My own TDY

Since I am not sure if I will be able to get on to Blogger from China, I scheduled a few posts before leaving home. This is one of them. Rest assured that if I can't access my blog from China, I will update you all in great detail once I'm home! 

When pondering the life of a military spouse, most people immediately identify with the picture of the military wife left behind while her husband leaves. It seems logical to think about her struggles first, as so much attention is already being paid to the "men (and women) serving overseas". You might wonder what it's like to go to bed alone every night. Or to take care of 2, 3, 4, or even 5 children on your own. Or to pay all the bills, juggle the chores, do maintenance on the house (as everything that can break will on a deployment or TDY - Temporary Duty), file your own taxes, raise your children, all without someone by your side.

Living in a military environment, I know all about how difficult it is to always be the one left behind. The struggles, the loneliness, and to top it all of, the confusion that should never arise but always does, when the spouse returns home. It's easy to think that even though your spouse is heading into battle, for him (or her) the separation will somehow be easier. He won't be dealing with frozen pipes, a sudden infestation of cockroaches, or your child's unwillingness to eat anything green. Sure, he'll be far away, possibly in danger, but for him, time will fly, and he will rest easy knowing that his home is well taken care of.

This current trip to China is the first time for us that I have been the one to leave for an extended period of time. Granted, I'm not fighting a war anywhere (unless we're counting opening students' minds to other cultures as a battle, which for the sake of this post, we shall not), but my departure is neither entirely voluntary, nor does it qualify as vacation. Husband-dear has been calling it my TDY (a term usually used by the Air Force to denote a "business trip" to anyplace across the world, although usually not one involving battle, although that too has started to change lately), and honestly, that is what it feels like. And to be honest, being on the departing end is no less fun or any easier than being on the "staying at home" end.

I know husband-dear will do great while I'm gone. He knows how to cook, do his own laundry, and he's been known to run the vacuum cleaner every once a while too, so he'll probably do very well for himself. But leaving everything in his control is the scariest thing I have ever done. I have posted lists of important phone numbers on the fridge (which includes the the cleaning lady, just FYI), I have shown him at least three times how to use the breadmaker, I have installed Teamviewer on his laptop in case something breaks, I have begged him to remember to turn off the stove and the oven, and I have made sure every single important date and appointment is on the calendar in big fat letters.

Right before I left, I asked husband-dear if he always felt this powerless ever time he had to leave.
"Oh yeah, " He replied, "Sure. The one who stays behind has to take care of everything, true, but when you're the one leaving, it also means you have to give up everything. You have to completely trust them to know it all, do it all, and be OK through it all. And that's really scary."
Honestly, I had never thought about it that way. I mean, seriously, any military spouse worth his or her salt can deal with a broken water heater, a freaked out kid, and a major deadline at work in one day without even thinking twice about it. So why would anyone worry?

Well, now I see why. Because you're a team. You do things together. And suddenly putting everything on the other partner just doesn't feel right, no matter what the reason.

So there you have it. I've learned a little something this past month. Staying behind is the hardest thing to do, but leaving, well, it's right up there too.

Hot shots

Since I am not sure if I will be able to get on to Blogger from China, I scheduled a few posts before leaving home. This is one of them. Rest assured that if I can't access my blog from China, I will update you all in great detail once I'm home!

For someone who is usually more prepared than the boy scouts, more eternally ready than the US Coast Guard, it's still quite unclear to me how I almost forgot to check out the shots I might possibly need for this trip. It wasn't until a few weeks ago, about two weeks prior to departure, that I woke up one morning and realized that, huh, I might need to get my shots updated before leaving for China.

So as a good Dutch girl, I didn't even bother contacting TriCare or my PCM, but called our county's travel clinic instead. After all, in spite of the Dutch health care system being what it is (described as "universal" at best, "socialist" in less favorable circles, and "authoritarian" at worst), if any Dutch person wants to travel to faraway places that require extra vaccinations, they are kindly, but firmly, invited to pay for these themselves.

After receiving an estimate of a few hundred dollars, and having begrudgingly set up an appointment, I reluctantly informed husband-dear of this new expense. After all, although husband-dear is used to an employer telling you where to go, for how long, and what to do there, his employer is a little better at making sure you are then provided with everything needed to do your job, for free. Let's just say our university's budget isn't quite what the Air Force's is, and this would be yet another expense added to our bill.

