Before preparing to move to Kazakhstan, I had never really bothered with frequent flyer mile programs. I think I signed up for one years ago, but never accrued enough miles to benefit, and just got bored with the whole thing. But after we accepted our job offers in Kazakhstan, someone suggested that we look into frequent flyer miles, and it made sense to me, since we would be earning a lot of miles over a fairly short period of time.
So we signed up for a program with Star Alliance, and most of our flights home were with its member airlines. I checked after every flight to make sure more miles were added to my total, but didn't really understand how to redeem them for anything.
Fast forward to our return to the US. Two of our closest friends we made in Kazakhstan got married while they were planning their move out there, and planned to have a larger wedding party for this coming summer. The celebration will be in England, where they are from. We decided that if at least one of us had at least a job offer by that time that we would try to go. I was fortunate to start working pretty quickly, but living in the DC area has a funny way of eating up income pretty quickly, so I decided it was time to figure out how to use our frequent flyer miles.
I checked my account, and, to my delight, found that I had (and by extension, Scott would have) enough miles for a one-way trip between North America and Europe. But then how would I book the other half a round-trip ticket? And how would I book for both of us?
I decided to experiment. I started a booking to see if there was any way to input two account numbers so that I could combine our miles and book for both me and Scott at one time. Nope. I then tried to book a round-trip ticket just for myself, and was invited to purchase the additional miles I would need, to the tune of around $1,000. Um, no thanks.
It looked like we would have to each book a one-way ticket separately in order to use our miles, and then book another one-way ticket together to pay with "real" money. Scott had scoped out one-way ticket prices and found that return tickets were more expensive. So we sat side by side with our laptops and booked the return trip tickets together. We even managed to book seats next to each other. I was surprised that we had to pay some money for those tickets even though we supposedly had enough miles to cover the tickets, but maybe I should have been, considering that airlines are stingy even with cheap snacks these days.
Then we booked our tickets to fly to England together. Being a frequent flyer mile novice, I have no idea if the somewhat convoluted process we used to book our tickets was the best one. But we did save a considerable amount of money over what we would have paid to purchase round-trip tickets without any miles. And frankly, flying between the US and Kazakhstan several times a year was very taxing, and I was glad to have a tangible benefit come from it. I doubt we'll accrue this many miles again anytime soon, but I'll certainly keep any eye on how many miles we do earn, with the hope of more affordable travel in the future.
Showing posts with label Kazakhstan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kazakhstan. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Monday, April 25, 2016
So You Want To Work Abroad: Lifestyle
Working somewhere is a reality for most of us, and I don't think too many people get through their careers without having had a job at some point that wasn't their "dream" job. But just because most of us need to make money doesn't mean that what you want out of life doesn't matter, or that you should stay at a less than ideal job for longer than necessary. Jobs outside your home country needn't necessarily be any better or worse than jobs inside your home country from that standpoint, but being outside your comfort zone and away from your usual support network may make the experience more challenging. Based on my own experience, here are some points that may be worth considering:
1. Working abroad is probably easier if you really want to do it. Scott and I did a lot of travel when we were younger, and I think some people assumed that our move to Kazakhstan for work was an encore to meeting in Egypt, spending time together in Syria, and moving to Jerusalem for a year shortly after getting married. The truth is that while we were not opposed to working abroad, we also weren't chomping at the bit to do it. The other truth is that we did not specifically seek out going to Kazakhstan; we went for the job opportunities, not the country per se. I'm glad that we went, but I also think some of the more challenging moments would have been easier if I had honestly been able to tell myself that I had always wanted to go there.
2. Find out as much as you can about where you will really be living. When we accepted our Kazakhstan job offers, we were living in a small town in the US. I was eager to live in a city again, even one where I didn't speak either of the official languages. Once I arrived, I found out that I would actually be living several miles outside downtown Astana, on the university compound, a living situation that lacked most of the amenities of city life and included quite a few aggravations of small town life.
