y places.

Then I had C. The first Christmas in Mexico we stayed put. I had my duty week starting the day after Christmas through New Year’s Day. Both C and I were sick as dogs with horrendous colds and ears, nose and throat infections. The second year we traveled to my sister’s in Virginia for Christmas and Florida with my aunt and uncle for New Year’s. We also came down with horrendous colds and ENT infections. I hope that will not become our holiday tradition!

So I am challenged first with my own lack of experience. Then there is also C’s birthday, which falls just 3 weeks after Christmas. I know for those who have birthdays even closer to Christmas that this can be challenge. As a parent, I feel this concentrates the gifts a bit too much for C. Last year I made an attempt to buy her only five gifts for Christmas and five for her birthday and I gave them to her just once a week. Along with the concentration of family gifts to her around Christmas, and given I also celebrate the Lunar New Year (and I have since I was a child—a tradition my mother started), this led to approximately 15 weeks of presents.

I thought it a great way to celebrate the season and not overwhelm my young daughter. My sister thought it was really weird. Or at the very least there is something rather wrong with me.

Yet, I wanted to do the same thing this year. Like at Halloween, C is starting to understand the idea of Christmas. She knows words like “Santa” and “reindeer” and “Christmas tree.” But it is not cemented in her brain. If her reaction at the mall Santa photo display is any indication, she is not particularly fond of the man in the red suit. Not even the Frozen theme complete with fake falling snow and a plush Olaf picture just before meeting the big man could convince C that Santa was benevolent enough to sit near. So it is still my advantage to start my own holiday/birthday traditions, whatever those might be.

Except this year I am also challenged by our impending move to Shanghai, which occurs 4.5 weeks after Christmas and 1.5 weeks after C’s birthday. Our actual pack out dates will fall just a few days after C turns the big THREE. By then I have to have decided what all is going in the suitcases that arrive with us, the Unaccompanied Baggage (UAB) that will arrive anywhere from the same day to a few weeks after our arrival or our Household Effects (HHE) that will be delivered to us China 4-12 weeks after our arrival. The HHE will be packed up and shipped with our items packed up in Mexico. Yes, they will be united with those items that have been sitting in a warehouse somewhere since July.

So I gave C one Christmas present already, in mid-November. Her father sent her a scooter and helmet that arrived this past week. We agreed that earlier was fine so she would have a chance to practice riding it before it would be packed up. She is super excited to have the scooter, especially as Penny, the little girl in the Disney movie Bolt, has a scooter. I am happy because I heard that just about every kid in Shanghai has a scooter.

The plan is for C to receive presents from other family members on Christmas along with a stocking with little goodies from me. The other three gifts I have for her will be given before or after Christmas, when I feel like it. We will celebrate her birthday before departure but the gifts will be opened in Shanghai. It may not be the best solution, but it’s what I’m going to do.

Maybe two years from now, as we prepare to depart Shanghai in January 2017, I will have figured out something better? Maybe.

At least we have our Vogmasks for Shanghai. Merry Christmas to us!

At least we have our Vogmasks for Shanghai. Merry Christmas to us!

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Of Visas, Vaccinations, Our Villa, and Vogmasks (or A Wee Bit More than Halfway to China)

I know I am a Foreign Service Officer and moving is part of the job.

I knew I was headed to Shanghai in January 2015 to work before I even arrived in Juarez.

Yet each move still feels strange and crazy and unreal until it happens. I just have to keep moving forward with the preparations.

Just a few hours after I pushed “publish” on my last I received a phone call from the Special Issuance Agency to let me know our Chinese diplomatic visas were ready for pick-up. Whoa, that was fast! It took only two weeks. My classmate’s visa application took a month and I figured, given my own experience working on visas, that with the holidays approaching it might take longer. Nope.

I drove to pick up the visas, my fingers crossed on the steering wheel, willing there to be no mistakes on the visas. And wouldn’t you know it, they were just right! Hooray! Visas, check!

On Wednesday, I also heard from the training center clinic that C and I are up-to-date on all our required vaccinations for China. There are some ones we do not have which are recommended but we can get those at the Consulate clinic after our arrival in Shanghai. For example, C is recommended for the rabies shot, but as it is a 3 stage vaccination that needs to be administered within specific time sequences, I do not feel like coordinating her transport to and from the FSI or State Department clinics and home while trying to balance my language schedule. Doing so might be enough to drive me over the edge. Required vaccinations, check!

