I haven't updated this blog in a few weeks because I'm starting to make myself busy. When I'm not busy, I get restless and I think of things I want to tell people about. When I am busy, I forget that I have a blog at all.
I've been offered a job working with students at the university here, assisting with their English writing and speaking skills. I have several things that I need to acquire, official paperwork and clearances and such, some of which have to be mailed over on the slow boat, but when those come in I'll be able to start work. It won't pay very well, but it will be enough, and it won't be the world's greatest job, but it will be engaging. It will certainly give me an opportunity to hone my editing skills, and another thing to list on my resume that still lacks any sort of teaching certification.
I've been doing a lot of reading and writing of my own. It's much easier to get books here than video games and card games, due to our Kindle account, so I've started tracking down some things that are below the normally high bar I set for what kinds of books I'm willing to read. I knocked out one book in a week, and I've got another ready to go. I may end up reading after I'm done with this post, but I may also catch up with some other blogs I've been following.
I'm beginning to experiment with videos and audio podcasting, which could end up being a lot of fun. I've also been outlining and writing chapters and short-stories that I'm going to piece together in a novel. That's my hope anyway. Even if that doesn't work out, I will have something to keep myself busy. It's surprising to me how productive I can feel without having any responsibilities. Maybe a lack of responsibilities is what I needed.
We've spent a lot of our free time with friends here, mostly just watching movies or eating dinner. Kazakhstan is a remarkably boring place, due to the isolation and weather, so we don't really get out a lot. There isn't much to do. There certainly isn't anywhere to go. I don't really care for what I've seen of it. It will be nice next year when we are able to get out of here for a while and visit people in person. And maybe have some tacos.
That's where I am right now. Winter has fallen heavily on Astana, with a foot or more of snow covering anything they can't reach with a snow-shovel. The snow sucks. It's certainly not an environment conducive to learning to drive a manual transmission car. But we've made it about three months now. That's one eighth of the way through. At some point next year we'll start to find out where Susie will be posted next. That will change things significantly.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Don't speak Russian? Bring carrots.
Susie and I live in a large and expanding collection of apartments known as Highvill. According to the plans, Highvill will eventually take up somewhere around two blocks of city space, and include restaurants, grocery stores, offices, gyms, and whatever else you can imagine. Right now, though, it's less than half finished, so I would imagine it's pretty tough to get stores to commit. There are a couple of extremely expensive restaurants (although I'm starting to think what I view as "expensive" and what the Kazakhs view as "expensive" in a restaurant is completely different), and currently there is only one small grocery store. There isn't a whole lot else. I think I've seen some offices, but it's pretty empty. A lot of this part of town is.
We live fairly close to Novella, the grocery store, so it's convenient for us. Especially so, since we can actually not have to leave the building to get to it. The apartments are build above and around interior parking decks, because leaving your car out in the intense cold during the winter is asking for problems. And luckily for us, this means that when the weather is inauspicious, we can take the elevator down and walk through the heated, covered, and insulated deck and go into the back entrance of the store. It's open from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, so almost any time we realize we need something basic, like milk, eggs, bread, cheese, or drinks, we can run down and get it. They don't have the selection of a full grocery store, and they suffer from the same supply issues that most stores around here do, but they tend to keep most things in stock.
The staff recognizes us at this point and speaks very little Russian with a lot of gestures in case we need something. There are three or four clerks in the store at any given time, running around doing whatever it is people do at a very slow grocery store. There are also people I've come to designate as managers or owners. They do not have the smock-like uniform of the clerks. In fact, they are almost always dressed quite nicely, much nicer than American store managers. It's unsettling, to be honest. They were black or pinstripe suits and stand like guardians over the whole place (when they aren't sequestered in the hole in the wall office that is wedged near the back entrance. They never smile and sometimes have rapid, fierce conversations with the clerks about what they should be doing. Which, it seems, is sometimes nothing at all.
A week ago, we needed some smaller items, and after I managed to lock myself out of the apartment and walk to the embassy to borrow Susie's key, I made my way (back) to the store. We were planning on having salad, I think, but I wanted to pick up other stuff since you never know what they might have. I had my headphones in, listening to some podcast, since the walk to and from the embassy is boring without something to distract from the featureless, muddy stretch of roadside between Highvill and there. I grabbed a cart with one hand, and headed for the stand of sketchy fresh fruits and vegetables they had. Most of them were dirty; they don't really wash produce here, which is problematic because their local produce is inevitably covered in filthy water and pesticides. We have to take care to wash them with warm water and soap. It's especially bad with carrots, which they pull out of the ground and drop straight on the shelves.
Because of the dire state of the fresh produce whenever we've seen it, we have up to that point in our time here avoided it, sticking to canned and frozen. But a salad calls for fresh! So I was there to get carrots. I was there to try, anyway. I didn't imagine it to be much different from the U.S. Having done it now, it's not much different. But in foreign countries, small differences are amplified. Especially when you do something stupid.
I rounded the corner to the produce aisle, and at the other end of the shelves stood one of the Novella mafia. We made eye contact and we nodded to each other, neither of us caring to try to speak in the other's language. I took one of the plastic bags from the roll that had been unceremoniously dumped on the onions and started eyeballing the carrots to figure out which of them I wanted. My mistake was that my hands were too full, bag in one, and the other hand that should have been available was weighed down by the basket that I had hung at the crook of my elbow. I grabbed for a carrot and got the first one in the bag. It was trickier than I had expected, because of my hand situation, but I managed.
