Tag Archives: Kuala Lumpur

Top Ten After Ten

Posted
Filed under Travel Musings

With a full ten days under my belt in the sweltering city of Kuala Lumpur, I can’t help but continually marvel at how different it is from Chengdu. Yes, there are some similarities, but with the large Chinese population in Malaysia, I really expected to see a lot more Mainland mannerisms than I do here. So, after just under a fortnight in our new home, here are my top ten KL observations:

  • Daily life takes less energy. The other day, I went to the 7-11 to top up my phone. As I slowly ambled towards the store (I made the poor choice of going at 2PM, at which point in the day anything more than an amble is not likely to happen), in my head I was making a plan of what exactly I needed to ask for and figuring out how to make sure I got my point across. With the chill of high power AC hitting my damp skin, I was greeted with, “Hello ma’am!” and realized that I no longer needed to think through my requests. English was the go-to language in most stores throughout the city, so there was no need to think through vocabulary or rehearse grammatical structures in preparation for a small purchase. (Although, I have found that utilizing the correct local phrase is key. It is vital that I ask for my phone to be “topped up” rather than just ask to have money put on it. The latter request just got me a quizzical look, eyebrows raised and head cocked to the left. Topped up, on the other hand, immediately registered and my phone was once again in working order.)
  • Right-hand driving is odd, but learnable. Upon my first foray into the wild, wild world of wrong side of the road driving, I was sweating bullets (with the AC on high) and nervous at every turn. I actually missed the roundabout I needed to go around because I was freaked out by entering it on the left. I ended up having to go all the way around the block and come at it a second time, which was still disconcerting, but I made it into the flow of traffic and back out again, all with no scrapes or scratches on the new car. I’ve yet to make an entire trip anywhere without accidentally turning on the windshield wipers instead of the blinker, but I’m assuming eventually that too will become second nature. But, the X-Trail and I have been out on a variety of solo trips (all rather short) and one longer trek to the IKEA with the GPS/Thad as my navigator. (Again, we may have missed a few turns, mostly because there are a ridiculous number of flyovers here, which don’t register on the GPS as different from the main road, so it isn’t until long past the point of no return that the GPS either gives me the quiet thumbs up or loudly recalculates as I try to keep my panic to a minimum, reminding myself that we are on no timeline and that the IKEA towels will await my arrival.)
  • Life is all about the malls here. They are large. They are air conditioned. And they are full of high-end stores that I choose not to afford. But, if I am ever in need of a Prada handbag, a Rolex watch or some Versace heels, I have a bead on where to burn my ringgits.
  • Not all grocery stores are equal. In Chengdu, we were all thrilled when a new imported item showed up in the Treat or at Metro and I scheduled by trips to the Trust-Mart to all take place before noon, as it was early afternoon when the hanging chunks of chicken and bins of meat started to really take on a funk. In KL, there are three supermarkets within a mile of our place, all of which are chalked full of foods I recognize and not a single piece of raw meat is seen outside of a cooled display case.
  • Speaking of food: halal and non-halal. Learn it and don’t mix it. I learned this lesson the slightly awkward way. (I wouldn’t say hard way, as I was corrected before I could make too large of a blunder, but it still brought a blush to my cheeks.) Last week, upon my first solo outing in the X-Trail, I went to the Cold Storage grocery store to get the basics to fill our fridge and cupboards. Thad had very few requests, but one in particular was for some lunch meat. We had seen it in the grocery store earlier in the week and it was something that was pretty hard to come by in western China, so it was on the top of my shopping list. I grabbed a package of chicken from the refrigerated section of the store, continued my shopping through the spices and condiments, cookies and crackers and eventually found myself in the far back corner of the store, prominently labeled “non-halal.” There, amongst the bacon and sausage, I saw some packages of deli ham and thought it would be a good addition to the chicken. Picking up two packages, I placed them in my cart and turned to check out the cereal and snack section of the store, but was quickly stopped by a clerk. Gently and without any obvious horror on her face, she told me that all non-halal items had to be purchased within the non-halal section of the store and placed in a separate bag from the rest of the available items. Thank goodness that woman was there! I can’t imagine the embarrassment if I had made it up to the regular registers with my pork products, effectively offending two-thirds of the shopping population that morning. Lesson learned. Make all non-halal purchases separately and bag them individually.
  • Purse paranoia has me in its clutches. Purse snatching is a huge problem here, with everyone I’ve met at the embassy either having had it happen to them or to someone they know well. Men on motorbikes ride by and grab purses off of women walking along the sidewalks on a fairly regular basis. Enough that everyone talks about it, all of the time. In Chengdu, I walked a lot of places, with nary a thought to the safety of it. I’d plug in my headphones and enjoy lovely combination of Bon Jovi, Britney and Backstreet Boys as I went on my merry way. No such thing will happen here. Instead, when walking here, it’s important to be constantly aware of the surroundings, watching the motorbikes (especially those with double riders) and keeping an eye on which side of the road to walk on and handbag placement (always on the shoulder away from the road). It’s been on to feel such a slight paranoia on a regular basis. The longer we are here, the more obvious it is to me why everyone has a car and drives here. It isn’t just because of the heat.
  • Starbucks is my friend. Chengdu was the first time I ever spent money in a Starbucks and there I became a semi-regular, going for an oversized chocolate muffing for a Friday morning snack or frequenting the peppermint hot chocolate counter from November through January (seriously, it was like Christmas in my mouth.) Now though, I am no longer looking for a mid-morning work break (no job makes that easier to avoid) or a steaming cup of anything (more ice!), but I am in real need of their Wi-Fi connection. Our home internet has yet to be hooked up, so currently, my only connection to the world of newsfeeds, blogs and online shopping is through a cup of iced passion fruit tea and a maximum of two hours from the free passcode. (Due to the lack of internet, but the time this post actually makes it onto In Search of the End of the Sidewalk we will be well passed the ten day mark, but I’m trying…trying…trying to be patient.)
  • Not working is weird. I know I did it for a year when we were in DC for training, but I think over time I forgot what it was like to not have that daily schedule. On the outside it sounds like a great deal- not having a job to check in at each day, but I know myself well enough to know that I don’t stay home well. After two years of CLO-ing, I thought it would be great to have a bit of time off between jobs, but apparently two months is more than enough for me. I am ready to go back to work, to have my days full of assignments and emails and colleagues. (Right now, the household lizards, all of whom I have dubbed “Lenny” are my only colleagues. I haven’t yet started to talk to them, so that’s good, but it is just a matter of time.) I’ve applied to several positions at the embassy, so now it is just a matter of waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
  • Lizards are to be loved, mosquitoes are to be avoided. With a 280% increase in dengue fever over this time last year, the bug-eating reptiles are man’s new best friend. Knowing that these four-legged, squirmy creatures are actually a health-benefit, I try not to squeal too loudly when I open the cupboard below the sink and see one scurry under the pipes or squawk too loudly when one dashes over the top of the clothes dryer when I wander in to the laundry room first thing in the morning or even screech when a Lenny scampers over my foot on his way to the wall when I get up for a glass of water in the middle of the night. New house rule: No wimpy-girly noises that potentially scare off the critters that do nothing more than nosh on blood sucking, disease-carrying insects.
  • Although they share a continent and a time zone, on the surface, Kuala Lumpur and Chengdu share very little else. To have a great tour here, I need to put the comparing aside and love Kuala Lumpur for what it is- a great city with a few bumps and bruises, making it not that different from Chengdu, after all.

