My Expat Life

It has been a while since I’ve had anything adventurous to eat. So I had to take care of that last night. Our department went out last night to a Japanese restaurant to celebrate the promotions of my boss and another person in our group. I sat next to one of our Japanese employees and let her do the ordering for me. She suggested the grilled shisamo. Who doesn’t want to try a pregnant fish?

It came out on a stick and you eat the entire fish, head to tail. The inside is filled with tiny little eggs. Wasn’t bad at all. I ended up eating two.

I’ve now fallen into a new, political nerd, rut. About 2 months ago I was excited to discover that Meet the Press is available as a free video podcast. There is something about the way Tim Russert conducts interviews that I enjoy way more than I should. And I really was way too excited upon my discovery. But I got busy, went away for 3 weeks, and didn’t watch.

Now I’m back. Now I get easily bored. With the time difference, and delay to posting, the download isn’t available till late my Monday night, or early Tuesday. With Mandarin classes on Tuesday evenings, there is no room in my brain to watch anything that takes brain power. So now it seems to be my Wednesday ritual to watch the podcast on the way home, or when I get home. Feeding my inner, political nerd.

And today I discovered This Week with George Stephanopoulos (take that spell checker). So this tonight I was extra, politically nerdy. My grandparents would have been to proud, even if I don’t share their political beliefs.

My life has been rather dull as of late. Last Friday, I spent much of the day looking forward to 5:30. Then about 5:00 the realisation hit that I had nothing to look forward to. Nothing, nada, zippo. The Friday beer group didn’t even seem to be having a meeting at the hawker centre across from work. So I was looking forward to going home to nothing. Weeeee.

The highlight of the weekend? Well, if I had to pick just one, I guess it would be getting my haircut. Can you feel it? That my friends is pure excitement.

Actually, that isn’t fair. Listening to the men’s Wimbledon final on the internet was pretty good stuff. But since the match didn’t finish until 1 am my time, it didn’t feel like the weekend anymore. It also made for a painful Monday morning.

Monday, was great joy. I was invited out to lunch. Guess moving my desk location to be in with the rest of the team did help. At least they remembered to include me in the group. And it was a fun lunch.

Today’s highlight, and internal torture? Mandarin class. Today we moved from sounds to words. And now I am totally freaked out at trying to remember just two pages of words. Maybe, if I’m lucky I can remember how to count. If I look at my notes I can say I like beer and I buy beer. Or the ever useful, my ugly colleague buys beer. Or My comrade likes to go to hospital. My father likes cooked rice and ice water.

Tonight each of us had to make and say our own sentence from the vocabulary. First person to go said “The teacher is pretty”. His boss then said, “I don’t like my ugly English colleague.” The longest sentence was “Last year, my brother and I went to China to buy a hospital.” Show off. In my moment of panic, I came up with the stellar, but useful “My friend likes ice water.”

And that is all.

I’ve added some photos to my trip site, but in the process I managed to bugger up the url a bit. They are now at www.lindarg.net/africatrip/africatrip/Home.html

$3975.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth

Mingle² - Online Dating

The goal today was to get out of work on time or at least reasonably close to it, then go for a run. Ha-ha.

The last meeting of the day ran late, but late enough that I could have just packed up for the day to go home. I got back to my desk to find someone was desperately trying to find me to solve a problem. Solving the problem took a little over an hour.

While in problem solving mode, my boss called me to ask if I wanted to join him and another girl for drinks and dinner. I was reluctant to go, but the idea of a run wasn’t any better. So off the three of us went.

And then we found it. A Mexican restaurant. I was suspicious at first. I’ve long since learned that if you aren’t in a state bordering Mexico, it probably isn’t worth the effort. But, the name, Margaritas, was calling to me. A quick look at the menu and I saw those names that are so lovely and familiar - enchiladas, burritos, queso, chile relleno. Then the manager came up to talk to us. He explained that the kitchen staff is from Mexico. The ingredients are imported from Mexico. So, in we went.

Can I just say, this was the best Mexican food I’ve had outside of a border state. The jalepenos were fresh - and hot. The spices were the ones that I’ve known for so many years. Even the mango margaritas were good.

Now I am home with a belly full of chile relleno, enchilada, and braised pork, feeling ever so glad I chose not to go for a run. And if ever I miss that taste of home again, I know just where to go.