I was highly aware of the guy standing there, watching the foreigner try to juggle carrots. That made what happened next all the more embarrassing. The second carrot I grabbed dislodged one of the ones above it, and it began to fall. Bag, carrot and basket were unwieldy enough that I couldn't grab it, so I did the only logical thing and tried to catch it with my foot. Looking back, of course that wasn't logical. I realized it wasn't as soon as I did it. I can't catch much of anything with my foot, let alone a rogue carrot. So, instead of catching it, I kicked it hard into the shelf and it bounced to the floor.
I looked over at the manager, and he just kept staring, not giving any hint of what he thought I should do. So I picked up the carrot, and seeing that it was dirty anyway, just like the rest of the precarious stack, I put it back. I thought, "It might even be cleaner now."
With the two carrots I intended to buy in my little vegetable bag, I tried to move on to the next section of the store. But I was stopped by the dark-suited man. I felt the panic rising in my soul. I kicked his carrot to the floor and then put it back. I defiled his produce and his store... I'll be banned for life if I'm lucky. He pointing at the carrots I held and in the direction of the rest of the carrots. My headphones were in, but I didn't any of the podcast I had been listening to. I yanked the buds out of my ears, trying as hard as I could to look like I had no idea what was happening. It's unsurprisingly easy to do when you actually have no idea what is happening.
I had no idea what he said, but he took the carrots and walked over to where he had been pointing. And then past it. To the scale that you use to weigh fruits and vegetables and get a price sticker for the clerks to ring up your purchase. He punched a few buttons and it didn't work, so he called over another worker and they put in the appropriate information. Then he handed the carrot bag, complete with price stuck to the outside, and smiled, gesturing that I could be on my way.
Weird experiences are the norm when you aren't in your home country. Well, that's not exactly right. It's more like this: weird experiences are the norm everywhere, but in your hometown, you know what to expect. You've had the experiences and they don't surprise you. Even going to another city can upset your mental sense of balance, and suddenly something that you would be easily able to manage becomes complicated, and your natural impulses just make it worse. At least in this case, I learned something very useful about Astana: if you throw around their root vegetables, they will kindly treat you like an idiot and do things for you. What I need is a sack of carrots to carry around, so that whenever I get lost or need assistance, I can kick one to get someone's attention. That's the lesson, right?
We live fairly close to Novella, the grocery store, so it's convenient for us. Especially so, since we can actually not have to leave the building to get to it. The apartments are build above and around interior parking decks, because leaving your car out in the intense cold during the winter is asking for problems. And luckily for us, this means that when the weather is inauspicious, we can take the elevator down and walk through the heated, covered, and insulated deck and go into the back entrance of the store. It's open from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, so almost any time we realize we need something basic, like milk, eggs, bread, cheese, or drinks, we can run down and get it. They don't have the selection of a full grocery store, and they suffer from the same supply issues that most stores around here do, but they tend to keep most things in stock.
The staff recognizes us at this point and speaks very little Russian with a lot of gestures in case we need something. There are three or four clerks in the store at any given time, running around doing whatever it is people do at a very slow grocery store. There are also people I've come to designate as managers or owners. They do not have the smock-like uniform of the clerks. In fact, they are almost always dressed quite nicely, much nicer than American store managers. It's unsettling, to be honest. They were black or pinstripe suits and stand like guardians over the whole place (when they aren't sequestered in the hole in the wall office that is wedged near the back entrance. They never smile and sometimes have rapid, fierce conversations with the clerks about what they should be doing. Which, it seems, is sometimes nothing at all.
A week ago, we needed some smaller items, and after I managed to lock myself out of the apartment and walk to the embassy to borrow Susie's key, I made my way (back) to the store. We were planning on having salad, I think, but I wanted to pick up other stuff since you never know what they might have. I had my headphones in, listening to some podcast, since the walk to and from the embassy is boring without something to distract from the featureless, muddy stretch of roadside between Highvill and there. I grabbed a cart with one hand, and headed for the stand of sketchy fresh fruits and vegetables they had. Most of them were dirty; they don't really wash produce here, which is problematic because their local produce is inevitably covered in filthy water and pesticides. We have to take care to wash them with warm water and soap. It's especially bad with carrots, which they pull out of the ground and drop straight on the shelves.
Because of the dire state of the fresh produce whenever we've seen it, we have up to that point in our time here avoided it, sticking to canned and frozen. But a salad calls for fresh! So I was there to get carrots. I was there to try, anyway. I didn't imagine it to be much different from the U.S. Having done it now, it's not much different. But in foreign countries, small differences are amplified. Especially when you do something stupid.
I rounded the corner to the produce aisle, and at the other end of the shelves stood one of the Novella mafia. We made eye contact and we nodded to each other, neither of us caring to try to speak in the other's language. I took one of the plastic bags from the roll that had been unceremoniously dumped on the onions and started eyeballing the carrots to figure out which of them I wanted. My mistake was that my hands were too full, bag in one, and the other hand that should have been available was weighed down by the basket that I had hung at the crook of my elbow. I grabbed for a carrot and got the first one in the bag. It was trickier than I had expected, because of my hand situation, but I managed.
I was highly aware of the guy standing there, watching the foreigner try to juggle carrots. That made what happened next all the more embarrassing. The second carrot I grabbed dislodged one of the ones above it, and it began to fall. Bag, carrot and basket were unwieldy enough that I couldn't grab it, so I did the only logical thing and tried to catch it with my foot. Looking back, of course that wasn't logical. I realized it wasn't as soon as I did it. I can't catch much of anything with my foot, let alone a rogue carrot. So, instead of catching it, I kicked it hard into the shelf and it bounced to the floor.