Sometimes It’s Not Such a Small World After All

Posted
Filed under Travel Musings

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about my travel adventures, but usually my mini-rants are about long delays or annoying flight changes. International travel lends itself to these types of circumstances, as multiple flights, often on different airlines, are hard to match up over the course of twenty-four or thirty hours of travel from airport to airport, continent to continent. It’s all a part of the deal.

Last weekend’s travel saga, though, takes the proverbial cake. (The taken cake was no Betty Crocker, cook-at-home-for-a-kid’s-birthday-party style either. We are talking Buddy the Cake Boss, over the top, multiple layers, moving parts and fireworks style cake for the adventure that was our trip from Washington DC to Kuala Lumpur.)

The day started early. E-a-r-l-y. My alarm went off at 2AM, which isn’t even morning in my book, but is what had to happen to get showered, repacked, checked out and in the lobby by 3AM for our not-so-super-Super-Shuttle pick-up. (Okay, technically the alarm never went off, as even though I had set two, I didn’t trust them to get me up on time, so I slept less of a slumber and more of a “lay here with your eyes closed, checking the time every five minutes” kind of sleep. When I was within fifteen minutes of the alarms sounding, I just got up, turned them off and drug my miserable self into the shower.) Our surly driver’s attitude should have clued me in to what a long day it was going to be, but I brushed off her grumpy attitude, thinking it was early and maybe she had been out late celebrating the 4th of July. (When I booked the shuttle, online, I made a note that we would have four large suitcases to check and two carry-on bags, knowing that it is probably a bigger than normal amount of baggage for folks traveling around the States. After all, we are moving to a new country! I was very clear about the amount of space we would need. Well, as it turns out, we were her first pick-up of the run and she was quite displeased with our luggage situation, which Thad stacked neatly and compactly in the back of the van. She proceeded to lecture us about the size of our bags, at which point I nicely told her that I had noted it on our reservation. She said she didn’t care and “What if everyone else has that many bags?” As it turns out, of the other four people we picked up Saturday morning, only one had anything more than a carry-on bag, as his was a mere backpack. I seriously considered pointing this out to her when we unloaded at the airport, but held my tongue, figuring a bit of good karma wouldn’t hurt since we had a whole lot of travel in front of us. If only I had known then how the day was going to go…)