Just before I departed FSI to pick up the visas I thought, hey, I should check my official email and see if by chance my housing has been assigned. And there was the email, letting me know I had been assigned my first choice!

Housing is such a big issue. Wherever you are, you want your home to be a place where you feel comfortable and safe. When overseas, housing can take on even greater importance. It is a refuge from all the unknowns outside the door and can be your slice of the home HOME (reminders of the U.S.A. and family) wherever you might be. Whether you are in a place where physical security is a daily preoccupation or you just need the occasional break from the barrage of cultural differences, our housing can sometimes make or break an assignment.

I have been pretty lucky with my housing so far. In both Jakarta and Juarez I lived within walking distance of work. Now that I am a 50-minute one-way commuter, this means even more to me. Both places were spacious and had good storage space. In Jakarta I looked out large windows from my third floor walk-up onto a big, beautiful mango tree. Pineapples grew in the shrubbery. My two-story, two car-garage single- family home in Juarez was also very welcoming. That does not mean I did not sometimes suffer “housing envy” when visiting others. I admit it; I did, especially in Jakarta. The “grass is always greener” complex can be strong when it comes to housing.

In Shanghai, we will be living in a “premium” high-rise apartment complex just a 10 minute walk from my workplace. In fact, according to the website the place was the “winner best overall serviced apartment in 2013.” There is an on-site health club, a pool, pre-school, kid’s club, and Shanghai’s largest bouncing castle. It is hard for me not to feel crazy giddy about living here, especially as I expect to spend a bit more time at home due to C’s age and the air quality. Place to call home, check.

Speaking of the air quality, I also made an important purchase yesterday: C and I will soon be the proud owners of our very own Vogmasks! (plus two for guests – if you did not find our housing assignment enough of a temptation to visit then surely an opportunity to wear one of these hot little numbers will tip the scale!). According to the website “Vogmask is the first stylish, high efficiency, well-fitting, comfortable and reusable filtering face mask in the world.” It also comes in a lot of fab colors and patterns. Whoo-hoo! Check them out here: http://www.vogmask.com/collections/all. (We need the ones with the air filters) I was just thinking the other day I needed some kind of ornamentation for my face to really feel hip these days.

OK, I am trying to make light of the fact that these masks are necessary for living in Shanghai. When a contact emailed me the link and told me to get at least one for myself and for my daughter, I admit, I thought these were overkill. That was until another friend in Shanghai also sent me a private message urging me to make the purchase. I bought Lapis, Sahara, Slate Grey in adult size and Dragon print for C. We are going to rock these Vogmasks. Air filter face masks for crappy Shanghai air, check!

This move to Shanghai thing just got a bit more real.

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Halfway to Shanghai

Let me clarify, I am not literally halfway to Shanghai. I am not writing this somewhere above the Pacific Ocean. I am however halfway through my scheduled time at the Foreign Service Institute, 74 days into training and 74 days out from the day we fly to China.

Halfway! Holy smokes!

I am surprised myself. I feel as though we have been here longer than that and the departure date is much closer. Probably because with each Friday I simultaneously exhale a sigh of relief as I look forward to a Chinese-free weekend (because I’m a bad student that generally does little or no study on the weekend) and take a gulp of panic as I realize I am one week closer to that Chinese exam. It’s that exam that determines whether or not right now is really the halfway point to an on-time here-we-come China departure or merely an ETD, heavy emphasis on the estimated.

Just more of that baited breath unknown that keeps life in the Foreign Service going ’round.

I have had a shift in priorities as my “To-do in Northern Virginia” list grows shorter and the “Prepare for China” list takes over.

Our Chinese diplomatic visa applications are complete and with the Chinese Embassy; I am just awaiting the call to pick them up. I am crossing my fingers they are correct the first time around. Two and a half years ago I went to pick up our visas with a Spanish classmate. Alas, the visas for her two daughters had been switched – the visa for the older daughter placed in the younger daughter’s passport and vice versa. They had to be redone. I would prefer not to have to do that.

Two boxes of things as well as my jogging stroller headed to Goodwill today. Saying farewell to the jogging stroller was a little harder than I expected. I know, I know, it’s a stroller. It is just that it had been C’s primary stroller, until I had to pack it up in the UAB. I spent the summer Home Leave extravaganza solely with the cheap-o, but surprisingly durable, umbrella stroller. No, I do not jog with the umbrella stroller, but then I do not jog with C anymore. As we are heading for Shanghai, a city of nearly 24 million where the Consulate has it’s own air quality monitor with daily updates…I do not see myself doing a lot of jogging out of doors.

