Friday, February 21, 2014

Singin' the Jet Lag Blues

FYI.  This is a post I wrote last year.  Obviously, it is about one of my return trips to Jakarta.  I found it, and decided to post it even if it is not dated correctly.

You know, for some unknown reason I seem to think that I should be unaffected by the ugly, ugly thing called jet lag. Maybe it is that I still am not as seasoned a traveler as some of the expats who have had years of training in the fine art of flying from one side of the world to the other.

You know how you feel when day-light-savings-time kicks in twice a year? Well, it is like that but magnified by a factor of 12. The first week you are all over the place with sleeping. Actually, you are all over the place with not sleeping. 45 minute naps during normal sleeping times. Completely awake by one or two in the morning. Trying to go back to sleep around four and then getting up around 5:15 to be ready to go to the gym by six. Trying to get up at my normal time as soon as the week began and get as much morning light and some exercise to see if that would help reset my clock.

I have so far found - that hasn't really helped. I am now wondering if I should take Ambien twice a day, every day for a week and just sleep through the process. Would that just make it a longer process?

I tried melatonin and that didn't help. In fact it seemed to actually make me more awake. What is that about? It is just an ugly process which I can't seem to figure out. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Four years and so much more

Well, four years have come and gone.   Yet, we seem to have come full circle in rather ironic ways.

I think one of my first posts to this blog was about being only 3 or 4 weeks in to living in a foreign land and my honey had to go to Australia.  All of this occurred right before my birthday.  I got great opals from the land down-under for a gift and specially made creme bruleĀ“for dessert in celebration of the day of my birth.  I survived the panic and overwhelmed feeling I had during those particular difficult early days.  It wasn't easy, but we did it.

Why am I bringing this up?  Here we are four years later and sugar lips came home last night and told me he has to go to Australia for a meeting.  You guessed it.  It's over my birthday.   This time I am not nervous or panicky.  I know how to get to and from Australia if I want to go.  I know how to talk to the clerks in the store to ask for things without having a dictionary in my hand.  I don't have to drag my laundry across the street, through security, and dump it on a counter for all to examine just to get it washed.  I am used to being swarmed by motorcycles inches from my car door or vehicles, large and small, coming at you from all kinds of directions that are not natural.  I know which local dishes I like and don't have to resort to just ordering pasta off a menu because it is the only thing I recognize.

The other thing that was ironic was that on the actual day of our "four years here" anniversary we had to resort to riding to our destination in a bajaj.  Yes, we got to ride in the very contraption that I have found so amusing from day one.  My honey pot has never ridden in a bajaj the entire time we have been here.  Yes, it's hard to believe.  However, it was easily fixed.

The reason for this situation was because our car was being serviced.   We knew we could just get a cab when the schedule worked out that way.  No worries, pak and ibu.  However, the problem was, there were no taxis at the normal place there are taxis in our neighborhood.  This left us with two choices, bajaj or ojek as a means of transport.

Since I don't relish the idea of head lice, and a communal motorcycle helmet is a prime cultivation area, we chose a bajaj.  We scored well.  The bajaj we chose at the front of the line was clean inside.  The seat wasn't ripped or the foam pad missing chunks in strategic places for sitting comfortably.  The little door stayed latched.  Pak Ito was very nice and best of all the bajaj did NOT smoke like a volcano.

We climbed in and off we went to the Dharmawangsa Hotel for a round of chocolate martinis with friends and a nice dinner to follow.  As we putted along, my sweetheart, who has so gotten in to cell phone photography and videography, made a little movie of our excursion.  The only crucial thing he left out was the struggle that little bajaj had when we got to a very large hill.   At one point I thought we were going to have to get out and push the bajaj to the top.  Two bule behinds are much heavier than the local ones apparently.

We arrived to the Dharmawangsa a little sweaty but relatively fume free and had stunning chocolate martinis with friends.  It was an unexpected way to add local flavor to our "four years here" celebration.

So, are we back to where we started?  Kind of.  But the view is so much different with four years of experience.


So much to be thankful for

I am currently on home soil, this Sunday before Thanksgiving.  The day finds me blending home country traditions with new country discoveries.  I'm making my list of grocery items that I need for the big feast on Thanksgiving Day while I watch the final Formula 1 Grand Prix race on TV.  It's an excellent blend of old and new.

This will be the first Thanksgiving and Christmas at home in 4 years.  My sweetie pie will be celebrating Thanksgiving in Jakarta while I have the good fortune to share the day with sweetie pie #2 and friends here in America.  I wish he could be here too, but there is only so much vacation time to go around.

The good news is, he will be here soon and we will all celebrate a Masters Degree earned, another birthday, and Christmas.  It is hard to stuff too many more things to be thankful for in to just a few weeks time.

As the title of my posts says, there is so much to be thankful for.  The last 4 years have taught us many things.  We've learned about a new culture.  One that is strikingly different from our own.  We've learned a new language.  It is, on the surface, simple but it can get complicated very quickly with various prefixes and such.  Since it isn't based on a romance language, except for the sprinkling of  Portuguese words that occur occasionally,  it takes a while to train your ear to understand what's being said to you.  I still really only posses basic skills, but I get by.

We've learned about sports that we've never really followed before.  Formula 1 racing and Moto GP were never on our TV screen at home before now.  We are learning golf.  While yes, we have knocked the ball around many, many years ago; we actually get out and play now.  This will be a game that we will spend a lifetime to learn.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to grow as a person in a way I didn't know I could.  I remember back in high school we had exchange students at our school.  I feel like I have been on a very long exchange program.  While I haven't been in a formal school setting, I have been in the school of life.  They both have equal value.

But I feel that we are having very a similar experience to each other; those exchange students and I.  The staff we employ at our house are a bit like a host family.  Even though we are their employers, they are the most constant contact I have on the most personal basis with our temporary country of residence.  I have seen pictures of their children who we are helping to educate, the houses that we are loaning money to them to help have built or repaired, through illnesses, weddings and just day-to-day life we interact with each other.  The minute I walk out the door, there is always at least one smiling, familiar face to say hello to and ask how they are.   I will miss them, and I think they will miss us.

But, I am thankful to be home in my own space with a bit more privacy in my day-to-day living.  That is one of the major differences I think.  As Americans, we live life much more privately.  Their lives are more out in the open.  Some of this is out of necessity for each culture.  Our worlds are very different in this way.  I am thankful that I have gotten to see this contrast.

So many, many things that I have seen and experience in this time.  Too many to list.  But I hope they will last me a lifetime.

I am happily giving thanks.  May it be the same with you.