But I digress…

After getting to Dulles International Airport, checking in and clearing security, we arrived at our gate to find out that between the time the counter issued our tickets and our appearance at the waiting area, our flight had been delayed FOUR hours for maintenance issues. Regardless of the worries about what plane-work would require four hours of time and if I really wanted to get on that machine anyway, that put us very close to missing our flight out of San Francisco. Along with everyone else on that flight, we queued up at the United service desk to see what could be done. The solution was a convoluted one that entailed our bags taking a mid-morning flight to SFO out of Dulles without us and Thad and I hopping in a taxi to dash across town to catch a different DC to SFO flight from Reagan International Airport in less than an hour. With few options, we jumped in a cab and asked him to get us across town as quickly as possible, which meant taking our lives in our own hands. With seatbelts firmly buckled, we were off on a ride that would take us swerving onto the shoulder multiple times and weaving in and out of traffic as the morning sun glared through the front window. On the radio played a series of what I can only guess (and hope!) were Islamic prayers. At that point, I was willing to pray along with anyone to get to National in one piece and with a bit of time to spare.

Survive we did.

With no luggage to check and boarding passes in hand (printed by the service desk at Dulles), we headed straight for security. Shoes off. Laptops out. Pockets empty. Grab it all and go! We got to the gate with time for a quick powder room break and then onto the plane we went. Whew. We were back on track for Kuala Lumpur.

Until we hit San Francisco.

After disembarking the plane, we made our way to the gigantic electronic reader board, only to see that our flight to Hong Kong was also now delayed, but just an hour. No problem. We’d have time to grab a bite to eat, stock up on snacks and continue on the journey.

And then one hour turned into two, which rolled into a third. There was no way we were going to make our Hong Kong connection.

Back to the service desk we went.

This time though, things became more complicated, as we were changing airlines, from United to Cathay, so we didn’t yet have boarding passes and we were going to have to recheck the luggage in Hong Kong. While I guarded the backpacks, Thad sweet-talked the gate agent into coordinating with Cathay and pushing our bags on through to Kuala Lumpur and getting us a second booking, this time on the flight for the following morning, in case we didn’t make the connection. There was still a bit of confidence that we would be able to make a quick transition in Hong Kong, so we were hoping to be on-track with the original plan, but had a plan B put together, just in case.
We didn’t make the connection, by less than twenty minutes.

But, we were met at the gate by a United representative who had hotel and food vouchers in-hand, who told us not to pick up our luggage since it was booked through and who told us we had two seats on the morning flight to Kuala Lumpur.

While it wasn’t ideal, a bit of a rest day in the travel itinerary was not the end of the world. United booked us in a decent hotel that was attached to the airport, so we never had to leave the confines of the building, which turned out to be ideal since it was pouring rain the next morning. Thad, thinking ahead, had packed himself some overnight items in his carry-on bag, as we’ve traveled enough to know that on multiple leg trips, overnight is always on the table. I, on the other hand, an eternal optimist, just knew that we were going to make all of our connections and be tucked away in our new beds before I’d need a change of undies or clean socks.

Optimism failed me.

Luckily, Chinese hotels always have toothbrushes as part of the bathroom “stuff,” so while Thad was showered in an entirely new outfit as we headed back to the airport on Sunday morning, I at least had clean teeth and was smelling like a boy from the deodorant I “borrowed” from my dear husband to get me through the day.

Well rested and ready to go, we sauntered on up to the Cathay ticket counter and handed over our passports, anticipating a quick turn-around since we had no luggage in tow. We watched at as the counter attendant clicked on buttons. And then typed some more. And then looked at our passports again. And then hit a few more keys. Finally, she looked up at us and said, “But you have no reservation.”

What? United, what did you do? (Or not do?)

At this point, I still have no idea where the breakdown happened, but break-down it did. The woman in San Francisco said we were booked on that flight. The man in Hong Kong said we were booked on that flight. And yet, we were not booked on that flight.

There were lots of seats though, so soon two boarding passes whirled out of the printer. Before walking away, we double checked to make sure our bags would also make the flight. And again, she looked up at us and said, “But we have no bags for you.”

What? United, what did you do? (Or not do, again?)