3. Also, remember that free housing has drawbacks, as well as benefits. The obvious benefit, of course, is that you can save a lot more money if you're not paying rent. The drawback is that in turn, you will have no bargaining power at all because you can't threaten to move out and go someplace else. Also, you can't decide you want a larger place, a different location, etc., and actually make it happen. I don't want to rehash our housing issues here and now, but suffice to say that if I had some of the problems we had there in any apartment in the US, I would have moved out.
4. Think realistically about the language situation. Is a language you speak widely spoken where you are going? Great! If not, is the official language something you would like to learn? If someone gave you the money and time to learn a foreign language, would that one be the one you would choose? Would it land anywhere in your top five languages to learn? Does your employer provide language training? Scott and I started taking Russian classes, but didn't continue. I think it's safe to say that Russian was not among our top five languages to learn, and it was taking up a lot of time, a precious commodity that we thought would be better spent on other endeavors. I have mixed feelings about stopping Russian classes now. It would be cool if I had learned more Russian while I was over there, and our lives might have been easier while we were there. But everything has trade-offs. I would have actually loved to have learned some Kazakh, but there were no obvious opportunities to do so.
5. If you are going with a significant other or your family, talk beforehand about what action you will take if circumstances at your overseas job are not what you had envisioned. It's not a happy topic, but it could happen. Are there circumstances that you, your significant other, or other family members would find untenable? Are you comfortable terminating your job contract early? Are you comfortable with one person returning to their home country while the other person stays? Is there a maximum length of time you want to spend there, even if you don't have a job offer elsewhere?
6. Investigate education options for your kids. Not having kids, I can't speak in detail on this one, but just be aware that there will likely be trade-offs in terms of education. A major benefit--which for some families may outweigh any potential drawbacks--is the opportunity for the kid(s) to become very fluent in the local language. But their education will likely be different in other ways. They may learn very different attitudes about gender roles or events in world history, for instance. Some educational systems value "outside the box" thinking even at the expense of accuracy. Others place a premium on memorizing facts. It is worth thinking about what you would like to see in your children's education, and think about what course of action you could take if you turn out to be dissatisfied with the education they receive overseas.
I'll write some tips on dealing with worldly possessions and moving sometime soon...until then, wishing everyone jobs in their dream country with comfortable free housing!
1. Working abroad is probably easier if you really want to do it. Scott and I did a lot of travel when we were younger, and I think some people assumed that our move to Kazakhstan for work was an encore to meeting in Egypt, spending time together in Syria, and moving to Jerusalem for a year shortly after getting married. The truth is that while we were not opposed to working abroad, we also weren't chomping at the bit to do it. The other truth is that we did not specifically seek out going to Kazakhstan; we went for the job opportunities, not the country per se. I'm glad that we went, but I also think some of the more challenging moments would have been easier if I had honestly been able to tell myself that I had always wanted to go there.
2. Find out as much as you can about where you will really be living. When we accepted our Kazakhstan job offers, we were living in a small town in the US. I was eager to live in a city again, even one where I didn't speak either of the official languages. Once I arrived, I found out that I would actually be living several miles outside downtown Astana, on the university compound, a living situation that lacked most of the amenities of city life and included quite a few aggravations of small town life.
3. Also, remember that free housing has drawbacks, as well as benefits. The obvious benefit, of course, is that you can save a lot more money if you're not paying rent. The drawback is that in turn, you will have no bargaining power at all because you can't threaten to move out and go someplace else. Also, you can't decide you want a larger place, a different location, etc., and actually make it happen. I don't want to rehash our housing issues here and now, but suffice to say that if I had some of the problems we had there in any apartment in the US, I would have moved out.