But husband-dear took the announcement in stride, thought for a moment, and then said, "Why don't you check with the base clinic? They have an immunizations office too."
"Yeah, for active duty people. Going on deployments. You know, doing their job. Not spouses whose school is too cheap to spring for their shots."
"Just give it a try."

So I called the base clinic, and I kid you not, they said they could provide me with my immunizations for free. My vaccinations. For free. Free, people, free. The shots I needed for China would have cost me close to $300, but I thanks to the base clinic, it cost me absolutely nothing.

Now I am grateful. Very much so. After all, $300 is at least two half ironman triathlons. A third of a ticket to Holland. Lots of coffee. But I can't help but wonder why TriCare would pay for this. I mean, they won't pay for a whole bunch of other stuff (say, fertility treatmens), but they will pay for you to get really expensive shots you need for a trip you don't necessarily have to take? It boggles the mind. But at any rate, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the American tax payers out there. Know that thanks to your generosity, I will now not die of Typhoid or Tetanus while over here. You're too kind.

Oh, and you know what's even better? I finally got vaccinated against Hepatitis B.
As a good Dutch girl, I never got those. You see, in Holland, at least when I was growing up, you were only vaccinated against Hepatitis B if you were a member of an "at risk" group. In other words, unless you were a nurse, a practicing lady of ill-repute, a man lying with other men, or a down and dirty drugs user, you were not getting vaccinated against Hepatitis B.
For the past years, I've been able to avoid getting vaccinated, but the people at the base clinic don't play like that. If their regs tell them you have to have a shot against Hepatitis B to go to China, you will get that shot against Hepatitis B before you leave for China.

So I got my shots. In the arm. Without any of the "does this feel OK?", or "this will only sting a little" I'm so used to. No explanations, no reassurances, just two (very painful) shots and a band-aid from a man in uniform.

Well, again, it was free. And the best part? When I got home, I realized the sergeant had given me a Scooby-Doo band-aid. OOH-RAH!

Safe travels

Since I didn’t know how many opportunities I would have in China to blog, I’ve lined up a few guest posts for you. Here is the second one, from my completely awesome cousin, also known as Anderwoud.

So cousin-dear has gone off to China, and her being who she is, she probably got to the airport speaking fluently Chinese (Not only standard Mandarin, but Wu, Min, Gan, Jin, and Hui too), carrying her insurance papers, diplomas, ID cards, and driver's license with her (in threefold and in different bags), had her students all write their will, and told all stray puppies in Georgia to keep quiet until she gets back. She'll have painkillers, toothbrushes, sun block, antihistamines, and something against snakes, ticks, mosquitoes, and possibly rabid dogs stacked away in an easy to reach pocket, right next to the Rescue Remedy and nose spray, and until she has had her first smoggy run, she'll be as tense as a slinky on acid. No, I don't think that's exaggerated. It is, in fact, how I would prepare, and although we couldn't be more different in many ways, preparation-wise we're both quite...ehm...well, just read this paragraph again.

Those who don't know her won't know about or notice the Slinkyness, though. She'll look like a weary traveler, cool as a cucumber (do people still say that? I always liked that expression), guiding her chicks around, possibly correcting people on their pronunciation of the word 'kele', which I recently learned means 'Coke'. I really hope she'll do the teahouse and Confucius trip though.

But will she be able to get her students out of the McDonald's? I doubt it, not because I don't believe in the adventurous minds of cousin-dear's students (the lucky bastards, summer school in China!), but because in my experience many people travel abroad only to look for what they already know. Like Happy Meals. Many Dutchies fly to Turkey, a country with an unbelievably rich history, beautiful views, and great food, where they lock themselves up in an all-inclusive resort with fat-dripping buffets, umbrella drinks, and paid child-minders. Without ever wondering what's outside their cozy gated community. Turkey is like the Dutch McDonald's.