Overnight our bags had disappeared. It took nearly an hour of wrangling, calls from Cathay to United, us sitting on a bench, us reminding the counter we were still waiting, more calls and then finally, bags! It sounds like United locked the bags up for safe-keeping, but then didn’t have a morning attendant to answer the calls or retrieve the bags until just minutes before our flight took off.

We wove through security (yay for not having to take your shoes off in Asian airports!) and darted through immigration (yay for a diplomatic line!), arriving at our gate in time to walk right on to the plane, which was nearly done boarding.

I flopped down in my middle of the row seat, happy to be on board for the final leg of this ridiculous journey. At this point, it was all out of our hands. We were on the last flight of our trip and we were 90% sure our bags were as well.

The math is a little tricky with time zones and datelines and all that crazy international clock manipulation, but as close as I can tell, from DC hotel to KL home, we were on the road for nearly forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours of stress, haggling with airlines, rescheduling pick-ups and just trying to make it from flight to flight. Needless to say, we are happy to be ensconced in the air conditioning of our new house, settling in for a new two year adventure.

Washington DC. San Francisco. Hong Kong. Home.

3…2…1…Pack!

Posted
Filed under Travel Musings

Packing. It has taken over my life. Okay, not so much my life as my mind. I may not be spending hours carefully wrapping ethno-plunder and figuring out how to take apart my treadmill, but I am spending that same amount of time thinking about wrapping, disassembling and general moving-related uncertainties. (One perk to being with the State Department is that they send movers in to do all of the actual packing and hauling of boxes. One downside to being with the State Department is that they send movers in to do all of the actual packing and shoving of random items into boxes that make no logical sense, but are at least hopefully well-swaddled in packing material.)

After several sleepless nights during the week, last weekend it was time to kick off some actual moving prep on my end. Two lovely ladies, Stephanie and Kristen, came over to help get the ball rolling. We sent Thad to the consulate to work on his end-of-tour cables and EER while we dug through drawers, closets and cabinets.

To make organization easier, I made signs for each of the spare bedroom doors, labeling the intended destination for the piles within. One bedroom became UAB (this is the stuff that goes by plane and arrives first, but has a very low weight limit, so it will be mostly clothing), one became HHE (this is the bulk of household goods, goes by ship and can take months, but has a ridiculously high weight limit that we don’t come close to touching) and then a final room was labeled DC (these are things going back to permanent storage, like my collection of winter coats!). Thad may have made fun of my (admittedly dorky) signs, but they made the process much easier, since everyone knew at a glance where those items were headed.  Plus, who doesn’t love a good sign or two? (I only wished I had better markers at home to make them cuter!)

For a few hours on Saturday afternoon, my apartment became a flurry of movement. Everything we’ve had on our walls had to come down (leaving me with a million ugly nails sticking out of the cement walls), the china cabinet had to be emptied of the souvenirs we’ve picked up over the years (everything from an Argentinian mate cup to a Chinese china tea set to a huge platter from the Maldives to Athena’s owl from Greece) and drawers that have been home to random electronics cords and hair ties had to be sorted (it is amazing how fast a “junk drawer” manifests itself in a new home, no matter what continent we are living on!).

Now, after that whirlwind of work on Saturday, I’ve got three rooms with overflowing piles, a semblance of organization (it totally works in my mind!) and I owe a favor or two to the lovely ladies who helped make it all happen.

But, we’re not out of the woods yet. I’ve still got a lot of small, odds and ends tasks to be done before the movers come next week. (We’ve got a pack out survey tomorrow and then the real deal is a week later- May 20.)

*Nail polish- I figure I should probably spend a bit of time and sort out my 70-some bottles of nail polish. I am sure there are a few of those that are getting old and gross, some that just aren’t colors I will ever wear again and some that are nearly gone and not worth shipping on to KL.

*Clothes-They  need to be sorted into piles that will go in the suitcase (which I will be living out of for two months), what will go UAB and what will come later. It’s hard to think through what I might possibly need in the coming weeks- definitely casual summer clothes for Idaho, but then some summer work clothes in case I do get a job in KL (keep your fingers crossed for some movement on that front) and then shoes and accessories to go with it all. It really is too much to think about! (The winter stuff is already sorted, as I couldn’t wait to get rid of coats and scarves and gloves for a few years. No winter- yay!!)

*Electronics- These will be the last things to go, as I’ll want blog access until the very last day, which will be easy, but sometime between now and then there needs to be some major cord organization. I think I’m going to bust out my box of Ziploc baggies and start sorting cords by type- camera, iPad, laptop, MP3, etc.