4. Think realistically about the language situation. Is a language you speak widely spoken where you are going? Great! If not, is the official language something you would like to learn? If someone gave you the money and time to learn a foreign language, would that one be the one you would choose? Would it land anywhere in your top five languages to learn? Does your employer provide language training? Scott and I started taking Russian classes, but didn't continue. I think it's safe to say that Russian was not among our top five languages to learn, and it was taking up a lot of time, a precious commodity that we thought would be better spent on other endeavors. I have mixed feelings about stopping Russian classes now. It would be cool if I had learned more Russian while I was over there, and our lives might have been easier while we were there. But everything has trade-offs. I would have actually loved to have learned some Kazakh, but there were no obvious opportunities to do so.
5. If you are going with a significant other or your family, talk beforehand about what action you will take if circumstances at your overseas job are not what you had envisioned. It's not a happy topic, but it could happen. Are there circumstances that you, your significant other, or other family members would find untenable? Are you comfortable terminating your job contract early? Are you comfortable with one person returning to their home country while the other person stays? Is there a maximum length of time you want to spend there, even if you don't have a job offer elsewhere?
6. Investigate education options for your kids. Not having kids, I can't speak in detail on this one, but just be aware that there will likely be trade-offs in terms of education. A major benefit--which for some families may outweigh any potential drawbacks--is the opportunity for the kid(s) to become very fluent in the local language. But their education will likely be different in other ways. They may learn very different attitudes about gender roles or events in world history, for instance. Some educational systems value "outside the box" thinking even at the expense of accuracy. Others place a premium on memorizing facts. It is worth thinking about what you would like to see in your children's education, and think about what course of action you could take if you turn out to be dissatisfied with the education they receive overseas.
I'll write some tips on dealing with worldly possessions and moving sometime soon...until then, wishing everyone jobs in their dream country with comfortable free housing!
Saturday, April 16, 2016
So You Want To Work Abroad: Health And Money
It probably won't come as a surprise to anyone that health and money are sometimes related. Our story isn't very dramatic, I'm happy to say, but it does bring up some points to keep in mind if you are considering working abroad.
When we were offered our jobs in Kazakhstan, one of the benefits we were told we'd receive was no cost global health coverage. I assumed this meant that we could take care of our routine check ups, blood work, prescription refills, etc., in the US and pay some sort of a co-pay. This impression was corroborated by our employer advising us to bring a six-month supply of any prescription drugs we needed to take. If they were specifically telling us to take care of some portion of our health care in our home countries, that must have meant that we were going to have insurance that worked there, right?
Not exactly. After we arrived in Kazakhstan, they told us during orientation that in the US, our health coverage was good only for emergencies during the first 28 days of any visit. I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under us. First of all, we anticipated some of our visits home being longer than 28 days. Secondly, what exactly did the word "emergency" mean? I knew we could pay for routine check ups, etc., out of pocket, but what about non-emergency (but medically advisable) surgeries? What if one of us got sick and needed expensive tests of some sort or another? I had a health scare a few years ago, so I have an idea of how quickly the tests (and costs) can pile up.
Another interesting wrinkle to this policy is that it meant that even if your initial medical emergency in the US was covered, follow-up care might not be. We know of at least one person who learned this lesson the hard way.
Of course, you always hope to not need to use your insurance coverage, but medical care is so expensive in the US that we thought it would be too risky to go without better coverage. One medical emergency without proper coverage could have wiped out all the money we hoped to save over there (and possible more). The first thing we tried to do was to sign up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). Unfortunately, we learned that to sign up in North Carolina, which we were using as our base of operations, we would have to physically reside there for at least six months out of the year.
Fortunately, we were eligible for COBRA coverage from Scott's previous job. Unfortunately, that ended up costing us around $1,100 per month, an amount that largely negated the benefit of free rent, in my opinion.
Obviously, every job will offer somewhat different benefits, every country has a somewhat different healthcare system, and every individual has a different level of comfort with seeking care outside his/her home country. That being said, here are some questions that might be worth mulling over if you are considering working abroad:
1. Do you want to have the option of receiving medical care in your home country while you work abroad?
2. If so, do you have insurance that will support that? Do you have any other options for coverage (COBRA, etc.)?
3. Do you have the funds to travel home in an emergency if you decide you want medical care there, but your insurance does not deem it medically necessary for you to go out of country?
