Norming the New

Isn't it amazing how quickly the new becomes the norm? The idea of starting this blog was so I could share the new experiences D and I go through as we embark on our new adventure. And yet, here I am, posting only every couple weeks. Is that because nothing new is happening? Not at all. But apparently my little psyche is normalizing all that new stuff as fast as it can so I end up finding nothing particularly worth blogging about.

Two and a half months ago I was in Hawaii, living in a beautiful 2000 sq ft house a mile from the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by a loving husband and adoring pets. Now I live by myself in deepest suburban northern Virginia in a furnished corporate apartment. I have easy access to Tasty-Kakes but can't find poke in the Safeway.

Yummy fat patties!

Delicious source of mercury!

My work life has changed from a cubicle in a high-rise office I inhabited for 9 years, with my own phone and computer, a raft of decade-long colleagues, an interesting science- and policy-based portfolio of ocean pollution issues, and some pretty cool responsibilities. Now I'm an itinerant trainee. I pounce upon any open computer in a common area, hoping for one that's not so glacially slow that I'll have to quit before it connects, to check email. My only phone is my personal cellphone. I hide my lunches in refrigerators scattered throughout the corridors of the Foreign Service Institute, then try to remember which refrigerator I chose. I lug my bike's saddlebags around all day, since students have no place to call their own after they finish A-100 orientation (and then it's just a common room with a coat rack). It's not better or worse, but it is vastly different, yet it seems normal now, after just a few weeks.

In A-100, I met 92 people, plus our course coordinators. Since then the acquisition of new acquaintances has slowed, but I've still met a ton of new fellow language or area studies students and language instructors. In A-100, we gradually came to refine the snapshot impressions of our colleagues that were based on quick introductions, to get a feel for the multi-faceted individuals they are. In language studies, we lack the vocabulary and grammar to convey complex thoughts. As a result, I'm the dog-lover, then we have the engaged guy who doesn't call his parents, the barfly with a Russian grandmother, the expectant father who dances the tango, and the woman whose husband cares for their young son and who vows never to return to the African country of her last post. I know intellectually that there is more to these people than the few things we've managed to say and to which we return again and again, but I don't know what it is. If we stay in the same language class together, I hope we'll get to the point of talking about more than dogs, drinking, pregnancy, and the poor engaged fellow's lovesickness.