Archive for » September, 2010 «

22
Sep 2010

Failing

Me Missy

I want to take a moment here to talk about failure, my life, and my various ability/inability to cope with failure. Sometimes I have to adjust my perspective, so that I see myself and my situation differently, in order to keep my sanity. So here goes…

Like a lot of high-achieving young sort-of young women, I have always been terrified of failure. It would seem that the daughter of two working-class parents (my dad was a mechanic and my mother a hairdresser, both of whom got their GED’s late in life) would be happy just to graduate high school, and ecstatic to go on to graduate college. Not me: I always had a “not-good-enough” meter that worked overtime.

Upon graduating college, I found the idea of becoming a secretary or insurance agent (jobs available to me with an English degree) distasteful, so I went out on a limb and took a job with the JET Programme, working as the first female foreign teacher on a small island in the Amami-Oshima island chain of southern Japan. Did I want to be a teacher? No. Did I really even want to go to Japan? Well, the answer was kind of a mixed bag. I had some friends on the mainland, and I looked forward to seeing them, but the idea of living in Japan long-term made me want to throw up — which I did. For 12 straight hours on the plane to Tokyo, hardly getting to enjoy the first (and only) time I have ever gotten to fly business-class.

Was it enough to teach on a rural island for a year? Of course not. I HAD to learn Japanese, at all costs. I desperately wanted a second language, and I worked my butt off learning Japanese. Some days I studied over 8 hours, writing kanji or kana or vocab words hundreds of times. Was that enough? Nope. I took a Japanese class for 6 weeks in Okinawa, also with an incredibly difficult schedule (I had 4 hours of class, 6 hours of homework every day). Was that enough? Nope. I volunteered/was recruited to translate for the tourist department of the city government on my little island. Was that enough?

Guess.

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21
Sep 2010

Appearance versus Reality

Me Missy

Can I confess something here? I am totally obsessed with Afghanistan. Ever since I read “On the Road to Kandahar” I’ve been obsessed with the desolate areas to the east of the cradle of civilization; and I, me, lover of water, lakes, rivers, ocean, I am totally fascinated by this dry desert land.

“Sheesh,” I can hear you say. “There’s plenty of jobs for diplomats in Afghanistan. Have at it, and try not to get blown up in the process.”

Seriously, though, I first learned about the Taliban when I lived in Japan in the 1990s and I was utterly appalled. I was only marginally comforted by the fall of the Taliban a few years later; after all, we weren’t there to stop female circumcision or honor killings (did I mention the U.S. supported the rise of the Taliban in the first place?). We were there for Osama bin Laden.

Now, I know that war can change the fabric of a society — after all, women had more rights in Japan after World War II than they had had for many centuries previously. That change, however, was more cosmetic than anything. Women were given the vote, but it didn’t change the face of their daily lives. Real change came slowly, later.

Afghanistan appears much the same. Yes, women were able to start working (with their husband’s permission), or take jobs in parliament (with their husband’s permission), or choose not to wear the burqa (with permission??) after the U.S. invasion. But there is no expectation that the roles should change, that men should do “women’s” work or that there should be more inherent freedom of movement. Indeed, Afghanistan has not “modernized” its view on women to the point it was at in, oh, 1979, before we started funding this interesting religious group that was fighting communism for us, that we like to call the “Mujadeen” but later named itself the “Taliban.” These recent changes are cosmetic changes, touching a few women but not penetrating deeper into the fabric of Afghan society.

The New York Times article about making daughters into sons talks about the two spheres of Afghan society and the strange ability of girl children to cross it with nothing more than boys’ clothes and a short haircut, but goes into some detail about the continuing lack of real change for Afghan women.

“They think it’s all about the burqa,” she said. “I’m ready to wear two burqas if my government can provide security and a rule of law. That’s O.K. with me. If that’s the only freedom I have to give up, I’m ready,” says Afita Rafaat, a parliamentarian in Afghanistan. Although she speaks six languages and wanted to be a doctor, she ended up married to a farmer and humiliated for not giving birth to sons, so she gave her youngest daughter a haircut and new clothes, and made her the family “boy.”

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20
Sep 2010

On the Register…start the clock!

Me Missy

So, for the last week I’ve been in a state of controlled bitchiness suspense, waiting to hear if I cleared final suitability and made it to the register.

