Yet another appropriation of the trees

We're heading out tomorrow! Not to the U.S., but on our last trip around here. D had days off and I had extra because of the great Swine Flu incident, so we decided to go to Jordan and Turkey. We're going to go see the Dead Sea and Petra, and then to Istanbul for a couple days. My demi-evil twin is meeting us in Jordan, so she'll be on vacation with us, too, and probably, with her speedier internet, do a better job of posting pictures for some to enjoy.

I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I think I can make some of these projects work, and I am thinking I will not leave here a complete failure. Plus, we got all of our flights for going home booked, I got all of the honeymoon flights booked, and all the hotels. So when we get back, we'll finish planning our party and figuring out what our Dads are going to do while they are here, and then it's the home stretch!

Yay for being almost done!

Russ

If you qualify for a FREE LANTERN...

Sigh. I probably shouldn't be blogging this late, but I want to so hey!

We just got the last bits of our next vacation all booked. It's been a stress-causing ordeal, but I think we have it almost all figured out, except for what we will be doing on which days in Istanbul. Hopefully, I will figure that out tomorrow. And I have to plan my group meeting for tomorrow. It may be real discussion heavy. :)

I've gotten myself re-assigned/volunteered to carline duty, which is good and bad. But it's helping out, which is what I do, so that's ok.

I made lemon chicken for D tonight. It turned out OK.

We have our engagement party invitations and our wedding programs all printed and they look good! D gave the party invites to some of her students, and they were very excited because they got 'real' local invites to a 'real' local party. Planning it is a little stressful, but we're excited.

In our language lesson the other day, we were doing vocabulary words, and one was for a local nAn shop. It turns out that the name of the bakery where you buy nAn is a nAn bUy. They just took the English word for buy and made it the name of the shop. There's funny things like that all over the language.

My appendectomy housemate is doing pretty good. No contact sports yet, but he's up and moving.

I played ball with other staff on Thursday. It was great. I love playing ball, even on our teeny tiny little court.

I picked out a tuxedo for the wedding! And I got flights booked for the honeymoon, super cheap too! A 3 city multi-city ticket from the midwest to the southern coast to NYC and back to the midwest for a touch over 600usd each. It was almost half the cost of just buying one ways, or buying two round trip tickets. Airlines are crazy sometimes.

And now, I go to bed.

Sounds and Trumpets

Wow. I'm getting more and more delinquent in blogging. Where to start...?

We are running an after school basketball tournament with the 7-12th grades, and the teachers have a team. We tried not to be too mean today, but we still won 53-10 (twenty minute game, short court so scores are slightly inflated.) It was overly gratifying.

It's strawberry season here, so my gorgeous fiancee is trying her hand at Strawberry Shortcake. It's pretty good. I got some Friday night, and then more today!

India really was fun. The beach was relaxing and I got to read a couple books, which always makes me happy. We also swam some in the ocean (well, technically the Arabian Sea), and I body surfed on the waves, resulting in only minor salt-water inhalation that left me with a now-conquered sinus infection. I think if we are over here again, we will be spending more time in Goa, even with the hassle that getting a visa is!

One of my housemates had to have an emergency appendectomy last week, and I was drafted to go to the hospital with him and the school nurse. They are both blond. So most of the locals thought I was the interpreter, and after their first couple questions (what is his name? What is his work?), I'd exhausted my language and had to say, [almost literally in the local language] "Don't understand. American." The locals got a kick out of that. The surgery went well, and he got out of the hospital after two days. I do have good blackmail material with the things he said under the influence of his pain meds!

We are getting our wedding programs printed here, after D and I went to a local stationery store and discovered that, along with engagement party invitations, we could turn local wedding invitations into wedding programs for us. So 300 programs is going to cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 dollars. Printed. And good quality. It's pretty awesome.

I am really struggling against checking out, especially on day-to-day tasks, or non-strategic longterm stuff. I really need to fight against that.

Our 'Max bonus' has run out. The local cats have realized that we don't have a dog in the yard anymore, a dog whom I constantly reminded to eat cats, and so the cats are invading. I had to chase one out of the house tonight. They are smart, they can get into our house even if the door is shut, but not latched.