The hoarding of additions for my Household Effects (HHE) shipment to China has also begun. As we get up to 7,000 pounds and I only have about 3,000 pounds of personal effects sitting in a warehouse in Maryland awaiting our departure to China, I have a little extra space to throw in a few more things. Things like three bottles of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and three bottles of Grapeseed Oil. I had two people already in Shanghai email me this might be something to include in my shipment. I have also stocked up on toothpaste for myself and C. Yeah. I know they have toothpaste in China, but some of it is unsafe. Not only did one of my Chinese teachers inform my classmate and I of this, but I also found several new stories reporting this online.

I have begun my stockpile of two years worth of tampons. I wish I were kidding. Unfortunately, I also heard from someone in China that some of these Chinese products are not the real deal. Online I found a link to the following news headline “China-wide fake sanitary napkin ring busted.” You did in fact read that correctly. It is not like they weight much of anything, and so into the shipment they go.

Hello Kitty, My Little Pony, and Doc McStuffins Band-Aids are also hot ticket items. Not that C has a lot of accidents requiring bandages —she does not—but she loves to wear them as decorative skin ornamentation.

Certainly I will be able to buy many, many wonderful products in China. I will also, of course, have mail service, including access to a Diplomatic Post Office or DPO, which generally has fewer restrictions and faster shipping times than the State Department mail or the “pouch.” (Hello Netgrocer, my friend, it has been a few years.) But hey, if I have the space in my shipment, I might as well stock up on some of my favorite products, right?

We all do it. We generally have something, some favorite brand of something that will just make some of those hard days overseas feel a little bit better. A few less shopping trips for days the thought of going to the grocery store in a foreign country seems the equivalent difficulty as splitting the atom.

I also need to begin preparing my cats Kucing and Tikus (Indonesian for “cat” and “mouse”) ready for another overseas trip. Yes, even my cats have been to three countries already and we are set to make it a fourth. They flew special cargo via Amsterdam out of Indonesia (I flew via Tokyo) and I was lucky to be able to drive them into and out of Mexico. This go around the kitties should be on the same flight. Laugh if you will, but I will likely be throwing in at least six months worth of kitty litter into the HHE shipment.

I have 74 days to prepare these and more. Well, I hope. Sixty four days until the Chinese test that will say yeah or nay on the departure.

The countdown has begun.

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A REAL Halloween

All week I had been excited about the prospect of trick or treating with C on Halloween night. I had had her costume picked out since early September. She loves all things horse and cowboy/cowgirl related. The bonus was that as Halloween approached, she actually started talking about the holiday. The week of she actually began talking about trick or treating – and it was not because I introduced it. I have, for the most part, learned not to discuss future events with C because she has little or no concept of time and believes everything I talk about in the future is about to happen! Indeed, that morning she sat bolt upright and asked first thing to go trick or treating. I forgot my own rule and told her we would go trick or treating later, after school. Wouldn’t you know it, thirty minutes later I drive up to her school to drop her off and she bursts out crying because she does not want to go to school, she wants to trick or treat!

Realizing that C had a concept of Halloween for the first time and that it coincided with us actually being in the U.S.  filled me with a lot of unexpected happiness. In this Foreign Service life I cannot be sure when we will be in the U.S. at Halloween again. Sure, Halloween is celebrated in other places and even more places co-opt it as a special foreign event, popular in schools, expat community housing, and bars, but there really is no place that celebrates quite like the U.S. I mean that neither negatively nor positively; the U.S. celebration of Halloween is just unique.

In Ciudad Juarez they celebrate Halloween for instance. In fact it seems there along the border it is celebrated more vibrantly than the Day of the Dead. Many children in Juarez attend school in the U.S. (as did their parents) and people appear to enjoy this U.S. tradition. There is trick or treating and the handing out of candy. And yet, it is still, even so close to the U.S., not like in the U.S. In Juarez the children, instead of saying “trick or treat” roam the neighborhoods chanting “Queremos Halloween! Queremos Halloween!” (W e want Halloween! We want Halloween!). The candy generally handed out is of the hard candy variety. The kids seem happy enough with their spoils but having been fairly keen on trick or treating as a child, I know that in the U.S. the hard candy (those Dum Dums and Jolly Ranchers) that some people insist on giving out are more often relegated to the “last to eat” or the “give to mom and dad” pile.