I looked over at the manager, and he just kept staring, not giving any hint of what he thought I should do. So I picked up the carrot, and seeing that it was dirty anyway, just like the rest of the precarious stack, I put it back. I thought, "It might even be cleaner now."
With the two carrots I intended to buy in my little vegetable bag, I tried to move on to the next section of the store. But I was stopped by the dark-suited man. I felt the panic rising in my soul. I kicked his carrot to the floor and then put it back. I defiled his produce and his store... I'll be banned for life if I'm lucky. He pointing at the carrots I held and in the direction of the rest of the carrots. My headphones were in, but I didn't any of the podcast I had been listening to. I yanked the buds out of my ears, trying as hard as I could to look like I had no idea what was happening. It's unsurprisingly easy to do when you actually have no idea what is happening.
I had no idea what he said, but he took the carrots and walked over to where he had been pointing. And then past it. To the scale that you use to weigh fruits and vegetables and get a price sticker for the clerks to ring up your purchase. He punched a few buttons and it didn't work, so he called over another worker and they put in the appropriate information. Then he handed the carrot bag, complete with price stuck to the outside, and smiled, gesturing that I could be on my way.
Weird experiences are the norm when you aren't in your home country. Well, that's not exactly right. It's more like this: weird experiences are the norm everywhere, but in your hometown, you know what to expect. You've had the experiences and they don't surprise you. Even going to another city can upset your mental sense of balance, and suddenly something that you would be easily able to manage becomes complicated, and your natural impulses just make it worse. At least in this case, I learned something very useful about Astana: if you throw around their root vegetables, they will kindly treat you like an idiot and do things for you. What I need is a sack of carrots to carry around, so that whenever I get lost or need assistance, I can kick one to get someone's attention. That's the lesson, right?
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Three banquets a day -- our favorite diet!
I have mentioned before that people over-prepared us with regards to how difficult it is to find familiar foods in Astana. It seemed to make sense; good and affordable produce, recognizable cuts of meat, American brands... we're fairly isolated from other countries and the harsh climate significantly limits what is produced in the borders of Kazakhstan. Despite this, we haven't had nearly as much trouble as we first thought.
There are lots of different kinds of fruits and vegetables, fresh and frozen. Some of it isn't as cleaned and processed as the stuff we get in the U.S., but we've found carrots, peppers, lettuce, cabbage, potatoes, beans, corn, tomatoes, bananas, apples, pears, peaches... the list is far more extensive than what we were able to get easily in Japan. Right now there are fresh produce open markets in the city that have locally grown foods at fairly cheap (and negotiable) prices, plenty of imports from closer to the Mediterranean, and there is a weird variety of frozen vegetables that tend to heat up pretty well. They are a bit unpredictable; one week there will be big bags of frozen mushrooms, a bag with a variety of sliced peppers, and green beans, and the next week (when all of that has been purchased) we will have cauliflower, mixed carrots and broccoli, and brussel sprouts.
I imagine that once the Winter season sets in, these things will become more difficult to find and the price will rise, but I've talked to some people here who have said that they never entirely go away. This is a country of meat and potato meals, but in the stores and at the Embassy, where I eat on a nearly daily basis, there has been a pretty good spread of vegetable and fruit options.
Meat is a bit stranger. Maybe it's my untrained eye, but I don't really know how to tell the difference between good and bad meat, and even with the help of some talented Russian speakers who have been here for a while, it can be a little hit or miss. The best meat here is tougher than U.S. meat, be it beef or chicken (even pork or turkey), and the worst meat is... really quite bad. We tried cooking up some ground beef about a week into our time here and were so disgusted with the bits of bone, connective tissue, and gristle we found in it that we tossed it out half-cooked and tried other things that evening. We have had some good success with chicken breasts and steaks, and we've ordered a meat grinder to make our on ground meats. We also make do with some frozen meat. We found turkey "meatball" patties in the frozen section of the grocery downstairs, and there are a very popular meat dumpling that are easy to find and cook.
Although it's difficult to find sandwich bread, there wouldn't be much of a point because there aren't really any sandwich meats. There are some sausages and salamis, but I'm not really sure how well they would supplant roast beef and cold cuts. Regardless, we were warned that fresh bread is hard to get a hold of here, and that turns out to have been a misrepresentation as well. Every grocery has a fresh baked section with many kinds of bread, including pre-sliced varieties, and we are discovering some of the local styles such as a large flat bread (almost like naan) and tiny pieces of sweet bread (a little like biscuit dough), among others.
Thankfully, our meals are not all things that we have to cook ourselves. Many are, many more than we were used to in the U.S., mainly because we don't have an easy way to get around in the city yet. As I mentioned, though, I eat at the embassy about once a day because the food in the little cafeteria there is good and cheap. They have a mixture of Kazakh traditional foods (dumplings, pilaf, borscht), interpretations of American food (chicken sandwich, french fries), and international dishes (teriyaki beef, "Mexican"chicken, curry). They also make bread, cake, and other deserts. It's nice being so close I can walk over for lunch, and very rarely am I disappointed.