Have you ever thought about what the point of what He means when he says, equivalently, 'Yay! for the poor in... cause look what they get?" Been reading a book that talks about that. Challenging. What do I say to and about those people today?

Mars

Goa was great, we really didn't want to leave. We went for walks on the beach, swims in the ocean, all the fun stuff. Our trip back to Delhi hasn't been so great so far, but I think today here will be better, and I am hoping the trip to the 'Stan is terrific.

We also made some important decisions about what we are going to do after we get married, and hopefully we have His direction guiding us in all that.

In the heat

We are in India! We had absolutely terrific travel out of the 'Stan,
and then in Delhi we went to see Alice in Wonderland in a 3D movie
theater where we sat in leather recliners. It was nice. Now we are
hanging out on the beach with D's cousin, and having a good time.
It's nice to not have to keep track of what time it is.

We were reading about the 11th brother, and wondering if his ten
brothers spoke in their family language or a trade language. It was
an interesting discussion.

The Curtain

KSU! Elite Eight, WOOHOO! Now, we just have to get past Butler and it's our first Final Four in over 45 years! Here's to hoping we get a banner this year!

D and I are in Delhi on the way to Goa. We had a great trip out of the 'Stan yesterday, then when we got here we went to a mall and watched a movie while sitting in big leather recliners,dining on our waiter-provided brownies and ice cream. It was great! This will be a nice relaxing vacation and a needed break out of the 'Stan.

A Fire Upon the Deep

We just celebrated the new year. I went with D to two of her classes, met her students and talked to them to help them practice their English. That was a neat experience. I feel like I've been 'out and about' a bit more of late - I went to the University with a friend a couple weeks ago, and now D's class. It's good.

Work continues. I just had a performance evaluation that was pretty good. I guess either I'm not as incompetent as I often feel, or my boss doesn't interact with me much. Not sure which is which.

We cooked for ourselves a bit over the new year break, since our kitchen staff was off. We can make lemon chicken pretty capably now. Yay us! Mostly unrelated to our cooking, we've also both had a fair bit of random digestive issues in the last week, which has been unpleasant.

Our excitement is increasing for our upcoming trip to India! We are going to be there for a week over spring break. I think we will have a very good time. Beaches and malls. It may not sound the most exotic thing to do, going to India to go to a mall and to a beach, but we are pretty pumped about it. I am splurging a little and buying myself a couple new books for the trip (yay, Kindle!)

We are, little by little, getting our wedding plans shaped up. We've also got the fun of jobs to find, too, which stresses me out more than it perhaps should. Just have to keep the head down and trust.

I've been reading the first book to the people who are also known for their leather, and it's been talking about gifts and roles. I am solidifying more and more my opinions of who I am, and trying to figure out what I need to change. One of the things in my personality that seems to be both a strength and a weakness is that I can, relatively easily, be content, and that contentment sometimes manifests itself as laziness. So I'm content with being a number 2. I'm content with not being the best. I'm content with not being in charge. A good thing in many cases, but sometimes a severe weakness because it means I don't push myself. I'm not self-motivated because why do I need to change? I'm content. How do I change the balance on this and become less content with where I am so I push myself, at the same time not losing my ability to be content generally? Do I even need to change? Argh. Someday I will be perfected.

The choice we all make

I talked at Meeting today. I was worried it was not going to go well, but it ended up fine.

We helped a friend enter in her grades today. It's nice to be helpful.

For supper, we made canned corn, frozen chicken, easy mac, and I ran out to buy naan. We are awesome.

We are doing skype premarital counseling, and let me tell you, this is the strangest premarital counseling I have ever done. That must be what happens when you live in a third world country!

And a dose of ice

Today was another day. We dealt with frustrations about local only travel, had mock Chinese and American food for supper after which I baked cookies for my lovely fiancee. It's been an up and down week - we're ready to get off the compound, and we will be able to get out in just over two weeks. We are looking forward to that.

I'm speaking for our Meeting in a few days, and I'm combining my enjoyment of science with my enjoyment of the elder book. So that should be interesting. Do you know how stupendously awesomely powerful gravity is? It moves entire galaxies! And yet, we can defy it, even if just for a second. But it keeps up its work with, in, and through us.