It has been great to be here at this time. The leaves have turned gorgeous fall colors and most trees had shed about half their leaves. Pumpkin season seemed especially good. Although the weather hit a balmy 80 degrees the Tuesday before Halloween, the day of the weather had cooled considerably. It was chilly, around 50 degrees, overcast and windy. Yet this created just the right conditions for a “real” Halloween (except some children, like C, had to wear jackets over their costumes to keep warm, which usually bums some kids out). The fallen leaves were swirling. The crescent moon appeared hazy through the clouds. The air was cool and crisp. It was perfect.

I had initially considered trick or treating with my sister, niece, and nephew, but they were heading out from 5:30 and as I am on the late language schedule at FSI, that is my finish time. I would not get home until 6:30. I decided instead we would trick or treat in the neighborhood behind the hotel. First, I figured the neighborhood backs onto an elementary school so there are likely to be plenty of children living there. Secondly, as it is townhouses, we could cover more ground, more homes, with less walking. I guesstimated a minimum of ten houses and a maximum of twenty.

As we walked over to the neighborhood with grandma, I noticed it seemed very quiet. Few of the homes facing the street had lights on and those with lights gave no indication they would be participating in trick or treating. I saw no children knocking on those doors. I did not even hear any children, which seemed a particularly bad sign.

As we turned on to the first street a house was decorated and had a porch light on with a bowl of candy sitting on the step. No person anywhere to be seen. I directed C to take a piece and she happily did so, dropping it in her pumpkin bucket (yes, the ubiquitous plastic pumpkin bucket). The next few houses were dark. Then another two houses again had only a bowl of candy left outside in front of the door. C went up and knocked on the door anyway, she was so excited. But no one came. Hmmm…this was really strange. I thought first this neighborhood must be filled with some of the most honest kids in America. A great sign for sure, though nowhere near as interesting as actually knocking and saying “Trick or Treat!” Then I wondered if actually this is what trick or treating had become in America. It had been awhile…

Finally we saw not only other children in costume but also a door with a real live occupant handing out candy. Thank goodness! I had begun to feel disappointed that C was not going to get her Halloween experience (nor would I!). After this house there was another and another. We turned at the end of the street and behold there many homes decorated for the holiday, with carved pumpkins on the steps, fake spider webs on the bushes, silhouettes of skeletons and witches in the windows. C began jumping up and down with delight, especially as there were several groups of other children out running from door to door.

Halloween was saved!

All was good until C tripped on a step that activated a motion sensor sound machine that emitted a scary sound and the occupant of the house, dressed in costume, stepped forward to offer C some assistance and give her some candy. C burst out in sobs and begged to go home. And thus ended our first trick or treating experience in the U.S. It could be our last for awhile.

At least we got a small candy haul (certainly plenty for a toddler under 3) and this morning I still got to deny her candy for breakfast, which is a time-honored tradition of American parents in the days and weeks after Halloween.

It was perfect. A real American Halloween.

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Three More Months

In my last post I waxed poetically about how nice it is to be here in Northern Virginia for training in the fall. Now, I feel like I want to whine just a wee bit.

Here I am starting to settle in. We have been here eight weeks now, basically two months. C is getting settled in her “school” (i.e. daycare). She names a few people as her “friends” (turns out several of them are her teachers, but hey, that’s cool). When both C and I and my sister and her kids are free, C gets to spend time with her cousins. Most afternoons during the week my parents pick C up from childcare, so C gets several hours a week with her grandparents. C is in swim lessons. She finished up the Beginner Mommy and Me class and today started her first Advanced Mommy and Me class.

We are settled into our apartment. Sure, it’s an extended stay hotel, but it is home. Well, for a little while longer. We have thirteen weeks left, basically three months. ONLY THREE MONTHS!

It seems like we were only just packing up in Mexico. Oh, right, we were. That happened only four months ago.

I looked back at the past ten years and I have moved TEN times.

If I go back ten more years, I have moved a total of 22 times in past 20 years. (This does not include my traveling such as the 11 months I spent backpacking in 2000-2001, my two months traveling through Spain and Portugal in 2002 or our nomadic Home Leave adventure this past summer)

How about that?
Whew!

(I know, I know. I chose each and every one of these opportunities.)