The first night we were here, we went out with a bunch of people to a restaurant called Line Brew. I think they brew a beer on site, thus the name. The food was pretty good, if a little expensive, but that tends to be the standard here. Susie and I had fantastic steaks, and even had a chance to try the Kazakh "horse meat cooked on a hot stone." They bring a stone that has been in the fire to the table with raw horse and you cook it yourself. It was nice. I haven't had any since, but I would eat it again. Outside of that, there is a mall with a sizable food court and there you can find the city's only Hardee's! It's basically like American Hardee's with a menu that is more limited in scope. You can get cheeseburgers, jalapeño burgers, curly fries, etc. Across the court from there is a KFC which mostly serves fried chicken sandwiches and wraps, but it tastes like KFC.
Yesterday Susie and I tried a new place that people recommended, in no small part because of the English menus (I forget the name). There were several kinds of sandwich and salads, and we both really enjoyed the meal. The sandwiches were huge, packed with stuff, and for around $20 we both had a more than enough food. It is nice to be able to do that, to find places that we are comfortable ordering and eating. Living abroad is stressful, wandering around cities without speaking much of the language is frustrating, and having a significant variety of food and restaurants is a major comfort that we did not have in Japan. I know there will be places we end up that are tougher than this, but hopefully we get more experience and better skill with adjusting.
On a final note, there are a couple of different chain burger restaurants to eat at in Astana. I mentioned Hardee's, but there are also some Kazakh-based chains. What you won't find is a McDonald's. Apparently, glorious leader Nazarbayev doesn't like them and doesn't allow them. So, that's something.
There are lots of different kinds of fruits and vegetables, fresh and frozen. Some of it isn't as cleaned and processed as the stuff we get in the U.S., but we've found carrots, peppers, lettuce, cabbage, potatoes, beans, corn, tomatoes, bananas, apples, pears, peaches... the list is far more extensive than what we were able to get easily in Japan. Right now there are fresh produce open markets in the city that have locally grown foods at fairly cheap (and negotiable) prices, plenty of imports from closer to the Mediterranean, and there is a weird variety of frozen vegetables that tend to heat up pretty well. They are a bit unpredictable; one week there will be big bags of frozen mushrooms, a bag with a variety of sliced peppers, and green beans, and the next week (when all of that has been purchased) we will have cauliflower, mixed carrots and broccoli, and brussel sprouts.
I imagine that once the Winter season sets in, these things will become more difficult to find and the price will rise, but I've talked to some people here who have said that they never entirely go away. This is a country of meat and potato meals, but in the stores and at the Embassy, where I eat on a nearly daily basis, there has been a pretty good spread of vegetable and fruit options.
Meat is a bit stranger. Maybe it's my untrained eye, but I don't really know how to tell the difference between good and bad meat, and even with the help of some talented Russian speakers who have been here for a while, it can be a little hit or miss. The best meat here is tougher than U.S. meat, be it beef or chicken (even pork or turkey), and the worst meat is... really quite bad. We tried cooking up some ground beef about a week into our time here and were so disgusted with the bits of bone, connective tissue, and gristle we found in it that we tossed it out half-cooked and tried other things that evening. We have had some good success with chicken breasts and steaks, and we've ordered a meat grinder to make our on ground meats. We also make do with some frozen meat. We found turkey "meatball" patties in the frozen section of the grocery downstairs, and there are a very popular meat dumpling that are easy to find and cook.
Although it's difficult to find sandwich bread, there wouldn't be much of a point because there aren't really any sandwich meats. There are some sausages and salamis, but I'm not really sure how well they would supplant roast beef and cold cuts. Regardless, we were warned that fresh bread is hard to get a hold of here, and that turns out to have been a misrepresentation as well. Every grocery has a fresh baked section with many kinds of bread, including pre-sliced varieties, and we are discovering some of the local styles such as a large flat bread (almost like naan) and tiny pieces of sweet bread (a little like biscuit dough), among others.
Thankfully, our meals are not all things that we have to cook ourselves. Many are, many more than we were used to in the U.S., mainly because we don't have an easy way to get around in the city yet. As I mentioned, though, I eat at the embassy about once a day because the food in the little cafeteria there is good and cheap. They have a mixture of Kazakh traditional foods (dumplings, pilaf, borscht), interpretations of American food (chicken sandwich, french fries), and international dishes (teriyaki beef, "Mexican"chicken, curry). They also make bread, cake, and other deserts. It's nice being so close I can walk over for lunch, and very rarely am I disappointed.
The first night we were here, we went out with a bunch of people to a restaurant called Line Brew. I think they brew a beer on site, thus the name. The food was pretty good, if a little expensive, but that tends to be the standard here. Susie and I had fantastic steaks, and even had a chance to try the Kazakh "horse meat cooked on a hot stone." They bring a stone that has been in the fire to the table with raw horse and you cook it yourself. It was nice. I haven't had any since, but I would eat it again. Outside of that, there is a mall with a sizable food court and there you can find the city's only Hardee's! It's basically like American Hardee's with a menu that is more limited in scope. You can get cheeseburgers, jalapeño burgers, curly fries, etc. Across the court from there is a KFC which mostly serves fried chicken sandwiches and wraps, but it tastes like KFC.
Yesterday Susie and I tried a new place that people recommended, in no small part because of the English menus (I forget the name). There were several kinds of sandwich and salads, and we both really enjoyed the meal. The sandwiches were huge, packed with stuff, and for around $20 we both had a more than enough food. It is nice to be able to do that, to find places that we are comfortable ordering and eating. Living abroad is stressful, wandering around cities without speaking much of the language is frustrating, and having a significant variety of food and restaurants is a major comfort that we did not have in Japan. I know there will be places we end up that are tougher than this, but hopefully we get more experience and better skill with adjusting.
