25 April 2010

Another Earth Day Wrap-Up

We had a little Earth Day celebration here on Thursday. Our Green Team, of which I'm a charter member, announced an initiative to reduce the embassy's energy usage, including the residences, by ten percent in one year. I printed up signs in English and French to remind people when they leave the office to turn off the lights and air conditioners, turn off the computer monitors, printers, and scanners, and unplug phone and radio chargers that are not in use. We found a local company that will take our shredded paper; they use it for making charcoal briquettes. We're eliminating paper cups for the water coolers in all offices except the health unit (we decided for sanitary reasons that it's one place paper cups can stay). We're putting in place a policy to have the drivers turn off idling engines after a certain amount of time.

But the most important part of Earth Day -- we had a quiz and gave out some pretty awesome prizes. In order to garner interest and make people sit through all your speeches (on one of the hottest days we've had in a while here), you have to promise prizes at the end. The quiz questions all related to our initiatives. The top prize was a solar-powered lantern, which is perfect for a place where the sun shines all day and then the power grid in most neighborhoods shuts down at ten o'clock every night.

I've said before that this is a country where Mike and I feel bad contributing more garbage than it already has and where anything you can do to relieve the strain on the power grid is a good thing. I'm sad that I won't be here next year to see how our initiatives have worked out, but at least I know that I've done what I can reasonably do while I'm here. And I'll bring my Green Team initiatives with me to our next post (where there's even more garbage, I'm sure).

21 April 2010

Travel Time Again

Now that a date is set for my departure, it feels too real and I'm not ready to leave yet. Eight weeks from today I'll be taking off.

Not to mention the fact that when I get home I have to give birth to and start taking care of a baby. Don't get me wrong, we're thrilled about that. It's just not the way we'd originally planned on spending our summer vacation and some days we haven't fully adjusted to that yet.

Now that we have a date set, we can't procrastinate too much longer on the departure preparations. We have to decide what goes into my suitcases, what gets forwarded from here to India, what goes back into storage, and what comes with Mike later on in his suitcases.

We have to get the cat her rabies vaccination and health certificate and pray that the airlines will let her on the plane with me, because by the time Mike flies home it will probably be too warm for excess baggage pets. (She's too big for in-cabin, and she's a huge pain; I wouldn't want her in the cabin with me.)

I have to gather up my detritus of medical information, from all the different doctors and nurses I've seen here, scan and or copy it onto standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper (my papers from the local doctors are all different sizes) and forward it all to my doctor at home. And get this, she won't accept emailed PDFs! I tried to tell her that never in the history of this country has a fax successfully been sent, even though they have several fax machines and try real hard, but her office refuses to give me an email address. I'll have to find one of those online PDF-to-fax services. (But really, who doesn't email PDFs these days? Or at least make an exception every now and then? And isn't a PDF scan better quality than a printed out faxed version of a PDF scan? I'd think that you'd want the best quality you can get for things like ultrasound images.)

Like with every move, I know all this stuff will get taken care of somehow. I always get to the point where I resign myself to knowing that no matter how crazy it gets, the stuff will get packed up and sent somewhere, I have plane tickets (miraculously for this early in the process), and I have a place to live when I get to my destination. I know by now that no move is perfect so I like to aim low, in the region of not disastrous.

15 April 2010

Online Language Studies for High School Students

I came across this recent article in the New York Times, Middlebury to Develop Online Language Venture. Middlebury College, known for its language program, is investigating the realm of online language courses. They want to specifically target high school students who are preparing for college but may not have great language programs at their schools or are homeschooled. I’m thinking it could also be good for students who are headed overseas with their parents and want to get a jump on a language before they arrive in-country. By the time our little Sharkbait is old enough to need high-school level classes, this online program should be well-established.

Yeah, college has already crossed our minds. Do we get residency in Virginia to take advantage of in-state tuition for UVA or Virginia Tech or in California for the UC system? I’m also partial to small, prestigious private schools or Ivy League schools, as long as they’re in New England. No pressure, Sharkbait.

