Oh my gosh, I am so far behind in my posting! So, here is the catch up plan: get back on track writing contemporary posts from today on as if nothing had happened and (bit by bit) get caught back up on the posts about our vacation to Greece and everything in between then and now. For today, a few quick updates to get back up to speed:
--My temporary job ended after the first week of November. It was all kinds of fun but very, very busy, especially there at the end during the conference itself (which was, in many ways, awesome, but in some very important little ways not planned well at all--when I am giving up my not especially good seat to the Korean ambassador because someone forgot to leave one for him and someone else is asking know-nothing me where the former prime minister of Australia should go to get her make-up done, you know things have gone dreadfully awry!). I loved the editing work and the office camaraderie, and the glamor of the hobnobbing-with-VIPs conference was a bonus, but I was exhausted when I was through and able to decide beyond a shadow of a doubt that working full time here is simply impossible for me. The editing part was great: I worked when I could, when I wanted to, while the kids were otherwise occupied, and I could do that more often no problem. The needing to be somewhere during working hours (and evenings) was just untenable given all kids' schedules and needs, which I had suspected but was happy to have proven to myself in glaring relief.
--The husband's work situation continues to be tenuous. The hospital did decide to cut only 25% of the budget instead of 71%, which appeared to be good news...but for some reason, pharmacy seems to keep going back and forth from the cut column to the save column, which is all kinds of annoying. Do we want to leave? Not right now, for sure, in the middle of the school year (again), but we're not sure we have a choice in the matter at the moment, until some more decisions get made once and for all. So, in the meantime, in the interests of self-preservation, we are applying for jobs elsewhere but no real bites yet and there aren't even that many jobs available right now anyway. We are also moving forward with our financial goals, getting our house in order in case we do have to leave suddenly. The husband has been diligent about keeping us on track so we are in good shape. As we have started to say a lot, every month longer we are here, our situation upon leaving gets better and better, so that has given us some peace in a very tumultuous time. Do I love the unknown of it all? Not even a little bit, but we have no choice. A friend of mine suggested I try "radical acceptance," which seems like as good a strategy as any and has the potential upside of not making me insane on a daily basis!
--Meanwhile, life goes on: our first PTA event, a welcome social, was a smashing success, as I will detail in a longer post at some point. We are now on to our next event, International Day next weekend. This event will require quite a bit more work by parent volunteers besides the PTA leadership, so we shall see how it all turns out. Fingers crossed! Being PTA chairperson is alternately gratifying and aggravating; I find I have little patience for parents who want to complain but refuse to look for or assist with solutions to problems. Some days I have to throw my hands up in the air in frustration but there are enough little victories, like a fun opening social, to keep me going!
--I participated in a group yard sale a couple of weeks ago and got rid of a ton of stuff, which was great. I have been going through our belongings again, in anticipation of having to move at some point, and since we have committed to not shipping a container back home, we will only be sending a fraction of the stuff we have here back home in the end. Our goal is just to have a small-ish air shipment of books and irreplaceable household goods in addition to as many suitcases as we are allowed and can get using our air mile points. Which means eventually lots will go so for now I am slowing culling the unnecessary and moving it out in small batches.
--Um, the weather here this week is insane: last week the Emir and many children all over the country, including the Muslim children at my boys' school, participated in a country-wide prayer for rain. Today, we have a deluge complete with thunder, which is something we haven't seen in over two years here. Roads are flooded, of course, because drainage and infrastructure are not so much a thing here, so many schools were cancelled, but not ours. Apparently, we are on higher ground, and the buses and parents were able to get through, so cancelling was not deemed necessary. But just for a taste of what others of my friends were facing during school runs this morning, take a look at some of the pictures in this article, as well as a video of the rain INSIDE the airport (embedded in the middle of the article at about 9:50am, scroll down a bit): http://dohanews.co/heavy-downpours-in-qatar-lead-to-flooded-roads-school-closures/
Crazy!
--My temporary job ended after the first week of November. It was all kinds of fun but very, very busy, especially there at the end during the conference itself (which was, in many ways, awesome, but in some very important little ways not planned well at all--when I am giving up my not especially good seat to the Korean ambassador because someone forgot to leave one for him and someone else is asking know-nothing me where the former prime minister of Australia should go to get her make-up done, you know things have gone dreadfully awry!). I loved the editing work and the office camaraderie, and the glamor of the hobnobbing-with-VIPs conference was a bonus, but I was exhausted when I was through and able to decide beyond a shadow of a doubt that working full time here is simply impossible for me. The editing part was great: I worked when I could, when I wanted to, while the kids were otherwise occupied, and I could do that more often no problem. The needing to be somewhere during working hours (and evenings) was just untenable given all kids' schedules and needs, which I had suspected but was happy to have proven to myself in glaring relief.
--The husband's work situation continues to be tenuous. The hospital did decide to cut only 25% of the budget instead of 71%, which appeared to be good news...but for some reason, pharmacy seems to keep going back and forth from the cut column to the save column, which is all kinds of annoying. Do we want to leave? Not right now, for sure, in the middle of the school year (again), but we're not sure we have a choice in the matter at the moment, until some more decisions get made once and for all. So, in the meantime, in the interests of self-preservation, we are applying for jobs elsewhere but no real bites yet and there aren't even that many jobs available right now anyway. We are also moving forward with our financial goals, getting our house in order in case we do have to leave suddenly. The husband has been diligent about keeping us on track so we are in good shape. As we have started to say a lot, every month longer we are here, our situation upon leaving gets better and better, so that has given us some peace in a very tumultuous time. Do I love the unknown of it all? Not even a little bit, but we have no choice. A friend of mine suggested I try "radical acceptance," which seems like as good a strategy as any and has the potential upside of not making me insane on a daily basis!
--Meanwhile, life goes on: our first PTA event, a welcome social, was a smashing success, as I will detail in a longer post at some point. We are now on to our next event, International Day next weekend. This event will require quite a bit more work by parent volunteers besides the PTA leadership, so we shall see how it all turns out. Fingers crossed! Being PTA chairperson is alternately gratifying and aggravating; I find I have little patience for parents who want to complain but refuse to look for or assist with solutions to problems. Some days I have to throw my hands up in the air in frustration but there are enough little victories, like a fun opening social, to keep me going!
--I participated in a group yard sale a couple of weeks ago and got rid of a ton of stuff, which was great. I have been going through our belongings again, in anticipation of having to move at some point, and since we have committed to not shipping a container back home, we will only be sending a fraction of the stuff we have here back home in the end. Our goal is just to have a small-ish air shipment of books and irreplaceable household goods in addition to as many suitcases as we are allowed and can get using our air mile points. Which means eventually lots will go so for now I am slowing culling the unnecessary and moving it out in small batches.
--Um, the weather here this week is insane: last week the Emir and many children all over the country, including the Muslim children at my boys' school, participated in a country-wide prayer for rain. Today, we have a deluge complete with thunder, which is something we haven't seen in over two years here. Roads are flooded, of course, because drainage and infrastructure are not so much a thing here, so many schools were cancelled, but not ours. Apparently, we are on higher ground, and the buses and parents were able to get through, so cancelling was not deemed necessary. But just for a taste of what others of my friends were facing during school runs this morning, take a look at some of the pictures in this article, as well as a video of the rain INSIDE the airport (embedded in the middle of the article at about 9:50am, scroll down a bit): http://dohanews.co/heavy-downpours-in-qatar-lead-to-flooded-roads-school-closures/
Crazy!
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