It’s funny. I don’t get homesick. I don’t get overly bought into most holidays. Except…for the 4th of July and Thanksgiving. Living abroad those are the two that I absolutely miss the most. They are the hardest for me to re-create. It’s not what they represent that I miss, it is the traditions that have built over the years that I miss.

Now that the 4th is here again, I find myself almost homesick. I don’t want to be at work. I WANT TO BE DOING MY NORMAL 4TH OF JULY THINGS. It has been 3 years since I’ve been home for a 4th, and this year I really find myself missing it.

If I were home, I would try to sleep late. Since the 4th is in the middle of the week, the sleeping late wouldn’t work and I’d still be up by 8 or 9 am. I would then go into the living room and park myself in front of the Wimbledon TV broadcast. By 10 or 11, either my mom would call me or I would call her. We would discuss the matches at Wimbledon and then pick a time to go play tennis ourselves. Mom and I would meet up early afternoon for our tennis session then go home to clean up. I would either meet up with a friend or go over to the parentals house. Dinner would likely be at Magnolia Cafe. After dinner, we would walk over to the free symphony and fireworks show. Waiting for the symphony and fireworks to start, we’d spread out on the same white blanket, pull out the books and the deck of cards. We would read for a while, and/or play a game of gin rummy. The symphony would play, ending they with the 1812 Overture, complete with cannons. The fireworks would then start. By the time I got home, I would be exhausted and totally relaxed.

I miss that.

After a weekend with no social interaction, Monday I felt like jumping out of my own skin. I had almost no contact with others at work, and all the work I was doing was just boring me to tears. It was driving me up the freakin’ wall. I came home and forced myself into a painful, but good recovery run. I was in bed and asleep by just after 11:00.

Since returning from my trip I’ve had a hell of a time getting to sleep and last night I just conked out and stayed asleep most of the night. Amazing how much better you feel with just a few extra hours of sleep.

This evening was the start of my Mandarin classes. They will be every Tuesday for 12 weeks, two hours per lesson. I was very nervous to start. My memory is only good when I’m not trying to memorize something, and my pronunciation of foreign sounds is less than spectacular (unless it is Spanish or some French). Turns out that there are no early star performers in the class. We each had one area that we struggled with.

Today we only learned the sounds of the letters (thankfully we were using roman letters to learn from). The combinations of sounds is mind blowing and takes advanced maths to calculate the number of sound combinations. At least it is a fun group of people to go through the class with.

After class, I shared a taxi home with my colleague/neighbour. We went for sushi at a cheap but good, nearby restaurant. On the walk home from dinner he offered me a Wii tennis rematch. I was still terrible. But, I’ve accepted that my tennis aptitude on a Wii will always be horrible and I can move on with life.

Ten-pin bowling on the Wii? Much better. Hell, I’m probably better than real life ten-pin bowling. I still look mentally challenged when playing bowling on the Wii, but at least people don’t look for the short bus that brought me to the bowling alley. AND…I was allowed to create my own Mii, so now I can go back and be the same awful player every time. Yay me.

It has been months since my last jog. So long in fact that I can’t even remember when I did last go for a run. I do know that November was when I last ran on a regular basis. March would likely be the last time I did any real swimming.

On Saturday morning I had to get up early. Had to. While in Africa I finally received my refund cheque for my Manly apartment. A really nice refund cheque. Thanks to my work hours and the banks hours, Saturdays are the only days I can go and deposit the cheque. I’ve not been sleeping well at all, so I would have much rather enjoyed sleeping late. Sadly that just was not an option.

After some walking around I came home and desperately wanted a nap. I closed the drapes, cranked down the air-con, put in the ear plugs and settled down for what I hoped to be a nice long sleep. Thirty minutes and I was awake again. Tired still, but no hope for sleep.

And that is when I decided to go running again. If I can’t sleep naturally, I might as well try to exhaust myself. My god was I out of shape. I could not run for long, but I went as hard as I could. After returning home, I went for a dip in the pool to cool down. Still on my runners high, I decided to swim laps.

This morning? Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Hello muscles that haven’t been used, so sorry to have neglected you.

What’s a girl to do to get rid of the pain? Why this crazy girl does it all over again. This time I ran slower, but longer. I tried the swim too, but couldn’t manage as many laps.

Now? Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Hello muscles that haven’t been used, so sorry to have neglected you.