13 April 2010

Plastics make it possible... to horde a lot of stuff

I am a health and beauty product junkie. I don’t wear a lot of makeup, but I love trying new shampoos and conditioners, lotions and moisturizers, nail polish. It’s hard to be a product junkie when the nearest Target, CVS, or Body Shop is thousands of miles away, and you’re not allowed to ship glass or large amounts of liquids to yourself, yet somehow I’ve managed to create quite a stash.

For the last few weeks been going through my stash to use up the partially empty bottles before we move again. I try this every time we move, yet I think I still have some things from my Walnut Creek bathroom. This move, I’m determined not to bring any bottles, tubes, or tubs with me to India that I bought in California. (We left Walnut Creek, California, in January 2008.) Also, I’m ready to try some new brands; for some things I have my one tried-and-true brand that I’ve been loyal to for years, but for others I like to shop around and I’ve been living with the same brands for too long now.

I know it’s time to just throw out some things, but I feel bad about wasting products here. Besides, if I throw a bottle in the garbage can, I know that my housekeeper is going to fish it out, wash it, and take it away to use for some purpose. For all I know, he sells them; there’s quite a market for reusable bottles. So, rather than see my products get rinsed down the drain (to say nothing of what may be happening to the local water supply when that happens) I may as well use the shampoos, lotions, and whatevers, if they are still good, before they get fished out of the garbage and potentially sold.

First I delved into the closet to see how many of each particular product were already opened and partially used. You know, you go on a long vacation, lugging the toiletries with you since you’re checking the bags anyway, and when you get home your luggage is lost for two weeks, so you have to open new bottles of all your daily products. (I found three open bottles of Body Shop tea tree toner, one for each vacation I’ve taken since we arrived here.) Then there’s that one brand of one product that you bought one time, opened, used once or twice, and then stopped for some unknown or forgotten reason (sorry, Arbonne citrus scrub, you were just too messy). Then a houseguest leaves behind an expensive bottle of shampoo that you’d never buy for yourself, but it smells so good and you love what it does for your hair, so you push your already opened bottle of cheap shampoo out of the way and use the nice stuff. (I don’t remember what it’s called, but I think it has bananas in it!)

I moved all those opened bottles to the front of the shelves so that I’m grabbing them whenever I need something. Previously, the open bottles were neglected in the back of the closet. It’s actually going well and it only takes a few seconds to resist the temptation to open a bottle of something new. I feel so accomplished when I finally get to the bottom of a bottle.

This is all part of my reorganization scheme for the next time we buy consumables to send overseas (which will be later this year). As I clear space in my closet, I try to think of how I can avoid buying so much plastic stuff with the next move. Even if someone else is using the bottles, I don’t want to have to deal with them in the first place. What we’ll be gaining in plastic baby toys this year, I want to lose in plastic bottle purchases. (And we’re not thrilled with plastic baby toys entering our home but we know they will be inevitable.)

06 April 2010

Using My Kindle Overseas

I've been using my Kindle for several weeks now and I've concluded that I like it. Yes, it's different from holding a book. Being away from its wireless features is not as convenient as it could be (although it's really not that bad). But it saves me time -- instant gratification when I want a book! -- and it's reducing the amount of stuff we have, which is quite valuable when you move every two years.

As long as the internet connection is running at a decent speed, I can go to Amazon.com and download Kindle books and magazines directly to my laptop, then use a USB cable (which the Kindle comes with) to transfer documents from my laptop to the Kindle. I can also transfer PDF and text files to read on the Kindle, which comes in handy for some of the reading I'm doing for my master's program.

I wish the screen were backlit so I can read it in lower light (like on airplanes at night without the harsh overhead light on), but in general it's very easy to read and it's easy on my eyes. After a day of staring at my computer screen I can still come home and read the Kindle screen very comfortably. You can increase the font size. There's a little tracker at the bottom that tells you how far along you are in the book, which I love. I'm always obsessed with how many more pages I have left in a book.

With Kindle-specific files, you can highlight, make notes, and look up words in the dictionary instantly. You can jump around between locations, go back to the table of contents, and skip ahead to chapters. I'm having a little trouble with the bookmarking feature, so I find myself jotting down the location number (rather than folding down the corner on a real book), when I want to jump around in a book. PDF and text files are not as easy to manipulate. If all the features of Kindle-specific files are available for them, I haven't figured them out yet. I know that with PDF files, you only have two choices for font size (small and not quite as small), whereas for Kindle files there are five or six sizes.