Even if I take out all of the pre-Foreign Service moving, I have physically moved six times in the past 3 years and 4 months!

I returned from Jakarta, Indonesia to start with the State Department and moved into an apartment at Oakwood Falls Church, Virginia in July 2012. In November 2012 I had to move out of that apartment into another one as Oakwood was renovating. Then in January 2012 I gave birth to C and moved out of that apartment to live with my aunt in Winchester, Virginia for two months (the reasons of which are complicated to go into – basically the government would not pay my per diem while on maternity leave). Then in March 2012 when C was eight weeks old, I moved back into Oakwood Falls Church. In July 2012 we headed to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico for my first tour, and then, of course, we departed there July 1 of this year, moving into our current accommodation at the very end of August. And in three short months we will be on the move again.

Don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy being here. I was not making things up in my last post. Also, a certain part of me must rather like this, the regular moving. However, every once in awhile I feel overwhelmed with the moving and I question my sanity. I wonder what it would be like to stay in one place longer term…

When looking at the Foreign Service for a career, the oft quoted time frame is that an officer will move “every few years” or “every two to three years.” However, the reality is that an officer will likely move more frequently. Most often the increased frequency depends on training in Washington, DC and certain posts with shorter terms.

When you join the Foreign Service you start in Washington, DC in training at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, VA. If this is not your home before joining the FS, then the State Department will move you there. You could be in training for six weeks or six months or one year. It depends on where you are assigned. Many who are assigned a Washington, DC post for their first tour move out of the State-department provided housing into their own housing. So even if you stay in DC for the first year (most of these DC tours are just one year), then in 14 months you have moved twice, and you are likely then preparing for a third move overseas for your second tour, again depending on how long you will be in training prior to that tour. Moves are just par the course.

I am excited to get to Shanghai and set up our new place. Being the crazed list-making fool I am, I do, of course, have a list of how I will decorate C’s room in Shanghai and a list of places to visit and things to do together. After all, we get to stay there for a WHOLE TWO YEARS.

Basically, though I am tired just thinking about this next move even as I start preparing for it (it’s time for the time-honored tradition of applying for our diplomatic visas!) I am keeping in mind that right at this moment many of my FS colleagues are preparing for or in the midst of their own moves. There are friends raiding Costco for must-have food items in bulk. Others are having their final farewell parties and dinners with friends at home, in DC, or at post. Or even saying final farewells to favorite haunts and foods that will be unavailable or difficult to procure in post X. Many weighing suitcases and boxes in bids to estimate if their carry-on, Unaccompanied Baggage (UAB), or Household Effects (HHE) will meet the maximums. No move is the same, but it is comforting knowing that I am not the only one doing this. Also, that I have survived moves in the past and most probably will survive the next.

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Of Two Minds

It is really nice being in the United States. I cannot say I love studying Chinese (there are good days and not so good days), but I do enjoy being in Northern Virginia. Autumn is such a lovely time here. I missed autumn in Mexico. Contrary to what many people thought, it did get cold in Juarez, but there is no changing of the leaves, then crispness in the air and cool, drizzly days. It was really, really hot and then it was not quite so hot. It rained maybe five times a year and I did not even carry an umbrella.

So although recently it has been rainy and cool, even this self-confessed tropical weather chaser has liked it. I have even bought C her first rain coat and it made me ridiculously happy to do so.

I really like living in Herndon. We are very close to where I grew up. I regularly drive past the Pizza Hut I worked at the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. Across the street is the shopping center where the parents of one of my best friends in high school had their Chinese restaurant. C’s swim school is located in the same store space as the Hallmark my mom used to take my sisters and I to spend our allowance. In the same shopping center is the McDonald’s where they gave me a free small fries when I showed up in my Halloween costume (I dressed up as a bag of McDonald’s small fries!) There is also the Giant Food Store my best high school friend worked at for years. The shoe store where I had my first job is now a dry cleaner; the first pizza place I worked is now a Pollo Peru, but the reminders are still there.

I lived my whole childhood in the same place, in this area. Even Falls Church, which I drive through each day to and from the Foreign Service Institute, is not only where I lived when I last did my Foreign Service training, but where I lived with my aunt and uncle one summer in college. I love the Lost Dog and Stray Cat cafes. There is a wonderful park in Falls Church across from the library. I used to walk down there when I lived with my aunt and uncle. I feel my cheeks burn when I think about the time I made out with a boyfriend there. (And they are burning now) When living there 2011-2012 I picked up pregnancy books at the library and just a little way up the street a policeman at the town hall helped me install C’s first car seat.