4. Would you be comfortable having a doctor with whom you may not share a common language? A medical interpreter whose credentials you can't verify?
5. Are you comfortable accepting medicine or other treatment that may differ from the standard treatment in your home country?
6. Do you take any prescription drugs? If so, are there any legal or logistical hurdles to bringing a large supply with you? Remember that a medication that may be seen as fairly innocuous in one country may be viewed with suspicion in another. Oh, and as a tip, if you need a several-month supply or your prescription medicine, be sure not to wait until the last minute to get it. I used to work in a pharmacy, so this was something I already knew, but I was glad I started in advance. Even if you are dealing with a conscientious pharmacist, he/she may need some time to work things out with the insurance company or order additional supplies of your medication. If you are not dealing with a conscientious pharmacist, you may make repeated trips to the pharmacy, find out that nothing has been done with your prescription, and ultimately have to stand there and yell at him/her in order to get it done.
7. Do you have any medical dietary restrictions? If so, how easy will it be to follow your diet in the country where you plan to work?
Money is another topic to think consider, especially since the potential to save money is often a draw to jobs overseas. We did manage to save money, but there are some sneaky ways that money can get away from you. Here are some that come to mind:
1. Additional health insurance coverage. Enough said on that topic.
2. Assuming that you are being paid in the local currency and to a foreign bank account, exchanging the local currency for your home country's currency, and then transferring it to your home bank account eats up some money. Also, be very careful about unstable currencies. We always exchanged our tenge for dollars as quickly as we could once we were paid, out of fear of a devaluation. Also, find out what you can about how your employer handles a devaluation. Kazakhstan's central bank decided to let the tenge "float" during our last semester there, which resulted in an immediate and sharp drop in its value.
3. Buying things you don't already have that you plan to use over there. We had to beef up our winter clothing, and Scott in particular needed to purchase research materials that he wouldn't have access to out there.
4. Transporting your stuff. We had an allowance for shipping household goods. I'll write more about this another time, but suffice to say for now that we ended up exceeding it. We didn't exceed it by much with the actual shipping, but then we were charged an arm and a leg in customs fees. Also, if you're doing stuff like shipping research materials back and forth or traveling with additional bags, those fees add up, too.
5. Taxes in your home country. US taxpayers, if you plan to take advantage of the tax break on foreign income, be sure to know how many days you can be in the US each year. We didn't look into this very closely before we went. For a variety of reasons, I don't think we would have done anything differently, but we did just end up paying a largish chunk of change in taxes here. So this is something to be aware of. Also keep in mind that you may be taxed on certain benefits (plane tickets home, shipping allowances, etc.). In our case, at least, these were reported as income on the earnings documents our employer provided.
6. Treating yourself when the going gets tough. This one probably won't apply to everyone. If you end up getting a job someplace where you speak the language, the climate is nice, the cuisine is world famous, and there is plenty to see and do around you, you might not feel very stressed out. And...some of things things weren't the case in our situation. We spent a good amount of money traveling as a reward to ourselves. This was fine--it was something we planned to do, and we'll have lasting wonderful memories of it--but it costs money just the same. Sometimes people also treat themselves by going out to eat or drink a lot, shopping, etc., and all of those things add up.
7. Storing any stuff you neither got rid of nor brought with you.
Wishing everyone job offers in sunny, happy locations for now!
When we were offered our jobs in Kazakhstan, one of the benefits we were told we'd receive was no cost global health coverage. I assumed this meant that we could take care of our routine check ups, blood work, prescription refills, etc., in the US and pay some sort of a co-pay. This impression was corroborated by our employer advising us to bring a six-month supply of any prescription drugs we needed to take. If they were specifically telling us to take care of some portion of our health care in our home countries, that must have meant that we were going to have insurance that worked there, right?