Why is that yellow M a sign of safety for travelers, I wonder? When I studied in Sweden, my Belgian, German, Greek, Portuguese, and Austrian friends always wanted to go to the Mac. We would meet there for our coffee breaks, share the occasional meal, and although Stockholm is littered with beautiful places where you can get ice cream, my friends preferred to sit inside and eat the same sundaes they would eat at home. I wondered why they'd come to Sweden really. No, they said, I was wrong. They were in Sweden, enjoying Stockholm, they were just eating the food they liked. Not because they were afraid to try Janssons Frestelse or surstromming, which they were sure were OK, but they just happened to like fries and burgers, and why was I always complaining? To prove that they were really culinary adventurous, we once went to Pizza Hut.

I'm not sure if cousin-dear will try the stuffed chicken-necks in China (not without the right condiment anyway), but I know she'll go exploring. She'll go to markets, check out feminine hygiene products and the toilet paper in the supermarkets, meet interesting new friends and do things she can't and probably won't do back home. And when she gets back, probably with lots and lots of stories and pictures, I hope she'll bring me a Happy Meal toy as a reminder of old times.

Connections....

Since I didn’t know how many opportunities I would have in China to blog, I’ve lined up a few guest posts for you. Here is the first one, from an esteemed former co-worker best known as Pindham. 

When the woman best known to you as Dixiechick, asked me to write a guest post for her blog, I couldn’t help but think about the strange, real-world web of connections that made this post you are reading possible. What’s the likelihood that I would end up working at an HBCU in rural Georgia, meeting and collaborating with a Professor from the Netherlands, and then writing a guest post for her after I had moved on to south Florida and she had flown to a summer session in China? Well, that precise combination of people, events, and situations is quite likely totally unique in all of history, but that it indeed happened is so totally commonplace as to be almost trivial. Most of the connections in life are just this miraculous, which makes them so very ordinary. It’s this mix of the miraculous and ordinary that I want to think on for a moment.

It seems to me that each moment in life is a nexus of different arcs of energy all on different trajectories and paces. Each arc is a person, event, or artifact that is itself a nexus of other arcs, and all these arcs converge moment by moment to make me what I am. I am the precipitate, to use Randall Collins’ term, of all these arcs and forces, or to put it in terms of complexity theory, I am the pattern that emerges from all those arcs. Such weaving in and out of the different strands, of course, makes each moment miraculous—yet we resist that miracle and fold it into the common light of day.

I suppose we have to. If we were constantly stunned by the novelty of life, then we would hardly ever get anything done. If I were to be amazed that just now I am writing a passage that has never before been written to people who have never before read these words from me, I would never be able to write. We have to subsume the miraculous into the commonplace so that we can get on with things.

So we do. We abstract the miraculous into recognizable, manageable patterns, and we get on with the business of life.

But every so often, something or someone reminds us of how rare each moment really is. A friend says that she’s going to China for the summer and needs you to write a guest post for her. So you pause to think about the strangeness of that ordinary request: that the strand of your own life is being woven through a trip to China, and that is just one link, one connection, one strand in the warp and weft of your own weave. It’s just an ordinary miracle, I know, but I really appreciate that a blonde Dutch woman from the deep south is woven through my weave and I through hers. It makes for a much more interesting pattern, one that I never could have predicted or fabricated on my own.

Thanks, DC, and take lots of pix.

Off we go! (I hope)

When you're reading this, I'm hopefully on a plane heading west with all of my students and all of our luggage on board. We could also be stuck at an airport, trying to get a dozen students and their professors on a next flight to China, but as I wrote this post before I left the house, who knows.

As the date of departure approaches, I'm beginning to realize more and more how completely un-ready I am for this level of responsibility. What seemed like a great idea back in October and a well-organized trip in March, has suddenly developed arms, legs, and far too many details for anyone to keep track of and keep their head on straight at the same time. There's reminder emails to send out (did you remember to get your shots updated?), excursions to confirm (We can't go to town A on date B, but we can go to town C on date B, although it was scheduled for date A), roommate arrangements to resolve (X wants to room with Y but not with Z, but Z will not room with anyone but X), meal plan issues to figure out (apparently, Chinese universities don't really have meal plans. Or they do, but you don't purchase them in advance. Or you can, but you have to use a special card. They think), and secure flight information to enter for everyone.