*Paperwork- State recommends that we hand-carry a variety of papers with us, everything from medical records to employment records. To that end, I ran across the road to the stationery store this morning and picked up a variety of plastic organizing folders so all of these documents make it from Chengdu to Nampa to Washington DC to Kuala Lumpur in one piece. I got one folder for my personal papers (teaching certificate, State job evaluations, etc.) one for Thad’s work documents, (he hasn’t seen his adorable bunny-covered folder yet, but I am sure he is going to be thrilled when he does!) and then one for all of our travel-papers, like airline tickets, hotel reservations and rental car registrations.

As I am living in the world of denial when it comes to the impending goodbyes, I can focus my energy on these more mundane t asks, the ones that need to be completed but don’t have the emotional baggage that will come next week as I have to say goodbye to some fabulous friends, a boss and coworkers who have been incredibly wonderful to work for and a job that not only kept me busy and on my toes, but gave me a solid foundation in the ways of the Foreign Service, for which I will always be grateful. So, while I continue to float in my canoe on that famed African river, I’ll go sort a few more dishes, clean out the overflowing sock drawer and finish deciding which books get to go to KL and which must suffer the hardship of being boxed for a few years.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Rolling the Dice

Posted
Filed under Travel Musings

There are a lot of things in my life as a middle school teacher that were unique to that world. For instance, in “regular” life, it is rare that someone comes running up to you wanting you to help someone who has fallen down (okay, probably more likely been pushed down if it was in middle school) and needs help. This might happen once or twice in your entire life, but it was a daily occurrence when I was on playground duty. I always asked “Are there any bones showing?” before getting too close to the scene of the crime, as I don’t deal with gruesome injury well. (If the answer was yes, I quickly told them to go find Mr. E, the fantastic 7th grade teacher who taught next door to me. He was much better equipped to deal with strangely protruding limbs than I was.) Or, it is rare that in daily life I have to question why someone randomly fell out of their seat in the middle of a presentation. (As I type this, I am picturing myself sitting in my weekly section heads’ meeting and having one of the senior officers just tip out of his/her chair for absolutely no reason at all. While it is a hilarious image, it just doesn’t happen, and yet in middle school, this was a weekly, if not daily, incident.) In that “real” world that kids so desperately want to join, I never have to get someone’s hair unjammed from her locker, tell someone to go put the praying mantis back outside where it belongs or wonder who took a bit of the doughnut on my desk (Ethan S., I’m looking at you!)

And while I mourn the loss of these ridiculous moments, because I loved (nearly) every minute of teaching 8th grade, I’ve discovered my current life brings with it its own set of unique happenings that never would have been a part of my Idaho –life. Of course, there is the First Lady introduction from a few weeks ago, but there are also the days like last week when I had to do the check-in of shame because I forgot my badge at home. (I was laughed at by the Marine who checked me in and scoffed at by the one who checked me out. Remember guys, I’m the one who brings you coffee and treats on many mornings!)

As we prepare for our imminent departure from Chengdu though, there has been several other Foreign-Service-real-life-moments pop up. (In case you are marking your calendars, we’ve got six weeks left in the land of pandas.) First of all, we got our housing assignment in Kuala Lumpur, meaning our home for the next two years was determined by the notes we put on a piece of paper and the opinions of a committee in KL. I’m happy to say that I am thrilled with the thought-process of that board, but it is strange to think that just a few bits of information on a single sheet of paper determine where we will reside for two years. I’ve nary a complaint about the beautiful townhouse we will be moving into in July, but I understand how it can be a frustrating process if one doesn’t love their assigned housing. In the States, I would never have given a short survey to a random group of people whom I had never met and asked them to find a house that would make me happy. But, in the Foreign Service, no one blinks an eye at it. (As a matter of fact, some of us send many-a-night with our eyes wide open, not sleeping as we excitedly anticipate housing news.)

The other (seemingly) crazy FS-thing we did this week was buying a car. Yes, you read that right. We bought a car, sight unseen. (Okay, a little sight seen, through a series of emailed photographs.) Last year, when we got our placement in KL, we decided that we definitely wanted a car so that we could get out of town on the weekends, go to the beach, hit up Singapore, etc. With that in mind, a few weeks ago, I started scouring the weekly newsletter from KL, in search of a car that would fit our needs and not break the bank. (Diplomats don’t tend to give great deals on their cars, as they always think they can sell them for what they bought them for. This actually holds pretty true in a lot of places, but it means bargain-shopping for a vehicle takes some patience.) But, last Wednesday, a new car popped up in the Malaysian Monitor that was just what we were looking for: an SUV with good clearance for the crazy rainstorms that hit the city on a regular basis and the less than smooth roads that permeate much of the country outside the city, and that came with a price tag that fit within our discussed budget. Knowing that vehicles like that get snapped up quickly, I sent an email to the owners that very day. After a series of back and forth emails about price, photographs, contracts and money wiring, today we signed the sale agreement and I sent the down payment to the current owners. After less than a week of negotiations, we will have a car waiting for us when we get t Kuala Lumpur this summer. (This should also serve as incentive for friends and family to come visit!!) In the States though, I can’t imagine buying a car 1) in such a short amount of time, 2)with just a few pictures as reference (I did Google the make and model extensively) and 3)with no test drive. My fingers are crossed that this world of “corridor reputation” is a great incentive for people to be upfront and honest in their dealings. (I tend to assume everyone is to begin with, but know that is probably a naïve way to approach the world. I can’t’ image purposefully screwing someone over, so it is hard for me to picture someone else doing the same.) For better or worse though, we will soon be the proud owners of a Nissan X-Trail!

