The Neglected Blog

I think back to Peace Corps when I would see other volunteers' blogs on my blog roll say things like "Last updated 3 weeks", "Last updated 1 month", "Last updated 3 months", and so on and I always secretly judged them for not keeping up with it. I felt it was so easy and fun. Well, I am now one of them and believe me, its not easy to update this blog. Even updating photo of the day is getting harder.

I am lacking inspiration to know what to write, which makes updating a challenge. I am struggling to put our experiences down on paper (or on the screen in this case). I have a hard time feeling like our life is interesting enough to detail. I don't always know how to phrase things sometimes as our life here is far more watched and scrutinized than any any aspect of life in the Peace Corps was.

A typical day for us involves waking up at 6:10 am, being to work a by 7:45 am, working all day, leaving work around 7:00 pm, coming home to figure out dinner, doing a few quick things around the house, and finally collapsing into bed. And this doesn't even take into account all the side projects and events we have going on, such as trying to start up a summer camp, collecting a million visa records from the past few years for analysis, and trying to make time for friends and basic things like grocery shopping and laundry, let alone time to think of how to creatively write a blog post.

I love the idea of our blog. It is an easy way to keep friends and family back home updated on our life. We would love to be able to call and email everyone individually, but that isn't realistic between the time difference, the sometimes spotty internet connection, and everyone's busy lives. Theoretically, the blog should be the easiest way to update everyone, but even it falls victim to neglect. I do prioritize doing laundry (a 4 hour process here), planning this summer camp, and trying to keep our apartment tidy (thank goodness for our weekly apartment cleaning). I would never say our life is difficult, because let's be honest, we live in a ridiculously nice place, have great jobs, and great friends. But, it certainly is a never ending to-do list.

Arrival

We are pleased to announce we have arrived in China! After a long flight, we are happy to be on the ground and see our new home. I was a bit nervous about the 14 hour flight as it was the longest flight I had ever been on. My anxiety only heightened when we walked to our seats and noticed we would get to share our 14 hour flight with the two year old sitting next to me. Oh how lucky we are. After the mother told me that the child likes to hit, I was really wishing we had paid the $2000 to upgrade our seats. I have read plenty of posts about other people who lead our lives to know that most parents try everything they can to keep their children calm on flights to do my best to give the mother some sympathy and ignore the arms flying in in my direction. However, after a meal where I just narrowly missed wearing both my dinner and my drink multiple times and the mother doing nothing, I decided she didn't deserve our sympathy. Long story short, after being hit, having to hold down anything on my tray table, and a few hours of screaming, the kid finally fell asleep and slept for about six hours, saving our sanity a bit.

When we arrived in Shanghai, we had to pick up our bags and go through customs, which was surprisingly easy. For the first time in my life, we got to use the "special" line at customs and get through in a quarter of the time. Finally, those black passports came in handy. 

After five gate changes in Shanghai, we were finally on our final flight of the trip, bound to Guangzhou. Our goal was to try to stay awake so we could go to bed as soon as we got to our new home. It was a bit difficult, but we stayed awake for most of it. Our plane decided to land in the cargo terminal next to the FedEx planes, so we hopped on a bus, hoping it would take us to the airport where our sponsor from the consulate was going to meet us. After waiting for over half an hour, our luggage finally decided to make its way to us and we were able to leave the secure area and meet our sponsor J. She lead us out to the consulate's minibus and we were on our way home. It was great to talk to someone on the ground living the life here and get a better sense of what we were in for.

Our new housing- unreal. Completely, 100% unreal. We are living in a five star hotel. It is amazing. We walked into the building and were shocked. All our lights and window shades are controlled by remotes. Our closet is massive. And our shower, is the size of our entire bathroom in DC. 

We know we are going to get spoiled living here. We have doors opened for us, doormen who will take our shopping and deliver it to our room, and the other night we had a lady in a ball gown waiting to push the up button on the elevator. Life is good. We couldn't be happier to be here. 

So its been awhile....

March 26th. That was the last time I posted anything. That was only 8 months ago and only like 3 people even know this site exists so far. However, because one day I will print this into a book for us to have, I figure I should do a short update on the last 8 months.

Since I last posted....
- PM and I have gotten married, not once, but twice. We made it legal in April so we could get all the paperwork started with the State Dept so I can go to China as an EFM (Eligible Family Member) and not an MOH (Member of Household). This was crucial as it means I have health insurance, plane tickets, and the government will ship my stuff too. At our first wedding we didn't have any family present, so to appease them all, we had wedding round two (the white dress one) in October.

- I was offered a job with Arlington County directing one of their summer camps and I spent all summer hanging out with some crazy kids in south Arlington.

- PM studied his little butt off for his Mandarin test. All that studying paid off as two days before the BIG wedding, he not only passed his tested, but did so well, he receives a special language bonus.

- We have said "see ya later" to countless Foreign Service friends who are now all over the world. The good news is if we ever find ourselves in Caracas, Cairo, Sao Paolo, Mumbai, or Abuja, we have friends!

- I learned that the foot and ankle pain I had been having for over a year was due to a fracture. I got the lovely fortune of spending the entire summer wearing a lovely walking cast.

- We received our housing assignment. If you remember, my last post was about the housing options and I mentioned the place with a pillow and blanket menu. That is where we will be living! All of our friends going to Guangzhou had received their housing assignments. Everyone but us. We figured they had forgotten about us, but knew they wouldn't put us out on the streets, so we didn't make a fuss about not knowing four months in advance. The waiting and patience paid off as we received what we have been told is the nicest housing in Guangzhou and some of the top housing in all of the Foreign Service world (minus Ambassador's residences). We would have been happy as long as we had an actual bed rather than a Macedonian couch bed, but no complaining here!

- We received our fancy-smancy Diplomatic passports (yeah, we are pretty excited to show those things off) and I used that to model an American Girl doll sized Diplomatic passport with Brazilian visa, Brazilian money, and boarding passes for the daughter of some FSO friends.

- Both PM and I have taken the Basic Consular Course at FSI (ConGen). It was a required class for PM, I just had the luck of getting a spot in an earlier class so I could take it too. Taking ConGen was one of the first steps in our plan to see if Slim should become a consular officer herself one day.

And that is the last eight months. I mean, there may have been a few happy hours, trips to the midwest, and weekends spent exploring the D.C. area thrown in there, but you get the gist of it.

New Apartment

We moved into our new apartment in Arlington today and I must say, its the nicest place I have ever lived that's for sure! A few highlights of our apartment include: onsite gym, swimming pool, 1 block from the metro, and 2 blocks from a grocery store.

I am excited to take this place and turn it into our first American home!