On a final note, there are a couple of different chain burger restaurants to eat at in Astana. I mentioned Hardee's, but there are also some Kazakh-based chains. What you won't find is a McDonald's. Apparently, glorious leader Nazarbayev doesn't like them and doesn't allow them. So, that's something.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Irons in the Fire
What am I good at? Since it's a rhetorical question, I'll specify: What am I good enough at to do professionally? I grew up around teachers; my parents and their friends tended to fall into that category. Since I graduated from the University of Georgia, the only job I've had is to teach. I taught English formally and informally in Japan. I tutored college-level math at Indiana University before snagging an Associate Instructorship that let me teach Japanese. While I finished up my thesis, I was teaching Japanese part-time at a local high school, which I suppose helped propel me to a full-time job teaching it at a middle school in Atlanta. I'm good at teaching, being a teacher. I've spent more of my life in classrooms than almost anywhere else, and now, temporarily unemployed, I'm looking for opportunities around Astana, Kazakhstan to use the skills I've honed over the past seven years.
Of course, there are aspects of teaching that I'm not happy with, things I don't like or don't want to do. I don't like having to be a disciplinarian. To give an obvious example, middle school is absolutely not on the menu. I did not get along with middle school students while I was teaching full-time, and I did not get along with them while I was substitute teaching. Even the best kids on the best day were still soaked through with hormones, optimistically cruel toddlers in oversized bodies. Actually, "cruel" is probably too much... they wish to be cruel, but they aren't smart enough to do so effectively. Regardless, we do not get along, middle schoolers and I... not when I am their teacher, at least. Some people find teaching middle school great. One of my friends and mentors while at the middle school was amazing. She related to the kids and had fun with them, inspired them, made them interested. She ended up teacher of the year the year after I left, and she deserves it. I did not, and would not.
On the other hand, when I am in a classroom with high schoolers or college students, it's an entirely different situation. I know how to engage them, they know how to behave without being strapped to their chairs and made into little wind-up citrines, and we both can communicate with each other without one side compelling the other to shriek. I loved every day of teaching at high school. The kids were better, the speed was better, the responsibilities I could give them were better. Even subbing was fairly good, with the occasional speed bump of some kid deciding to succumb to his ex-girlfriend provocation and get in a fist fight with her, or make Thursday into "Don't Do What The Sub Says and Instead Disrupt All Of The Other Students" Day. I almost never felt like the students genuinely disliked me though, they just sometimes felt indignant that a sub wanted them to do anything at all. As a side note, that always turned out humorously for me, because as a sub, I don't honestly care if you decide not to do the work you were left, mess around in class, or call me names. Just don't make it personal. I have recourse with the administration and the teacher I am subbing for (imagine their pants-wetting terror they faced when I called the teacher on the number they left and put it on speaker phone), and 99% of the time I know the kid's name even if they think I don't. It inevitably turned out worse for them, and there was never a larger grin on my face than when some kid I hardly recognized passed by the door to whatever room I was in that day, stopped and said "Hey, you got me in trouble!" Not me, man. You got you in trouble.
I like the part of school where I get to explain and discuss and open up entirely new avenues of thinking and looking at the world. I know that for some people, especially those who aren't teachers, that sounds corny. I'm happy being corny as long as I get to do that stuff. Which leads me back to the general idea of this post... I want to be a teacher. I'm good at it and I like it, which isn't something that everyone can say about their job. Even when I'm not teaching, I'm thinking about what kinds of cool stuff I could do if I were. I read articles about great teachers, I look at blog posts where people talk about cool projects and teachers. If it weren't a job, it would be a hobby.
Only a few things stand in the way here. The first is that I'm not a certified teacher anywhere, so I always imagine that people look a little askance when I talk to them about working at their school or in their program. I know in a lot of ways that doesn't make a difference, but if it prevents my hiring, it prevents my hiring. It has been the only thing standing between me and a career for a couple of years now, and with our living outside of the United States, it's much trickier to figure out how to get that certification. The second thing is that the opportunities here are much smaller in number than in the United States. There are a small number of international schools with a small number of openings in each year, and at any given post, there might simply be no opportunities. I've gotten in touch with four schools so far, and it's looking mostly grim.
All hope is not lost, though. There are a couple of partial positives on the teaching job front that might lead to more (but not quickly... nothing here seems to move quickly). I've run into a couple of people who have volunteer opportunities that might be used as stepping stones to further work. I'm also in touch with a couple of universities with online programs that could potentially help me to get certification, which would probably be worth the effort and further student debt. I'm doing what I can.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Buildings and Monuments Everywhere: It's like a capital city in Civilization!
We've been here in Astana for a little over a week now, and that has given us a chance to walk around (a lot) and see our area of the city. Astana isn't exactly a large city, positively tiny compared to the sprawl of Atlanta, but it's large enough that walking isn't exactly a feasible way to get around the city; with our apartment on the southeast edge of the city, if we want to go anywhere or do anything, we have to walk a couple of miles minimum. It will be even tougher in the winter when temperatures get down to -30 and below, but so far we have a lot of people who've offered to drive us to the different stores, and since the weather isn't bad yet, walking is still a possibility.
Our apartment is basically on the equivalent of the National Mall in Washington. From our balcony, you can see the presidential palace right across the river.