While I no longer have to look the other way when a 6th grader comes to me with a newly lost tooth in his hand, wanting me to “look, it’s so cool!” and I don’t get the pleasure of asking why anyone would think it is a good idea to leave their schoolbag out in the rain all weekend, I do get to play what amounts to a single hand of poker for my housing and roll the dice when it comes to major life purchases.

Foreign Service, you provide a strange life, but never a dull one!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Spinning Right Round, Baby, Right Round

Posted
Filed under Travel Musings

Spinning…spinning…spinning.

And now, dizzy.

That’s the way my mind is feeling right now, and sadly, I can’t just blame it on the blonde hair. (That’s often my go-to excuse for everything from losing my pencil, only to find it behind my ear, to forgetting if I should push down on the elevator button because I want the elevator to come down to me or up because I am trying to go up. Seriously, that does happen to me.) Dizzy, because my brain that wants everything to be cheery and happy and carefree all of the time and when tidbits of information throw a wrench in that happy little bubble of a world, my brain suddenly becomes like my favorite amusement park ride- the Scrambler, twisting and turning to make laughter bubble to the surface. But, sometimes the centrifugal force is too tiring.

That’s today.

Sometimes you don’t realize how much you want something until the option is taken off the table and today, my table was cleared, handily. When Thad and I first talked about the Foreign Service a few years ago, I was one hundred percent on board; I think I even said something like, “Great! I will just teach wherever you get assigned!” After all, we’d already been looking at international schools as a way to get overseas again.

I was naïve, no doubt about it. It didn’t take long into my freshman week at FSI to learn that it isn’t as easy as having a teaching degree and applying for jobs. No, the governments (both home and host) have a lot of say in whether or not the dependents of diplomats can work, and as luck would have it, our first posting was one of those countries where I’m not allowed to work. (To be fair, Chengdu was #1 on our bid list and there were definitely squeals of excitement when we got it, but at the time I thought I’d for sure be able to land a job with Peace Corps in Chengdu, which obviously didn’t happen.)  But, I figured I’d sit the two years out from teaching and then jump right back into the middle school pool at post #2.

Bidding time rolled around and after lots of planning and researching, we submitted our list of thirty choices, many of the top ones being places where I could potentially teach. No email. No email. Email! Our assignment arrived! After scrolling down Thad’s BlackBerry to get to the meat of the email, I saw in bold letters our home for the next two years: Kuala Lumpur. I must admit to a bit of shock, as I didn’t even remember having that on our bid list, (after going back and checking, it was #18- love your mid-bids, FS folks!) but was excited to live nearly on the equator, as I do hot much better than cold.

My first order of business was to check out the work situation, which is grim, as it turns out. But, I wasn’t giving up hope. Through the summer and fall, I talked a good game about working at the embassy or online (I even completed nine credits through Pacific Lutheran University during fall term to add an online teaching certification to my resume!), but I think in the back of my mind, I was planning to make the classroom teaching thing happen. Rationally, I knew it was a misguided fantasy I was carrying around, but it was what had settled in my mind and heart.  With Christmas here,  I’ve been dreaming of reading A Christmas Carol with students, marveling at Dicken’s word play, I’ve lain in bed, creating lesson plans revolving  around awesome new YA books I’ve been reading lately, and as I’ve edited blogs for my middle school niece, I’ve realized how much I’ve missed talking with kids about their writing.

It’s not going to happen. At least not in a brick and mortar classroom.

Through the help of some great colleagues, my fears were confirmed this afternoon: I will not be able to teach at an international school in Malaysia. I could apply and even be offered a position, but I would not be allowed to accept it.

I’m having a hard time accepting it.

If you had asked me yesterday (or even this morning!), I would have given you a list of work options that included the embassy, online teaching or working in a local school, but my emphasis would have been on the school.