Naturally, we have a very capable secretary, who has been tackling most of these issues. But at the end of the day, she will back in Georgia when we're out there in China with ten or so lovely, bright, enthusiastic, but also young, inexperienced, and possibly naive students.  Students whose parents really want them back. In one piece. But who will probably try to, at least at one point during the program, try to achieve the exact opposite.

People, it's a scary proposition. One that has woken me up several times over the past few weeks. In my dreams, I've had students get on the wrong plane, lose their passport, get lost and/or robbed, and I think we've all missed our flights at least ten times.

I mean, I can handle getting myself across the ocean. It involves some stress, an outright rejection of any flights that stop in Paris, and a possibly unrealistic fear of losing my luggage, but I'll get there in the end. I can, if needed, even get myself and my family across large distance. That involves a lot less verbalizing of above-mentioned stress, and a lot more coffee, but it too can be done. But twelve students? None of whom I can tell to "Sit right there right now and do not leave that spot or I will have your hide"? I'm honestly not sure how that will work out.

Fortunately, I'm not the head honcho of this caravan. That honor belongs to another Professor who has been running the exchange program for a few years now, and who has weathered several short-term exchanges. So I do have a plan, at least for the travel portion of the program, and this plan involves, wait for it, to let him do all the worrying instead of me. Pretty freaking brilliant, if I say so myself. I am simply putting a worrying-embargo on myself starting this morning until we set foot in China.

Obviously,  I'll help out, I'll step in when needed, but I will not worry about the fact that we have a one-hour layover in one of the busiest US airports on the way out. I will not worry about the fact that not all of us are seated together on the major flight. I will not worry about whether or not everyone's luggage is correctly labeled, and I will not worry about how to get to the hotel in Beijing. I will shepherd, herd, count, locate restrooms, water fountains, restaurants, and gate numbers, and resolve social issues, but I will let the head honcho do all the worrying. The only thing I will worry about during this twenty-hour ordeal, I promise, is how to locate WiFi so I can get on Skype and wave at husband-dear :)

Georgia on my mind

As husband-dear and I went on our long ride last Friday, I realized how incredibly beautiful this part of Georgia actually is. There are pecan orchards, undulating green hills, peach orchards, old antebellum farms tucked away behind giant trees, and miles of cotton fields that will, in a few months, look like fields of snow.

I know I spend a lot of time complaining about this part of the world. And I have to tell you, a lot of it is true. There are far too many churches, far too many people who honestly believe that the sun revolves around the earth (a recent study carried out by a co-worker revealed this number to be around 10%), far too few people who know how to drive when there are cyclists on the road, and the bugs are just too big to be allowed at all.

But Georgia does have its redeeming features. And as I'm about to leave it for close to five weeks, I decided that it might be nice to discuss those for once. As husband-dear and I were battling an insane wind, I thought about all the things I would miss while away, and there are actually a fair amount of things I know I'll long for.

First, the friendliness of the people. Call it what you want, but people down here are just nice. They ask you how you are, wish you a good day, and hold doors for you when they see you coming. They have no problems loaning you their car, their eggs, their help, and don't really ever expect anything in return. Walk down any street in Georgia, and every single person you see will say "Hey", and wish you a good morning/afternoon/evening. I know that most Dutch people will argue the friendliness is superficial, or even insincere, but you know what, I will take that over Dutch surliness any day.

Second, the food. I know, I know, it's not very nutritional, and when consumed in large amounts, far from healthy, but southern soul food just rocks. There is nothing like fried pickles for a snack, biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and fried chicken with cole slaw for dinner. You may need to run a marathon after you're done eating, but people, it's good.

Third, the air conditioning. If you think missing AC is somewhat ridiculous, you've obviously never been to the south, because the expression "hotter than hell" has nothing on heat in the south. Stepping from 90F heat into a building whose air conditioning is set so low you get goosebumps is possibly one of the nicest feelings ever. Now only for about five minutes mind you, as at that point you will start to freeze to death, but those first five minutes are awesome. Now, although I know that the part of China we're headed to is as hot and humid as Georgia, I haven't heard anything about air conditioning. And to be honest, that thought gives me pause. I can't imagine living in these temperatures without central air, so let's all keep our fingers crossed my room has at least a window unit.

