Thanksgiving Travels

What a week! For Thanksgiving, a group of us were invited over to a friends house on the coast. It was nice to get a change of scenery; we saw the ocean, a harbor that was sending coal to Japan, and lots of cranes. It was also nice to get to hang out with people, while not having to work. Of course the food was good, and it was good to meet my friend's family.

Friday, we all loaded charter buses and headed to DC. We spent several hours there trying to meet internationals. I got to go to an ethnic restaurant that served the type of foods I will eat overseas. We took time to walk around the embassies of several countries where many of us will be working. I definitely felt like a small town Okie girl in DC! Just getting through Union Station seemed like an international city to me! We did not have time for any of the tourist sites, so it felt surreal to see the Washington Memorial from the bus. Now I can at least say that I have been to my capitol city. I did feel a little weird before, in that every other country I have been to I had been to their capitol city, but had not been to mine yet.

Give Thanks

I have to confess that Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love the sweets, decorations, parties, The Christmas Story, Christmas movies, giving and receiving gifts, the whole bit. Ironically though, I think this is going to be a really good Thanksgiving.

Training has reminded me how much I really do have to be thankful for. Even though I will not spend this Thanksgiving with family, I think I will definitely be more in the Thanksgiving mindset this year. I would like to share my thankful list with you. Please share what you are thankful for by commenting on the blog. (Just click comment link below, type what you are thankful for, and if you don't have a google account, select anonymous.)

I am thankful for:

(in no particular order)
Clean water, that I do not have to boil or treat to drink
That all my food, clothes, and shelter needs have been met
That I have a job, especially one that pays my bills
Internet
Dark Chocolate

Chick flicks
My family

Time spent playing with my family

Laughter
My p. partners

All the technological help from my brother
The really cool place that I will move to in January
That I can carry the Word as I travel
That I don’t have to change my appearance or the clothes I normally wear in my new culture
Your support

Airplanes, so I can travel fast

(still working on being thankful for airports)
Wonderful Friends!
That all my needs are met by the only one who can meet all my needs, before I even know what they are!
The Orientation experience

Lunches at Red Lobster with mom!
My personal relationship with Him

Hope

My dad's lap

Y O U

Who are you and who am I?

This week, we spent on anthropology, worldviews, and finally who we were as individuals. I learned a lot about the people I will be working with and how they think and process information and their environment. There really is a reason why they do what they do, even if it seems weird at first to us Westerns!

We all took the Myers-Briggs test and I am an ISTJ, as I predicted, although I am not extreme in any area. This stands for Introvert, Sensing, Thinking, and Judging (as opposed to extrovert, intuition, feeling, perceiving). This means I am responsible, dependable, practical, realistic (I get that from mom), and objective and logical, calm, orderly, prefer facts over ideas, detailed, accurate, and an organizer (agendas-though I get from dad!). I can relate to the president of the company--if I get something done today that was not on my list, I have to write it on the list so that I can mark it off! They had a list off all the prayers for the people of the different categories, and mine is "Lord, help me to relax about insignificant details beginning tomorrow at 11:41:23 AM EST." LOL :)

So, I am learning who I am and who the people are that I will be working with all so that we can communicate and work together better. One tip I got today was to take advantage of the first 2 weeks I am in country to make mistakes and be the tourist, the people are more lenient in the beginning. In the past, I think I have been too afraid that I would do something offensive in new cultures, so I was afraid to do much. But now I know that my first week I need to do everything! That way I can get all my mistakes over with, or at least several while the people are more forgiving! So, I need to overcome my introversion and DIVE IN!

Nature Walk

This week was also really good. I continue to learn more each day at training. However, I was very thankful that today was a day off. TGIweekends! After sleeping in to 9, which is much later than the normal 5:30AM alarm clock Monday through Friday, I spent some time reading and then decided to go on a walk. I wanted to post pictures of the beautiful landscape around campus, but I had left my camera at home, so my parents graciously sent me a little package this week with my camera, and some warmer clothes. Thank you!


So this morning I went on a little nature walk, to take pictures to share with you. Although it was probably not really great exercise cause I kept stopping to take pictures, I am still counting it towards for as apart of my fitness report for the week! Yep, that right we have weekly fitness reports, it is not anything too difficult, and it is a good thing, but still I have never had to report my weekly fitness activities to my employer before! Anyways, just click the link and you can take a little walk with me around the campus! http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023778&l=f31ba&id=79800981 The one below is just a little preview. Enjoy!

Eye Opener

So, this week has been really eye opening in training. I have learned alot, and can see things that I thought I already knew in a different light.

I made it off campus with different groups to the VP's house for ice cream and one of our director's houses for dinner. We had 98 people at our dinner, and that was just the singles under 30!

Tomorrow I will go to a tea for the ladies going to the same region as me, and we are all going to where cultural clothes which will be fun. (For my job in my city though, I will not wear cultural clothes-pretty much normal business clothes.)

I can't really think of anything special to report right now, but I wanted to let you know that I had not forgotten. I will update ya tomorrow if I think of anything else.