For those unfamiliar with the current process to become a foreign service officer (aka “diplomat”), it goes like this:
Written test –> Essay test –> Oral assessment –> Medical clearance | Security clearance –> Final assessment –> Register –> A-100 Class –> Training –> 1st posting somewhere in the world.

Simple, right?

At the end of the leap through each hoop, I’ve stopped to celebrate. Some hoops were scarier than others…like the oral assessment. Nobody likes to spend a day locked in a secure facility with the words “You are under continuous observation” posted in the waiting room. Some hoops were just plain frustrating (medical) or embarrassing (during the security interview, the poor security officer had to ask me if I had any deviant sexual habits that might be embarrassing to myself or the US government, for example. This was made all the more embarrassing because the SO was clearly a very genteel southern man who was also extremely embarrassed by this exchange. Just FYI, my answer was “no.”)

Anyway, most of the correspondence about my candidacy has been via e-mail, so I was surprised and somewhat terrified to find that I would be get a letter “in a week or so” week before last. I spent all last week very tightly wound, and had to keep myself from running home every day to check the mailbox. Today, I actually came home late, and the thought, “That letter is never going to come” was running through my head when I got to the mailbox.

There was a letter.

It was very flat.

I panicked. I couldn’t open it. I took it inside, where, thankfully, I had a moment to stare at it, since today is Marti’s day to pick up niños and the house was empty.

I’ve gotten a lot of rejection letters over the years. There have been rude, polite, apologetic rejection letters; by far they are usually a form letter, and usually no more than a page.

Did I mention this letter was very flat?

So, with shaking hands, I tore the envelope open and saw this:

I made it to the register! I test in Japanese in just two days. I can hardly believe I made it through all those hoops!

Passing my test in Japanese will increase my score on the register, but only time will tell if it will be enough.

Nevertheless, it’s time to celebrate! I can hardly believe I made it this far, and I’m so overwhelmed right now I hardly know what to say except…

Whoo Hoo!!

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10
Sep 2010

Short-timer’s Syndrome

Me Missy

I recently learned that I am near the end of my quest to be a foreign service officer for the State Department (no, people, this is not the same as the state of Arizona). I have a “final review” and then I get on a mysterious list of people who are ranked and called according to rank whenever a new position comes up. I am happy to be near the end of the process, but I am also conflicted, because I am still in limbo and that’s hard. It’s a hard place for me to be.

Got a disaster? I’m great in disasters. I usually remain utterly calm, boss people around, stem blood loss and generally act like a helpful, unemotional zombie — so long my children aren’t involved. If my children are involved, I might go completely ape-shit. But, so long as you are not from my loins, I’m good in a pinch.

However.

The long, drawn out processes…those are the ones that bring out the crazy.  For example, in the past month I have considered:

  • Moving
  • Getting another master’s degree
  • Applying for jobs in Tennessee, Washington and Ireland
  • Buying a house
  • Buying land

What did I actually do? Well, I dropped my Ph.D program (wasn’t working for me) and I looked at a lot of other jobs, houses and cities, but I didn’t actually apply for any jobs or move to any cities. Well, I take that back. I applied for another part-time job to supplement my current part-time job here in Tucson, while I wait. And wait. And wait.

In the military, we called this “short-timer’s syndrome.” It’s what happens when you’re nearing a new deployment, or are getting ready to get out of the military. There is a lot of anxiety but not a lot of “doing.”  I’ve decided these periods in life — the waiting-for-something-to-happen-please-God periods — are where real stress lives.

The sad thing is, I know that, once I actually get (or don’t get) the job, I will immediately wish I had relished my final moments in Tucson. After all, we have a house on the edge of the desert now, and I can watch gorgeous sunsets from a swing under a ramada in my backyard after digging in my organic garden. I only wish we had sold our house sooner, so we could have spent more time enjoying the spectacular beauty of the Sonoran desert and less time listening to gunshots and police helicopters. Instead of waking to the sounds of de-coupling (that just sounds dirty, doesn’t it?) trains in the trainyard, I get to awaken to the maniacal barking of the dogs when a herd of javelinas travels by our house. Still, it’s more peaceful than it was, and I appreciate it. Really. I do.

Yes, I get spectacular view from my backyard, which yesterday included a herd of Javelina!

And I try not to think about when the State Department is going to call. Seriously. I TRY.

That’s the problem with short-timer’s syndrome. I TRY not to think about it, but sometimes it just happens. As the Japanese say: “Shikataganai” (It cannot be helped).

Shikataganai.

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