Tomorrow’s list is going to be one option shorter.

Spinning…spinning…spinning.

Not one to dwell on the negative for too long (although a bit of a short pity party is in order), I’m already hatching plan B. Since international schools do a lot of their hiring in the winter for the coming school year, I was starting to worry about getting my resume, application and letters of reference in order, but now that it has been swept off the table with gusto, it’s time to move on and focus on the options I do have. On a multiple choice test, it’s always better to have two answers to choose from rather than three, so I’m choosing to look at this the same way. I’ll focus my energies on the actual possibilities, rather than the ones I secretly (but without good reason) hoped would materialize.

Online teaching.

Embassy work.

Both could be (will be!) great.

But, maybe I need just another hour to spin…spin…spin.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

School Daze, Minus the Spike Lee

Posted
Filed under Travel Musings

“Foreign Service? Sure! That sounds great! With my teaching degrees and background, I’m sure I’ll be able to land a job as we jump from country to country from now until retirement. Hauling boxes of young adult books and hard copies of fabulous lesson plans trans-Pacific/Atlantic will be no problem at all. I’ll go pack my bags right now!” These were the thoughts running through my head as Thad passed test after test to land himself a dream job with the US Department of State.

Oh, the naivety of my youth…

Because yes, I do have a bachelor’s degree in English/Spanish teaching; and yes, I do have a master’s degree in middle level education; and yes, I have taught for seven years in the US and two in China; but no, I cannot just jump on the first job opening at the local international school in each new posting. You see, when traveling with the State Department, the list of rules/regulations is longer than the Christmas list of my five year old niece. (It does include much, much less Hello Kitty. As I think about it, though, a little pink and glitter would liven of the FAM guidelines a bit. )  Some countries allow spouses to work on the local economy and some do not. While the reasons for the prohibitions are as numerous as the aforementioned Hello Kitty swag on the Christmas list, the outcome is still the same: if there is no bilateral work agreement with the host country, the diplomatic spouse cannot work.

That is the boat I am currently floating along in in China. Because there is no bilateral work agreement here, as I was exploring my employment options in Chengdu, I was told that I was not allowed to apply for jobs at the international school, even though there were openings that would have been perfect for my background. Although I was initially disappointed, my spirits were revived when I saw the Community Liaison Officer (CLO) position would be opening up within weeks of our arrival. With impeccable timing and a lot of background working with people in various capacities, the CLO job ended up being a great fit. I’ve been lucky to work under fantastic management during my introductory year to State and had a great time expanding the CLO position in Chengdu. It has been a great way to spend my time in Chengdu.

But, at heart, I am a teacher. I miss teaching, especially literature and writing. (My middle school niece recently started her own blog and I’ve been pestering her constantly about what she is writing about, excited to see some middle school creativity again! She may soon start ignoring me on G-chat messages if I’m not careful.) So, while at times I’ve felt a bit discombobulated by the lack of lesson plans to write or expository essays to edit, I’ve comforted myself with the thought that I’ll be back in the classroom in 2014.

Oh, the naivety of my (less than before) youth…

Much like the royal baby, there was great anticipation for bidding season. (This is an appropriate simile, as you may remember that I wrote a long post comparing Foreign Service bidding to having a child. Check that one out here.) We waited with eager expectancy to find out where we would spend (aka: where I would teach) the next two years. And at last we got the coveted email: Kuala Lumpur.

Great! It is warm (hot!!) year round, the travel opportunities are endless and the cutest baby elephant I’ve ever seen lived in Malaysia. I’ll go pack my teaching bags right now!

Or not.

After the excitement (and shock!) of our posting wore off, I did what I always do- research and obsess. Before the news had even been announced to all of our family and friends back home, my Amazon cart was filled with books (both fiction and non-fiction) about Malaysia and I bought the Malaysia, Borneo, Singapore Lonely Planet at a bookstore in downtown Taipei. I plied through document after document from the embassy in KL, reading everything I could get my hands on about housing, transportation, community events…and work. Much to my chagrin, I soon realized that diplomatic spouses in Malaysia are facing the same struggles that the ones in China are- no bilateral work agreement. Long story short- I can’t teach in the international school in KL either.

Frustration doesn’t begin to do justice to the moment.

Quickly, I decided it was time for a new game plan. Knowing that complaining about the situation wasn’t going to change it, I started scouring the internet for possible online teaching opportunities and bugging everyone I knew in the education world for possible connections into the world on online teaching. But, introductions would not be enough. Coming from a background of teaching in a traditional classroom setting, I figured some training in online teaching wouldn’t be a bad idea, so when I stumbled upon  an Online Teaching Certificate program through Pacific Lutheran University, I knew this was a perfect fit! I’m excited to start a program will give me the tools I need to be a successful teacher in a new environment and an attractive candidate when I start applying for jobs in the spring. (Plus, I need to renew my Idaho teaching certificate in the spring.  Win-win!)