I find the need for Direction stronger each day. Hopefully the leaps we take will be guided ones, but in the case that we don't get the guidance we want, we'll do the best we can to find it and then leap anyway, trusting that all things will work together.

Quite the pair

D helped me polish up my resume tonight. I am starting to apply for jobs in the U.S. It's kind of a hard waiting game, because I can't really get my hopes up too much yet, since I am not going to be available for a job until mid-August, but at the same time, I don't want to wait too long. It's also hard because we feel we have a leading on where we are going to live in the U.S. but since we don't have family there, it's going to be a leap of faith to go there without a lot of support structure.

Work is going, same as it ever does. I get frustrated at it more than I should, but that's part of the price of life here.

There is so much to think about regarding the future, with a new marriage, new job, new place to live, new meeting place, new almost everything, that sometimes it is hard for me to live in the present. I am focused on becoming too much sometimes, and it comes at the expense of being. I do have to strike the right balance between the two, and recently I fear I am erring too much on the becoming side.

Some days, I wish I had been born a thousand years later.

Lack or jaundice

D and I are planning for our honeymoon and our vacations. It's exciting.

I'm struggling here with some aspects of my job here. Including some people I'm kind of frustrated with. I'm trying to have the proper Perspective, but it is hard.

I've been reading the book to the capital of the empire, and I'm struck by how powerful and powerless sin is, and how both of these are true at the same time. Powerful in that we all suffer under it's law, powerless in that it has been broken by one act, just as it broke us by one act.

I get to speak at meeting week after next, and I think I'm going to talk some about how being called, especially to a place like this, is not always comfortable and can be down right nasty sometimes.

Yay.

We're all fine here.

But this is a little worrisome.

It looks like SOMEBODY's planning for the end of the supply line

We like to be prepared, and if that means we have lots of extra junk food, so be it.  On the plus side, we don't have to worry about running out of some of our favorite things (like instant cake or Jello or M&Ms) soon.  We've been accumulating the stuff on this shelf over the past year or so.

Work is going OK.  Still frustrations, but maybe the expectations were too high. 

I've been working out and am pleased to report that I'm at least not getting fat!

I also stayed up too late reading last night.  Curse the Kindle!  No, wait, don't curse it.

Dawn is coming

Things seem like they are starting to break out of the slow, long slog that is January and February. This is, unaccountably, a Good Thing (tm).

Last night, we had the science teacher's kids over to watch Lilo and Stitch. Watching movies with 7, 5, and 3 year olds is fascinating. You never know what kind of reaction they are going to have to particular parts. I was often tempted to laugh hilariously at mundane lines just to see if the 7 year old would laugh along with me.

It is cold here, but hopefully trending up soon. Not lots of snow - only two days of accumulation and that's only still around in the shade.

I have been doing more management-esque work projects. Bleh. I have a technical one on my desk that my need to 'do it right' is preventing me from getting to. I just need to get in and do it. I was going to do it with Ruby On Rails, but now I'm thinking I may do it with Python and Django.

That's all for now, folks!

Expanse (or What The Prisoner Dreamt Of)

Moody and introspective.

It's not been the best stretch for me. I'm frustrated by living here. I am frustrated at my job.

And I have been thinking.

I am trying to read more these days. One of the things that I have read recently was a collection by Schaffer. One of the things he talks about is how the hillside experience, with a towering chorus and reassurances that they were receiving good news, would have left the shepherds irrevocably changed. I read that and wonder, have I been changed? How often do I, or do I really, evidence that change? Am I the same as I used to be, or have I been changed?

I think this often while I am here. Am I really living as I should? What do I need to do to change? How can I see the fruit of His change in my life?

Perhaps I could just list a list of simple things? But that feels trite and rehearsed, as though I'm listening for an echo of the former things. Perhaps I could look back and see the ways that I have changed? Yet when I do that, I wonder if I am settling for less than the best that could be offered to me, and if I am failing to push on and push ahead.

Sometimes I realize how much I have to grow and mature when I rail against the lack of care and consideration that is put into my life. Then I also fail to really strive after that care, so is it my fault, or the fault of those who I thought would invest that in me? It seems to me that often, here in this context (I speak of a larger context than just my current place and time, but in the life of living outside of one's home culture for the purposes I have chosen), we fail to pursue our own walk with the zeal that we should. I know at times that I say, "I am over here, isn't that enough?" And I think that in many cases and at many times, the answer is no, it is not enough.