And finally, the way people talk. The Beach Boys hit the nail on the head when they claimed that the way southern girls talk knocked them out, because the southern vernacular is incredibly endearing. Phrases like "y'all", "I might could", and "carmel" (as opposed to "car-a-mel") not only sound really pretty, they also somehow worm their way into your vocabulary in a heartbeat. Having lived both in the Northeast ("pahk the cah ovah theh!") and in Texas ("I tell yew wHat"), I am convinced that neither accent has anything on the Georgia drawl.

So there you have it - I'm not all vinegar. There are things I will miss about Georgia (and I haven't even mentioned my unlimited access to a pool, a roadbike, a gym, and miles and miles of road to run on).

However, having said all of that- Let the countdown begin!

Poe-hee!

Het is met enige trots dat ik u kan vermelden dat deze week mijn to-do-before-China-lijst van achtien punten is teruggebracht tot vijf. En dit blog schrijven is daar een van. Dus vier punten. Een aangezien ik dinsdag vertrek, lig ik dus tot mijn grote verrassing gewoon op schema. Zo op schema zelfs dat toen mijn schoonouders vroegen of we het leuk zouden vinden als ze dit weekend langs zouden komen, ik enthousiast "ja!" riep. En voor iemand die normaliter drie dagen van te voren al bezig is met inpakken, is dit niet normaal.

Nu was deze afgelopen week uberhaupt "niet normaal". Niet alleen waren er die achtien to-do punten (waaronder dingen zoals punt vijf: de credit card maatschappij bellen, punt twee: vaderdag cadeau regelen, en punt acht: pijnstillers en immodium kopen), maar er waren ook twee jongens die in een keer zomervakantie hadden, en dus aandacht nodig haddden. Ook besloot Zoe dramatisch ziek te worden, bedacht de editor van het boek waarin een hoofdstuk van Steve en mij verschijnt dat dit een ideale week was om ons haar commentaar en suggesties te emailen, had Jimmie het lef om jarig te zijn, en besloot de anti-virus op mijn PC dat het de speciaal-voor-China-geinstalleerde-VPN niet aardig vond. 

Maar goed, gelukkig heb ik vroeger nog wat van de Meneer Kaktus Show meegekregen, en dus ben altijd heel erg Boelkloedig. Koelbloedig.

En dus liet ik me meeslepen naar een doodenge film over Russische radio-actieve zombie liliputters, en sleepte ik op mijn beurt de jongens half de stad af op zoek naar een goed cadeau voor manlief.
En dus deelde ik Steve op woensdag mee dat het mij niet zo heel veel uitmaakte wat hij die dag in zijn planning had staan, maar dat we het commentaar van de redacteur hadden teruggekregen, en dat we dat die dag zouden verwerken en herschrijven. Niet morgen, niet overmorgen. Vandaag. Nu.
En dus spendeerde ik een aantal bange uurtjes bij de dierenarts, kreeg een hartverlamming van de uiteindelijke rekening, maar heb nu weer een hond die in ieder geval een beetje eet (alhoewel de resultaten van de onderzoeken nog moeten komen).
En dus bakte ik brownies (en moest halsoverkop bij de buren een ei lenen, om tien minuten later alsnog in de auto te moeten stappen omdat we ook in een keer zonder melk zaten, en het recept toch echt om melk vroeg). Ook kocht ik ice cream cake, en droeg Ozzie op de kamer te versieren voor zijn broer.
En ook was ik wederom de IT goden bijzonder dankbaar voor vriend W. die toevallig wel wist hoe hij de relatie tussen mijn VPN en mijn anti-virus kon herstellen.

Ik moet toegeven, ik heb niet heel veel geslapen deze week, maar het is allemaal af. En er is tijd over. Zoveel tijd zelfs, dat toen manlief vandaag voorstelde om een flink eind te gaan fietsen, ik gewoon "ja" kon antwoorden. Alleen een beetje jammer dat ik vergat dat mijn fiets shirt niet helemaal aansluit op mijn fietsbroek. En dus daar vergat zonnebrandcreme te smeren. En nu dus een pracht van een tramp-stamp-sunburn-streep op mijn rug heb staan.

Nou ja, you can't win them all. En ik bedenk me hierdoor mooi wel dat ik toch echt zonnebrand mee moet nemen naar China. En dat stond dus nog niet op mijn lijstje. Ha!