Fall semester might be a little overwhelming. I’m registered for nine credits through the university and plan to keep working at the same time. I figure if I could teach full-time while completing my graduate degree, I can definitely CLO full-time while doing a certificate program. No problemo! (I say now, full of energy and excitement. Ask me again in October and I may be singing a different tune.)

“Foreign Service? Sure! That sounds great! With my teaching degrees and background, I’m sure I’ll be able to land a job as we jump from country to country from now until retirement. I’ll go pack my bags right now!”  I may not have had a clue what I was talking about a few years ago, but I still think the Foreign Service sounds like a great idea and I am still convinced that I can use my teaching degree as we bounce from post to post. It is just a matter of expanding my teaching tool kit and looking at education-oriented jobs outside a traditional classroom setting- both of which are exciting prospects.

Now, about those nine credits…

The Birthing of a Bid List

Posted
Filed under Travel Musings

Department of State bidding (at least at the entry-level) is much like naming a baby. Yes, I know this may seem like a far-fetched simile, but it is pretty darn accurate. Being an obsessive planner, I always figured if I had a kid, I would scour the baby name books and have a short list of options picked out before the freedom ending trip to the hospital (I mean, birth),  but it would be shared with no one beyond Thad.  It is just too easy for names to be picked apart:

-“Not Donatello! I knew a Donatello and he was an obnoxious stinkbug, living in the sewers and eating pizza all day!”

-“Medusa? Are you serious? You’re tempting the follicle fates with a name like that!”

-“Pumpernickel?!” She’ll be called Bread-Head by the mean kids at school!”

You see, even the most well-meaning friends and family feel the need to weigh in on the moniker of the yet-to-take-a-breath child, passing judgment (always negative, for some reason!) upon the name by which they will be known for their entire lives. So, rather than have to hear all the worst possible mutations of any selected name, I think I’ll just lock the options away in the vault, only making the announcement once the name is officially inked on the birth certificate, making it the chosen name, for better or worse.

Bidding is exactly the same! Rather than perusing book after book of baby names and meanings, we downloaded a giant list of over 250 possible posts, sorting them into a shorter and shorter list of possibilities.  But, just like a baby name, that short list was kept top secret, as everyone has an opinion to share (or at least an eyebrow to raise) about whatever tops the list:

-“Cuba? But internet costs $500 a month!”

-“London!?” Are you sure? I hear the morale at that post is terrible!”

-“Really? Calgary? But Canada is just America’s hat and you’re not really a hat-girl.”

Again, you see, even the most well-meaning people are overwhelmed with the need to share what they “know” about the posts ranked high on your bid list. (The problem with what people “know,” is it is often from the friend of a cousin of an officer who served at that post twenty years ago; or even better, it comes from a Personal Post Insight survey that was obviously filled out by the most bitter, jaded officer  on her worst day in the country, where if a hug from a koala bear were paired with a bookstore shopping spree, the post would still earn a negative rating; or, sadly, maybe just a bored, unhappy EFM who doesn’t want to be a part of his community. Any way you cut it, the “known” advice is often not the best advice.)

The LIST came out a few weeks ago, was narrowed down and submitted for an initial review by Thad’s CDO (career development officer) in Washington DC. She came back with some suggestions; the list was reworked and resubmitted for final consideration a week later. (That makes it sound like the list was only revised a single time. Sooo untrue! We went over that list time after time, as dark horses like Ljubljana took the lead and initial frontrunners like London dropped into the teen spots.)

In the end, our list (okay, Thad’s, but I consider it mine too, since I also have to live with the assigned results) went to DC and then we waited. One day…two days…three days…eleven days!  In reality, eleven days is a pretty quick turnaround when it comes to an assignment, but it seemed more like nine months of gestation while we waited, checked the email and waited some more.

But, the bundle of joy has arrived! A bouncing baby boy? A giggly little girl? Nope! Rather, a balmy two years in KUALA LUMPUR, starting summer 2014!

And, much like with a newly named baby, I’ve been privy to all sorts of opinions and ideas on our new post, but they’ve all been positive. “Bethesda is such a cute name!” and “Oh, Reginald fits him perfectly!” are translated to “What a great place for travel!” and “You’ll love the embassy there!”

With some serious secretive list-making skills being fully honed, we are ready for the next round of high level information security. No, not baby naming (don’t get your hopes up on that one!), but winter R&R planning!

 

A few pictures from last time we were in KL, on vacation with friends.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.