Washington, DC too is close. As a child, I spent many a day at museums on the National Mall. I still remember the summer my dad worked at the Air and Space Museum and he took me to work one day. We visited the Smithsonian castle and the National Museum of American History many times. Yet the National Museum of Natural History was the runaway favorite, most especially the Egyptian mummies, the dinosaurs, and the live insect section. Later, as an adult, I lived in DC for four years and the Spy Museum, Newseum, and National Portrait Gallery became new favorites.

There are memories really on just about every corner; I have a history here.

I have found myself daydreaming about what it would be like to really live here again, not just to be here on a temporary basis while training at FSI. I try to puzzle out where I would like to live. In the heart of DC in a chic neighborhood like Eastern Market or Georgetown? Falls Church with its small town feel right outside of DC? Reston, in the area right around the pedestrian-friendly shopping center? Or right here in compact, convenient, and historical Herndon?

What really hits me is that C will not grow up in just one place. She will not really have a home town. She may or may not ride her bike around the neighborhood. It will depend on where we are living at the time – if it is the kind of place kids ride bicycles or not. It is highly unlikely her elementary school classmates will also be in her middle and high schools. She may attend as many as three or four elementary schools.

It is not a bad thing. It is only a different thing.

Yet, I find myself feeling wistful.

Then I think ahead to Shanghai. I have heard such good things about living there. I have already compiled a lengthy list of things for C and I to see and do, one for almost one-third of our 104 weekends. I can hardly wait for us to take a stroll along the famous Bund, possibly wearing matching pajamas. I look forward to taking C to the Wild Animal Park and the fantastic Ocean Aquarium. I see us taking in a show of the famous Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe. And finally the cherry on the top of my I-am-taking-my-Disney-loving-toddler-to-Shanghai sundae: Shanghai Disneyland is slated to open in late 2015.

I think of all the opportunities that C will have. She has already been to more countries by the age of two than many Americans will visit in their lifetimes. She will visit many of the finest places in the world, be they amazing cultural or natural sites, famous or not. She will meet and make friends with people from all over the world. Heck, by this time next year she will probably be speaking Chinese!

Although a single town or area will not have landmarks of her childhood, she will have such landmarks all over the world. That is amazing to think about.

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Learning Chinese and a Poopie Diaper

I have been struggling with how to portray how I feel about my return to the Foreign Language Institute for training to top up my very stale Mandarin Chinese. Perhaps my most difficult issue was how to explain how hard this has been for me without sounding like a majorly sad grump. Because I will tell you, I have had some majorly sad and grumpy days.

For example, I had my first tear-stained breakdown. Yep, it happened. Thankfully it did not occur in front of any of my colleagues but rather in front of a member of the Chinese Department staff as I tried to explain my very real fears that I will not pass the Chinese test in January. She was very kind and told me not to worry, which only made me suspect she has no idea how badly I speak Chinese.

I also threw a pen in class. I am not proud of it. I could not help but think later that it while it was probably too mild a throw to make it in to some kind of “Diplomats Behaving Badly” montage, it most certainly was not one of my finer moments. I certainly did not make a conscious decision to throw the pen but after feeling browbeaten to create one too many a Chinese sentence in a grammatical structure I simply did not understand with a limited vocabulary of half-remembered words and phrases learned as recently as 2002…and then having the teacher cut me off two words into my response, I had had it. And the pen launch sequence commenced.

One of my biggest struggles has been finding a time to study. I tried studying in the evenings as C watched a DVD and then after she went to bed. Firstly, you parents out there must be laughing your socks off imagining me trying to study with a toddler in the room. Yeah, it went about as well as you imagine. “Mommy, change DVD, change DVD, change DVD.” “Mommy, snack, snack, snack!” “Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy…” Secondly, my attempts at raising a jet setting night owl toddler have been too successful and I was too tired to do anything after she went to bed because it was also my bedtime.

Then I decided to wake up early in the morning, around 5 am, study until C woke up around 7:30, take her to child care and then drive on to the training institute for a little more study until class began at 10:40. Except on day one of this brilliant plan I woke up at 5:30 and I heard the sweet little call of “mommy?” at six.