It's that massive white one with the blue dome on the left. Past that (to the right) are two gigantic mustard bottles, right out of The Phantom Menace, and a bit further is the Bayterek (the tower with a large golden ball at the top). I'll get to some better pictures later on.
Before I do, though, I want to point out some things about the above picture and most of the rest you'll see from me in this country. Astana is a very, very young city at only 14 years since it was made the capital of Kazakhstan. The president wants it to be huge, beautiful, and built before he dies (and at 72 years young, you never know when that might happen). Because of this, there is construction work going on every hour of every day. Here's the view from the back of our apartment:
Everywhere you look, there are massive cranes being used to put together massive, amazing buildings. It is undeniable that they look great, inside and out. What is a bit more questionable is whether they are actually great. Everything is done with speed and beauty primary, so what gets left behind sometimes is quality. We were told a story about a building that absolutely had to be finished, so they slapped it together, opened it up officially with all of it's amazing looks, and then they spent the next couple of months taking the facade of the building, putting the insulation in, and replacing the facade. The maintenance guys at the embassy can't stop complaining about how everything looks nice to cover up weird pipes, sketchy wiring, poor fittings, and any other of a number quality issues.
That being said, we haven't experienced any significant problems, so much like some of the other things we've been told about Astana, it might be a bit overstated.
Back to the point of this post: cool buildings and monuments! Right outside of our apartment is the back half of the national mall, and there are some really cool things over here:
Flowers! Everywhere. We're right at the end of these guys' lifespan, but apparently in the warmer parts of the year, they spread them on even thicker, especially out near the Bayterek and in front of the presidential palace. (Notice the cranes in the distance. There were about 10 we could see from this spot.)
Speaking of, this is a view from the foot of the pyramid towards the palace. If you look closely, you can see those big golden mustard bottle buildings. Way past it is the rest of the mall and the Bayterek. To the right of where I was standing is our apartment:
Cranes!
This is the pyramid again. That pathway is large enough to drive a couple of cars down side by side, for reference. Also, keep those two little white spires on the left of the picture in your mind.
On the other side of the pyramid, there is a big arrangement of fountains on the ground. The water kind of goes everywhere, but it looks very nice. There's that bird on a stick again!
This is a legendary legend of what I think was a phoenix that laid the gigantic egg that is precariously balanced on top of the Bayterek, and on either side of it are MORE oddly shaped buildings. The left one is a concert hall shaped like a dog bowl. The right one is... something... shaped like a bread basket.
Remember those two white spires? They belong to the largest mosque in all of Eurasia. It's pretty big. I haven't been inside... I don't know what the rules for that are. See that tiny black speck on the dome of the place? That's a guy. I don't know what he was doing up there, but he's got a rope and he's dangling from the crescent moon. To the left of this picture is where the U.S. Embassy is, but I didn't want to take pictures of it. There is a menacing Kazakh guard at the front gate covered with body armor and carrying some sort of assault rifle. I don't want to upset him.
Lastly, if you walk about 30 or 40 minutes from our apartment, you can get to the actual "in-the-city" part of the national mall. Here's a shot of the presidential palace from the OTHER end of the mall:
I walked out there one day early on, apparently for the only two hours it rained that week, so the pictures are a bit (or extremely) fuzzy and gray. You can see all of the flowers and the mustard bottles for location reference, though.
And right behind me is this guy:
The Bayterek. You can go up there and take pictures, and we probably will some time. It only gets busy on Saturdays. The last thing I will point out is the big egg-shaped thing on the left of this photo. I don't know what it is, but just behind it is a pretty nice mall with lots of stores and a huge food court with a Hardee's and KFC. We may have been there a couple of times already...
Our apartment is basically on the equivalent of the National Mall in Washington. From our balcony, you can see the presidential palace right across the river.
It's that massive white one with the blue dome on the left. Past that (to the right) are two gigantic mustard bottles, right out of The Phantom Menace, and a bit further is the Bayterek (the tower with a large golden ball at the top). I'll get to some better pictures later on.
Before I do, though, I want to point out some things about the above picture and most of the rest you'll see from me in this country. Astana is a very, very young city at only 14 years since it was made the capital of Kazakhstan. The president wants it to be huge, beautiful, and built before he dies (and at 72 years young, you never know when that might happen). Because of this, there is construction work going on every hour of every day. Here's the view from the back of our apartment:
Everywhere you look, there are massive cranes being used to put together massive, amazing buildings. It is undeniable that they look great, inside and out. What is a bit more questionable is whether they are actually great. Everything is done with speed and beauty primary, so what gets left behind sometimes is quality. We were told a story about a building that absolutely had to be finished, so they slapped it together, opened it up officially with all of it's amazing looks, and then they spent the next couple of months taking the facade of the building, putting the insulation in, and replacing the facade. The maintenance guys at the embassy can't stop complaining about how everything looks nice to cover up weird pipes, sketchy wiring, poor fittings, and any other of a number quality issues.
That being said, we haven't experienced any significant problems, so much like some of the other things we've been told about Astana, it might be a bit overstated.
Back to the point of this post: cool buildings and monuments! Right outside of our apartment is the back half of the national mall, and there are some really cool things over here:
This is the Pyramid of Peace and Reconciliation. Apparently there is a 1,500 seat opera hall, a restaurant, and conference rooms aplenty inside, but I don't know that I really want to go in there. We saw a couple of wedding parties going in and out of it this past Saturday, so it does get used. It is surrounded by a huge park with trees and flowers stretching out in all directions, apparently forming a giant bird if seen from above. Keep an eye on that tall, white monument with a bird on it in the background.