I love handling it. It took me a few days to get used to it, but now it's completely comfortable in my hands. I can hold it with one hand and press the button to turn pages while juggling a beverage in the other hand while the cat jumps up into my lap. I bought a case for it, to protect it while transporting it, but when I'm reading at home I generally take it out of the case so I can hold it easily with one hand.

Recently I successfully wrote my first paper for a course using source material directly from my Kindle. I highlighted portions of the text and saved them in the My Clippings file, then opened that as a text file on my laptop. From there it was easy to copy/paste the quotes I wanted directly into the paper I was writing. Going paperless like this is huge for me. Once I got the hang of it, it definitely saved time in not having to copy the notes longhand from a book, then type them into a Word document.

Some other comparisons of using it overseas as opposed to in the United States... If you don't have the wireless thing turned on, the battery lasts about two weeks rather than one week, so you don't need to charge it as often. If you're overseas in an area that does have wireless access, you'll be charged for each direct download, whereas wireless access is part of the cost of the Kindle when you're in the United States so there's no additional charge. Wherever you are, you can still download directly to your own computer for no extra charge. Not all titles are available overseas. When Amazon thought my computer was in Burundi, I had a limited selection of titles to choose from. But for some reason it now thinks I'm in the United States (I did not change the settings in any way; it just happened on its own somehow) and I have the full selection at my disposal. One last thing -- if you're in a non-wireless area, you can't subscribe to magazines and newspapers; you have to purchase each issue separately and download them to your computer, which costs more than having a subscription.

I haven't tracked if it's saving me money or not. I'm downloading a lot of free or $1 ebooks (Goodreads and Project Gutenberg are great sources for free ebooks, even if you don't have a Kindle), because I like a lot of classics and some of the public domain documents are handy for my courses. But, am I also buying more new books, at least during this initial, new-and-exciting-gadget phase? Probably. However, most new books on Amazon are $9.99 for the Kindle edition, whereas the new hardcover editions cost more. On the other hand, I rarely bought hardcover books and usually waited until cheaper or free paperback editions were available. Lots of hands and variables to consider there.

Just this week I realized something I hadn't considered before. Once I'm finished reading something on the Kindle, I can't pass it off to someone else. If it's a book I think Mike will like, he has to borrow the Kindle to read it, which means I'm not using the Kindle. I give a lot of books away to friends, my office library, or PaperbackSwap.com. Now these books are taking up digital space instead of bookshelf space. I'm not that concerned about the digital space -- the Kindle can hold thousands of books. But not being able to share those books is bothering me now. I still have plenty of real books to give away; I don't think my personal library will be diminished any time soon.

Now if you'll excuse me, a book I want to read is releasing today. I have to go refresh my Amazon page to see if it's available for download yet.

Image from Amazon.com. I was not compensated in any way for this post. Items were purchased by me for personal use.

05 April 2010

Well, It Wasn't Termites

Whatever was wrong with our living room floor, it wasn't termites. When the workers came in last week to pry off the tiles, we saw that there was concrete or plaster, or something similar, under the tiles.

This was our floor on Tuesday morning:
The workers removed the tiles wherever the floor was creaking and chipped away at the plaster underneath to smooth it out. I don't know if that will solve whatever caused the problem in the first place, but it fixes it enough for the few months we have left here.

On Wednesday afternoon our housekeeper greeted me with a very concerned look on his face. "There is a problem," he said and led me out to the porch. He was so serious that I expected to see some new, major damage that had been discovered. But instead he showed me some tiles that didn't match the original ones. The workers had broken some of the tiles in removing them and couldn't find exact matches. "Pas de problem!" I said. "No problem!" If the landlord doesn't care, then we don't. And they put most of the mismatched tiles under the carpet anyway leaving just a few visible.

They worked more quickly than I expected, too. They'd said it would take three days, maybe longer. It took four. I was quite surprised to come home to a complete living room on Thursday night.