@$&#

Plan #3 has been to wake up at 5:30, get C to daycare by 6:45, drive to the training institute, arriving around 7:35, then studying in the cafeteria until class at 10:40. I study again for at least an hour in between my morning class and afternoon class. I also listen to Chinese in the car either to or from the training institute. I downloaded some popular Chinese songs and language learning podcasts, burned the textbook and other dialogues to disc, and purchased the soundtrack to Frozen in Mandarin. We are expected at the very least to study for 8 hours a day including our 5 hours of classroom time. This schedule means I can generally manage to get those three extra hours in. This has been mildly successful, at least in relative terms.

Yet every single day I eat a huge helping of humble pie in class and continue to harbor serious doubts about my readiness to test in January.

This morning I set about to take C to swimming class (I have at least followed through with this ONE thing from my “back in the U.S. to-do list”). I got myself dressed and her dressed. I took us out to the car and buckled C into the car seat.

Then I realized I had forgotten my towel.

[Note: I did not bring towels the first day of swim class because I expected, for some reason, they would be provided, and had to run into the nearby supermarket to buy a set of hand towels. I felt like schmuck.]

So I unbuckled C from the car seat and walked back to the apartment to get the towel and then returned to the car and buckled her back in. Only to realize I had forgotten a spare diaper.

So I unbuckled C from the car seat and walked back to the apartment to get the extra diaper and then returned to the car and began to buckle her back in. Then I smelled something unfortunate. C needed a diaper change.

<sigh> I wanted to just pack it in. I wanted to just get C out of the car and give up on the swim class at least for today and maybe forever. There was even a millisecond there I considered I might never leave the apartment again. I took a deep breath and convinced myself to keep going.

So I unbuckled C from the car seat and returned to the apartment, changed her diaper, and then returned to the car and buckled her back in.

We were late for swim class.
But we still got there and were able to participate.

This week my Chinese study has been derailed several times.

Last weekend C had a fever of 102 all day Saturday and 103 most of Sunday. Instead of being a docile and very sleepy sick person she became an extremely demanding one. Not one minute of studying that weekend. <sigh>

I arranged for my parents to watch her on Monday instead of taking her to daycare, so I actually departed home at 9:20 that day, after some haphazard studying in the apartment that morning. <sigh>

Early Wednesday morning, C woke up and demanded food. I mean she literally sat bolt upright in bed at the witching hour of 3:40 am and said “FOOD!” and would not go back to sleep until she had had some “Dora snacks” and a juice. So I let her sleep in a little and departed for daycare at 8 am. Then on the way to the daycare center that morning the low air light came on for my tires. I stopped to have them checked and every single one of them was low. <sigh>

On Thursday C woke up in the middle of the night upset, the fever was back. I gave her medicine but could not get back to sleep as I had developed a terrible stomach ache. So I called in sick and took C to the doctor. I imagined I might get a little studying done but again C would not nap, was extremely demanding, and, as an extra fun bonus, shoved an edamame bean up her nose in the afternoon. <sigh>

Right now I am feeling the best I have about Chinese in the four weeks I have been studying. I have no idea why.

On the drive back from swimming class today I thought the whole episode summed up how I feel I prepare for Chinese every day – shit happens but I AM trying.

That’s all I can do. 

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Nation’s Tri: The Third Wheel

I belong to a global running group, a community of Foreign Service people who try to take their running on the road, wherever they happen to be. They may be trying to fit in runs in baking hot UAE summers (where you run after sunset when it’s a “cool” 105 degrees) or try to make friends with the treadmill when in places where running outside is verboten or make unexpected stops in locales where herds of animals may cross their path. We are a dedicated bunch of crazy runners. Not necessarily fast runners – though we do have a few who place in their respective races – but committed.

Waaaaaaay back in February or March of this year I responded to a post on our group page asking for a person to run the 10k portion in a triathlon team to take place September 7 in Washington, DC. Yeah THAT September 7, you know, the first Sunday back in the DC area after a whirlwind 60 days of home leave and my first week of Chinese training.

So it seemed like a GREAT idea! I could use it to jump start my running when back in Northern Virginia. This couple, whom I had never met, also would have just moved to DC for training the weekend before. It was PERFECT, right? I mean, that’s the word springing to your mind too, I’m sure! I replied immediately. Pick me! Pick me PLEASE! And they did.