I don't think it will come as any surprise to those that know me well that I stress out about the future. When I consider myself, I can't tell if I live in the present or look to the future. I am excited for the future, and just want it to get here. But yet the future also frightens me. I am about to be married. Am I focused on that or am I just focused on getting done with the current state of being single? (Does that question make sens?) Am I talking too much about what is to come without regard for what is now? I need to find a job, and while I have peace about it, I'm also terrified that it's a self-delusional peace born out of my inherent laziness and avoidance of anything even remotely resembling planning?

When I wake up in the morning, I often don't want to get up and go to work. The last time that happened, I feel like it was Him pushing me on. But aren't I doing what I thought I was led to do here? The conclusion I come to, then, is that it is my attitude that is the problem. It's not the people around me that irritate me, it's not the environmental or cultural factors, it's not the job or the boss, it's just me.

How do I resolve this? How to understand, embrace, and walk through the fact that I am not and will never be all that I wanted to be? How to find the truth that I know is out there ready to be grasped if I only would?

I want to be in the company of men given something to say. I guess I have to be one of those for that to happen.

And behind your eyes

Today, we had a celebration of a book that some of our students
contributed to essays. We had a skype call to another continent that
I had to manage. It was kinda fun, we had speakers and a sound system
hooked up, along with a video camera, and we had about 100 members of
our community come. It was a good time.

Last night we had a mini-dance party to celebrate one of the teacher's
birthday. I am not a dance party person.

Woohoo!

What Keeps Us

It's been a busy, and not busy, time since I last posted. I'm working on a project to update our school information system. Well, more accurately, replace it with a new piece of software, and that takes time. And I haven't gotten other projects done that I need to get done. I'm nuts sometimes.

D and I are doing good. We keep each other pretty balanced.

I'm working through depression and trust issues. I Trust that we are going to be taken care of in the future, that I will find a job and that it will be Made better than anything I could imagine or foresee. It's kind of hard to keep the right Perspective on that sometimes. I know I need to do that better, it's kind of hard to figure out how to do that sometimes. I get depressed thinking of how my personality traits can hold me back, instead of focusing on how they can propel me forward.

The older I get, the less clear and straightforward everything is. The less sure I get about anything and everything, and the more I wonder about this world. Not the things not of this world. Those I know.

Ghoti (pronounced fish, really!!!)

I could overload this blog entry with a bunch of random thoughts but I
will try not to do so.

I am trying to figure out, once again, how to adequately prosecute my
role here. I have lots of projects to work on, and must figure out how
to more adequately manage my time, as well as figure out what all I
should do here.

D and I are working hard at wedding planning and life planning. I get
kind of stressed about looking for a job, and she has been a steady
encouragement to me.

I feel like I have been impressed lately with my need to Communicate
and so I am trying to do that better. I don't always do so well but I
am trying to get into the habit of journalling again. Hopefully it
helps me in the Way.

Here we are

Still safe and sound. We had a baby shower for one of the guys who
will be a new dad in about a month. All men's baby showers are
undoubtedly nothing like women's showers.

I've got projects at work I am hoping to get started and finished
soon. I some days lack motivation to get the things done that I don't
want to work on, so I need help for that.

Planning a wedding is not my favorite thing in the world but I know it
will be worth it.

The bottom of this

Well, we're safe and sound here. Lots of fun and exciting things
happened on the other side of the city today, but nothing came close
to us.

I am struggling a lot with work recently, with both doing tasks and
having the motivation to do them. This has been happening at the
start of semesters, so it's not much new, I just need to push through
it.

I am trying out Blogger's e-mail posting for this post, so we'll see
if it turns out well. If it does, this could mean more frequent posts
from me, especially as I am using the new iPod Touch that I splurged
on for myself for Christmas fairly regularly.

D is great. She made me cookies tonight. I think I should marry her.

I played soccer today. I'm still horrible, but not as horrible as I
could be. I think I would enjoy it more if I wasn't so rusty and
could pass and place more accurately.

Finally, I have lots of socks.