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.

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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 7^th 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 8^th 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 6^th 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!

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