Is This Thing Still On?

Is this thing still on? I haven't a clue. I've decided, kind of by default, that until we move to Tempe in a week, posts will be kind of scarce. We see you (or you see someone we see) on a regular basis, so it seems reasonable that things will be in stasis for a week or two more. Naturally, this puts our out-of-area readers at a disadvantage, but it is only a week and there are only four-ish of you. Paul's job quest continues. He's applied for a couple of good positions and one company told him to call next week and set up a formal interview, which is exciting in a hurray-maybe-you-can-begin-a-career-and-pay-the-bills sort of way. We also have put a deposit down on an apartment, which seems like the right thing, but of course until I physically inspect it with a fine-tooth comb, I will worry about it. Mostly though, we're just trying to make the most of our time left in Provo before we leave everyone again.

General Update and Associated Shout-Outs

Dear All,
Sorry for the lag. I promise once Paul and I get settled in Arizona, things will get more regular. Anyways, Paul and I spent the weekend at my grandparents in Montana. There will be a post on that after I finish putting the slide show together. In the meantime, I thought I'd give a shout-out to the three people we know who've had babies in the past four weeks. Paul's cousin, Jordan, and his wife had a baby girl, Clara, back in mid-June. You might recognize him from his comments on our blog. Or his own blog, if you're a Muhlestein reader. Our good friends, Ben and Melanie Haslam, had a baby girl, Kathryn Hope, on Saturday. Ben and Melanie served in Russia with Paul and gave us our first apartment--for $395! Ah, good, cheap times. Finally, Paul's cousin, Dennis, and his wife will have a baby (girl?) this week. Technically, she's only due this week, but she's not a very big person, so I'm optimistic about my advance congratulations.

Wide-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed And ....

Dear All,
Well, Paul and I made it back home finally. I assumed you guessed that from the lack of obituaries and family phone calls. We've also gotten on a kind of sleeping schedule. (Guess who was able to sleep for more than 5 hours straight last night? Me!) Now we're just kicking back and working through our back mail and to-dos that can finally be done now that we're in the same country as they are. It's exciting.

As for the surprise, I dyed my hair purple--well, cranberry-colored. Except it didn't quite work. Apparently, when you take a red-violet tone and layer it over dark brown hair, you get that superheroine red-purple color like in X-men. Which was cool until I took a shower (tragically, days later due to travel) when the color lost its intensity, making it less superheroine-y and more boring red-y. Oh, well. I've always said I wanted to be a redhead. I guess I got my chance.

There's a picture of my hair right after it was done, which I will post as soon as I can remember where we packed the connection for the camera.

A Gold Star and an 'A' for effort

For any doubters out there, I can hereby testify that Jennifer Jean Bussio can in fact board a flight, ride it for 11 hours, and disembark without
A- Going Crazy
B- Weeping Constantly or
C- Getting Drunk
In all seriousness, howver, she was great and I was very proud.
Paul

LAX Sucks

LAX sucks. I dare you to find a worst airport. We had to wait to disembark the plane because no one had moved the walkway over. Then we had to wait to go to the terminal because the airport is so dang big that you have to ride a shuttle bus to get from the place the airplane drops you off and the terminal. Customs is a puzzle. We had to wait in a long line where three different people looked at our form and waved us through. Three people in the space of 50 feet. What, just in case the first two managed to miss the parrot you're smuggling, the third can (literally, given the distance) jump right in? Makes no sense. We also had to wait FOREVER for our luggage because the conveyor belt was broken. Well, it wasn't broken, you see, some luggage was just caught on it, but the people who work at the baggage carosel expressed profound ignorance of how to fix it or who to call to get it fixed. They work at the baggage carousel, for heaven's sakes! Isn't that their job? Anyway, one eventually climbed inside and unjammed it but it took like twenty minutes after that to collect all of our luggage. Then we sent off in search of terminal 8. Despite what the map says, there is only an entrance labeled terminal seven. To get to terminal 8, you have to go through terminal seven. Not that this is ever clear. Oh, and none of the terminals connect (except, oddily, 7 and 8), so you have to go outside and walk around forever until you find your terminal. to get into the terminal, you must complete the security walk of death, which actually wasn't too bad due to the poor man running the 1 metal detector who was constantly repeating "You need your boarding pass and nothing metal." At one point he did mix it up by announcing to the line that 1) there was but one line so keep it single-file and 2)cell phones DO have metal in them, so please do not clear one in your hand and try to pass through the metal detector. I kind of felt a little bad for him. What he was saying was not rocket science, but only half the people were listening so he had to keep repeating himself.