Flowers! Everywhere. We're right at the end of these guys' lifespan, but apparently in the warmer parts of the year, they spread them on even thicker, especially out near the Bayterek and in front of the presidential palace. (Notice the cranes in the distance. There were about 10 we could see from this spot.)
Speaking of, this is a view from the foot of the pyramid towards the palace. If you look closely, you can see those big golden mustard bottle buildings. Way past it is the rest of the mall and the Bayterek. To the right of where I was standing is our apartment:
Cranes!
This is the pyramid again. That pathway is large enough to drive a couple of cars down side by side, for reference. Also, keep those two little white spires on the left of the picture in your mind.
On the other side of the pyramid, there is a big arrangement of fountains on the ground. The water kind of goes everywhere, but it looks very nice. There's that bird on a stick again!
This is a legendary legend of what I think was a phoenix that laid the gigantic egg that is precariously balanced on top of the Bayterek, and on either side of it are MORE oddly shaped buildings. The left one is a concert hall shaped like a dog bowl. The right one is... something... shaped like a bread basket.
Remember those two white spires? They belong to the largest mosque in all of Eurasia. It's pretty big. I haven't been inside... I don't know what the rules for that are. See that tiny black speck on the dome of the place? That's a guy. I don't know what he was doing up there, but he's got a rope and he's dangling from the crescent moon. To the left of this picture is where the U.S. Embassy is, but I didn't want to take pictures of it. There is a menacing Kazakh guard at the front gate covered with body armor and carrying some sort of assault rifle. I don't want to upset him.
Lastly, if you walk about 30 or 40 minutes from our apartment, you can get to the actual "in-the-city" part of the national mall. Here's a shot of the presidential palace from the OTHER end of the mall:
I walked out there one day early on, apparently for the only two hours it rained that week, so the pictures are a bit (or extremely) fuzzy and gray. You can see all of the flowers and the mustard bottles for location reference, though.
And right behind me is this guy:
The Bayterek. You can go up there and take pictures, and we probably will some time. It only gets busy on Saturdays. The last thing I will point out is the big egg-shaped thing on the left of this photo. I don't know what it is, but just behind it is a pretty nice mall with lots of stores and a huge food court with a Hardee's and KFC. We may have been there a couple of times already...
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Overpreparedness
Although we have only been here a few days, I think that we were fairly well prepared for Astana, Kazakhstan. Susie and I have even discussed that we might have been a bit over-prepared. Of course, it is our first post in the Foreign Service, and like any place, things are going to be different. You need to know about the weather, availability of food and other products, cultural norms and customs... and it’s been fairly easy to find out whatever we have wanted to know. But you have to keep in mind who is telling you the information and what their experiences are, despite the difficulty in doing that when you haven’t met them. Every bit of information comes from someone who has different experiences from you and no matter how similar they might be, they won’t know exactly how you think.
When we were finding out information about living in Astana, it was emphasized again and again that the supply management of stores, especially grocery stores, was haphazard and prices for things (especially imports) were very different from what we were accustomed to in the U.S. In a given store, they might have a big shelf of sauces from America one week then the next week it has been replaced and you won’t see those same products for a month or more. Fresh foods like vegetables are even more unpredictable. They just buy what they can when they can, and “seasonal” takes on an entirely new meaning. The entire place is run like a closeout store.
That said, Susie and I lived in rural Japan for two years. I know that our experiences don’t apply one for one, but we know what it is like to be in a place where you never know what you can get. People here pine over peanut butter like it was as rare as gold (and not without reason, because it’s priced like gold when you can find it). But even in large cities in Japan you can’t find peanut butter. People complain of sticker shock when it comes to American foods and fresh vegetables, but so far, our experience in Japan was tougher. At least here you would recognize the vegetables they have. We sometimes wandered through the produce section of our Hok Food Market without seeing anything that seemed familiar. Worse, we would look up some things in our dictionaries, thinking that they might just be unusual in the U.S., only to find out that the translation didn’t help at all. We will never forget the almost entirely uninformative “Devil’s Tongue” entry in our dictionary.
We’ve been able to get apples, bananas, frankfurters, beef, bacon, eggs, sliced bread, carrots, lettuce, coke (of course!), frozen vegetable mixes, frozen pizza, and apparently in town there is a KFC and a Hardee’s. Some of it isn’t exactly the same as what we are used to, but even the things that are a little off are available, which is more than you could say for the middle of nowhere, Japan.
Our feeling of preparedness does come with one significant caveat, though. We are living in what is unquestionably the coldest capital city in the world. I know we have mentioned this to our families, but for anyone who doesn’t know, Astana holds the world record of forty degrees below zero in the winter. The marines in the embassy have shirts that call it the coldest post in the world, and when an eagle scout and U.S. marine with years of outdoor survival experience tells you it’s uncomfortably cold, you get a sense of how serious this is. We were made aware of the weather possibilities before we came out here, thankfully. We bought some intense cold weather gear in Washington. (On a side note, we got it extremely cheap. Down jackets go on clearance in 100+ degree summers.) We have boots and polypropylene long underwear on its way. We’re going to find fur-lined hats and gloves shortly. But we are still intimidated by the weather. Astana cold is overwhelming, soul-crushing and dry. We need to buy lotions and vaseline, balaclavas and goggles... it’s not going to be easy.