Fast forward six months or so… I have run a half marathon in South Dakota a few weeks before, yet it already feels much longer. I am stressed and tired about the start of language training. I book a hotel in DC for the Saturday night – yes, a hotel away from my hotel, because the logistics of getting up at the butt crack of dawn to drive to DC and try to find parking seemed too daunting. My mom stays with myself and C because I have yet to spend a night away from her and I am determined not to have the first night be for this triathlon. My ulcerative colitis continues to plague me and this 10k runs through urban DC (as opposed to a heavily forested canyon in SD), i.e. few if any trees to hide behind should my UC make a pit stop necessary. I have not met this couple I’m running with. Hmmm…this seems a little less perfect than I originally thought.

Thankfully meeting up with my Tri mates proves easy. Though completely unplanned, we find each other the first day at the Foreign Service Institute. We run into each other unplanned each day after that. Even at the packet pick up we find each other at the hotel entrance without arranging a thing. It was rather uncanny.

It is a very good thing we had that going for us because the organization of the packet pick up and staging areas left much to be desired. Racers arriving to pick up packets with their bicycles are turned away as bicycles are not allowed in the hotel (at a triathlon?!). Volunteers at the event appear unable to answer questions. Our cyclist rides his bike down to the transition area to set up only to be stranded down there as the returning shuttles to the hotel stop at 6 pm, although the website and expo announcements say they will run until 7 pm. Then the skies open up and rain pours down. We decide to eat dinner at our respective hotels and meet up the following morning for the next to last shuttle for the start line, departing at 6 am.

That night my mother – a dear woman who agreed to watch Chloe while I run – snores with the force of a fog horn.  (I am sorry mom, you have been outed on Facebook and now in my blog) She tried not to, I’ll give her that. She brought a nose strip, yet it did nothing to stem the tide; I could not sleep. Around midnight, desperate to get some zzzzzs I had an epiphany. I then dragged a pillow and a comforter into the bathroom and set up bed in the bathtub. Yes, the bathtub. Surprisingly, I slept pretty well (I am 5’5” if you are wondering).

I awoke to the news that the swim portion of the race had been cancelled due to a sewage spill into the Potomac River resulting from the previous evening’s heavy rain. After wrenching myself from my bathtub cocoon I head over to the race hotel across the street at a quarter to six. Unfortunately, disorganization continued. Despite being on the next to last shuttle, departing the hotel at six am with the race not starting until 7:15, the bus could not drop participants at the actual start location, just nearby. At the event emcees announced that the “swimmers” would still run into the transition area barefoot. Unfortunately for many relay participants, this was not announced on the website along with the cancellation of the swim portion and some had simply not shown up. Our swimmer was in a dress – albeit a sporty one – and so lined up barefoot with the other “swimmers” to run 500 yards to pass off the timing piece to our cyclist.

Cyclist and I receive conflicting information as to how to reach the hand-off area. One volunteer told us to head in one direction where we met another volunteer who told us to go back where we had come from. We finally just went around both of them, the long way, to find the place, where we waited. And waited. And waited. Though the event started at 7:15, our “swimmer” did not begin her swim-run until 8:23! She was in wave 23, yet between each numbered wave there was also a “named” wave. The first cyclists had returned before 8:15.

At least the weather was perfect for cycling and running. It was cool and overcast – completely different from the near 90 degree and sunny weather of the day before. Still, I had been waiting around to run since 6:15 and with the breeze I felt a little chilled; it was a relief to finally start running around 9:45. Then suddenly, it was all alright. The course was well marked and the volunteers prepared. I ran slowly, without music, my mind occupied with many memories of my previous life in DC. I have run many times in West Potomac Park along Haines Point. I looked across the Potomac to Fort McNair, where I worked as a Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies. Across the Potomac in another direction stands Bolling Air Force Base, where I also worked as a defense analyst. The course also covered streets where I trained for and ran the Marine Corps Marathon, my one full marathon to date. I had missed DC.

All in all, I am glad I participated, though I have decided I will not run more races in DC this brief time we are here, and possibly no other races at all after my half in early October. The time is just too short and the logistics for race participation a little too complicated. As a single parent studying Mandarin Chinese in preparation to work in Shanghai starting early next year, I only have so many hours in the day, only so much free time in a week. I need to recognize my limitations.

Hey, and I did it! Right? In the end I think the best part of it was meeting this other Foreign Service couple, also with a young daughter, serving their country, living abroad, and with a passion for running (and swimming and biking) wherever they happen to be.