You may not know this, but terminal 8 has a newstand, a Starbucks, a hamburger place, and a bar. All of these places close at 10 pm. It's an airport!!! There are flights coming and going at all hours of the day and night. So we're starving, alone, and sleeping on those black airport chairs.

Oh, and internet access costs ten bucks. I hope you're getting ten dollars' worth of something out of this post.

And Ambien, 10 mg? You and I have a score to settle. I demand sleep from a sleeping pill!

Better Pack Your Bags and Run

Well, we're all packed up--or mostly, since select toiletries can't be packed until tomorrow and I have a small load of laundry to finish. Not vital, though. I'm cool with just throwing them in a bag at this point. I feel a little better about the flight, since I realized we're flying on Singapore Air instead of China Air. I have much more confidence in Singapore Air. Still going to knock myself out, though. No reason to slit my wrists there. Oh, and I have a fabulous surprise--well, I think it's a fabulous surprise. If you'll only be pleased by a smuggled antique or small child, you will be disappointed. Anyway, 10:24 am July 3, SLC Airport. Be there or be square.

Like Rats on a Sinking Ship...

Wow! I must note the excellent suggestions on how to deal with the utter collapse of civilization at Casa Americana. I'm please to report that some of the roommates had a change of heart (or reached their absolute limit) because the dishes have been done by people other than me, the trash had been taken out and washed out (now larva-free!), and most of the recycling taken care of. Hurray for basic cleanliness!

We also successfully pulled off a Spectacular, which is the equivalent of a primary program, but twice as long and on a Saturday. It had been consuming my waking hours for some time. Since our children never meet at the same times, we never had a complete rehearsal. In fact, the older children had no rehearsals at all. Everything had to be memorized, too. Here's a snippet of one of my thought trains from the second rehearsal (the day before the Spectacular):

1. The kids won't know what song to sing unless I tell them.
2. I should have my signs like the primary choristers do.
3. Do I have time to make signs tonight?
4. Doesn't matter, I can't draw.
5. Can I ask the other teachers to draw signs tonight?
6. No, that's too big of an imposition.
7. Maybe I could still make them.
8. How would they know to connect the pictures with the songs.
9. I would make a horrible primary president.

Surprisingly, it went off okay. The kids did their best, no one wanted pictures (except one of Paul's students, but we like him, so it's okay.), and everyone was apparently too distracted by the principal's see-through dress to bother me. Our kids were rewarded with ice cream, gatorball, and Pokemon toys, depending on age.

Now, we're just trying to riding it out without burning out, but it's hard. It's been a rough month of grammar review for everyone and the kids are melting down because they have important tests in Chinese school next week--but Chinese school also ends next Friday. I only have 2 4B students left, both of whom know they are dropping out of the program on the 30th, so they aren't exactly giving 100%--or even 50%. Meanwhile, an enterovirus has broken out in Taiwan (yes, there have been 204 cases THIS YEAR in a nation of 23 million. Clearly this is an epidemic, call the CDC.), causing mass panic at the school. One student has been forbidden to attend class in the afternoon (but not in the morning--what the???), the school was "sterilized," and McDonald's playground use has had the kibosh put on it, which is no good for us. How are we supposed to entertain small children in an unconfined environment for 30 mins? After they have been at school for 12 hours, mind you. (Yeah, Taiwan has a truly screwed-up education system.)

The BIG news though, is that there is 1 teacher coming. Yup, ILP couldn't recruit enough teachers for the Taiwan program. So the five of us will be replaced by 1 teacher. Keep wondering how that's going to turn out. ILP and our boss have been leaning on us to stay, which is ridiculous and impossible. Ellie is working illegally (which puts her US residency in jeopardy, BTW), the Roommate Who Must Not Be Named has already been here for 13 months and she just found out her mother has cancer, we'll be lucky if Katerina doesn't burn down the school as she leaves--plus she already has a ticket to and a job in Costa Rica, and Paul and I have to get back to our regularly scheduled lives. You know, permanent employment, moving to Arizona, grad school, etc. I do genuinely hope things somehow work out. Not so much for our boss (she'd land on her feet), but for the other employees and the kids. The little ones in particular are just so excited to go to Basic Reading. They were literally jumping up and down saying "I can go to Basic Reading!" How can we not teach them English? Sigh. The deal I cut with myself is that we'll stay an extra two weeks if that allows them to get the rest of the teachers over. If they can't, then we'll come home on the 2nd. As it stands, we'll be coming on the 2nd.