The only consolations are that we’ve lived in some very cold places before, so we have that experience, and people here agree that past a certain point, your body just doesn’t register the temperature being any colder. We won’t have to spend much time outside, but we just don’t know how bad it will really be, and it has got me worried. I suppose that making it through this will be good, though. They literally can’t post us anywhere that will be colder! We will have hit the limit, so any other place we go will be warmer.
At least I have these Mega Bacon potato chips to comfort me while I await the coming Winter.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
What's a good word for "scary, exciting, and overwhelming"?
I've had the experience before of being about one week out from moving abroad, and it can be a bit distressing. The last time, I was moving to Japan with basically no idea what I was going to encounter. This time, it's a bit better, because I have talked to a few different people in Astana and been able to ask lots of questions, but as our departure time draws closer, nervous energy starts to wind its way through everything I do.
We're almost as prepared as we could possibly be. In the past couple of weeks, we have put so many orders in to Amazon for clothes, shoes, electronic accessories, chargers and guitar strings that I would imagine the folks at the warehouse take periodic swims in the money they've made. We've sorted our pack out, done rough calculations of what consumables (e.g. hot sauce and mouthwash) we will need, made and worked through extensive to-do lists, and Google Streetview-ed our new town... but I just can't shake the feeling that there is more we could do.
I know there is, actually. That much has been made clear. A few weeks ago, I went to a spouse seminar at the Foreign Service Institute just days after the Generalist class (the other group that Susie is not a part of) had their Flag Day and found out where they were posted. The spouses were abuzz; they hadn't even had a chance to initiate contact with their post, and suddenly they realized how much they had to do before they left. Most of what we talked about that day was what everyone needed to do before they left. But first, as is done with so many seminars, we went through the class one person at a time, stood up, said where we were going and what we were looking forward to. We also said when we were scheduled to leave. After the first half-dozen or so people had done their introductions and explained that they were worried they wouldn't have enough time, they were leaving in July... I could sympathize, but I realized that it was August, and that they meant July of next year.
The air got sucked out of the room when I told them "We're leaving next month on the 13th." I was one of two or three other Specialist spouses, and we all were surprised by how much time the other people were getting, and how little our time seemed in comparison. They were panicking that they would only have 12 months to get ready, and I hadn't even begun to worry about how little time we got. It just seemed like "Not a lot of time, but plenty to do everything we need in."
Well, now that it's down to just over a week of time before we leave, I'm beginning to feel the pressure. Not really of needing to get things done. There are things we will surely miss, mistakes that we'll make, games and clothes we'll pack in the wrong boxes, but I know we've got most of it under control... it's more of an intense feeling of impending change.
When I moved to Japan, it didn't hit me until the night before I flew out. It hit me hard: I would be away from my family for the first time ever. I would be away from Susie. I didn't know anyone where I was going, I didn't know how I would get around, what my job would be, and I had never really spoken Japanese to anyone without knowing that they could speak English with me if I failed. It was intimidating, to say the least.
This one isn't going to be nearly as rough, but last night the same sort of unease began to creep upon me. I'm not going to be here anymore. I'm going to be there. Not on vacation... living there.
It's staggering.
We're almost as prepared as we could possibly be. In the past couple of weeks, we have put so many orders in to Amazon for clothes, shoes, electronic accessories, chargers and guitar strings that I would imagine the folks at the warehouse take periodic swims in the money they've made. We've sorted our pack out, done rough calculations of what consumables (e.g. hot sauce and mouthwash) we will need, made and worked through extensive to-do lists, and Google Streetview-ed our new town... but I just can't shake the feeling that there is more we could do.
I know there is, actually. That much has been made clear. A few weeks ago, I went to a spouse seminar at the Foreign Service Institute just days after the Generalist class (the other group that Susie is not a part of) had their Flag Day and found out where they were posted. The spouses were abuzz; they hadn't even had a chance to initiate contact with their post, and suddenly they realized how much they had to do before they left. Most of what we talked about that day was what everyone needed to do before they left. But first, as is done with so many seminars, we went through the class one person at a time, stood up, said where we were going and what we were looking forward to. We also said when we were scheduled to leave. After the first half-dozen or so people had done their introductions and explained that they were worried they wouldn't have enough time, they were leaving in July... I could sympathize, but I realized that it was August, and that they meant July of next year.
The air got sucked out of the room when I told them "We're leaving next month on the 13th." I was one of two or three other Specialist spouses, and we all were surprised by how much time the other people were getting, and how little our time seemed in comparison. They were panicking that they would only have 12 months to get ready, and I hadn't even begun to worry about how little time we got. It just seemed like "Not a lot of time, but plenty to do everything we need in."
Well, now that it's down to just over a week of time before we leave, I'm beginning to feel the pressure. Not really of needing to get things done. There are things we will surely miss, mistakes that we'll make, games and clothes we'll pack in the wrong boxes, but I know we've got most of it under control... it's more of an intense feeling of impending change.
When I moved to Japan, it didn't hit me until the night before I flew out. It hit me hard: I would be away from my family for the first time ever. I would be away from Susie. I didn't know anyone where I was going, I didn't know how I would get around, what my job would be, and I had never really spoken Japanese to anyone without knowing that they could speak English with me if I failed. It was intimidating, to say the least.
This one isn't going to be nearly as rough, but last night the same sort of unease began to creep upon me. I'm not going to be here anymore. I'm going to be there. Not on vacation... living there.
It's staggering.
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