Not exactly. After we arrived in Kazakhstan, they told us during orientation that in the US, our health coverage was good only for emergencies during the first 28 days of any visit. I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under us. First of all, we anticipated some of our visits home being longer than 28 days. Secondly, what exactly did the word "emergency" mean? I knew we could pay for routine check ups, etc., out of pocket, but what about non-emergency (but medically advisable) surgeries? What if one of us got sick and needed expensive tests of some sort or another? I had a health scare a few years ago, so I have an idea of how quickly the tests (and costs) can pile up.
Another interesting wrinkle to this policy is that it meant that even if your initial medical emergency in the US was covered, follow-up care might not be. We know of at least one person who learned this lesson the hard way.
Of course, you always hope to not need to use your insurance coverage, but medical care is so expensive in the US that we thought it would be too risky to go without better coverage. One medical emergency without proper coverage could have wiped out all the money we hoped to save over there (and possible more). The first thing we tried to do was to sign up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). Unfortunately, we learned that to sign up in North Carolina, which we were using as our base of operations, we would have to physically reside there for at least six months out of the year.
Fortunately, we were eligible for COBRA coverage from Scott's previous job. Unfortunately, that ended up costing us around $1,100 per month, an amount that largely negated the benefit of free rent, in my opinion.
Obviously, every job will offer somewhat different benefits, every country has a somewhat different healthcare system, and every individual has a different level of comfort with seeking care outside his/her home country. That being said, here are some questions that might be worth mulling over if you are considering working abroad:
1. Do you want to have the option of receiving medical care in your home country while you work abroad?
2. If so, do you have insurance that will support that? Do you have any other options for coverage (COBRA, etc.)?
3. Do you have the funds to travel home in an emergency if you decide you want medical care there, but your insurance does not deem it medically necessary for you to go out of country?
4. Would you be comfortable having a doctor with whom you may not share a common language? A medical interpreter whose credentials you can't verify?
5. Are you comfortable accepting medicine or other treatment that may differ from the standard treatment in your home country?
6. Do you take any prescription drugs? If so, are there any legal or logistical hurdles to bringing a large supply with you? Remember that a medication that may be seen as fairly innocuous in one country may be viewed with suspicion in another. Oh, and as a tip, if you need a several-month supply or your prescription medicine, be sure not to wait until the last minute to get it. I used to work in a pharmacy, so this was something I already knew, but I was glad I started in advance. Even if you are dealing with a conscientious pharmacist, he/she may need some time to work things out with the insurance company or order additional supplies of your medication. If you are not dealing with a conscientious pharmacist, you may make repeated trips to the pharmacy, find out that nothing has been done with your prescription, and ultimately have to stand there and yell at him/her in order to get it done.
7. Do you have any medical dietary restrictions? If so, how easy will it be to follow your diet in the country where you plan to work?
Money is another topic to think consider, especially since the potential to save money is often a draw to jobs overseas. We did manage to save money, but there are some sneaky ways that money can get away from you. Here are some that come to mind:
1. Additional health insurance coverage. Enough said on that topic.
2. Assuming that you are being paid in the local currency and to a foreign bank account, exchanging the local currency for your home country's currency, and then transferring it to your home bank account eats up some money. Also, be very careful about unstable currencies. We always exchanged our tenge for dollars as quickly as we could once we were paid, out of fear of a devaluation. Also, find out what you can about how your employer handles a devaluation. Kazakhstan's central bank decided to let the tenge "float" during our last semester there, which resulted in an immediate and sharp drop in its value.
3. Buying things you don't already have that you plan to use over there. We had to beef up our winter clothing, and Scott in particular needed to purchase research materials that he wouldn't have access to out there.
4. Transporting your stuff. We had an allowance for shipping household goods. I'll write more about this another time, but suffice to say for now that we ended up exceeding it. We didn't exceed it by much with the actual shipping, but then we were charged an arm and a leg in customs fees. Also, if you're doing stuff like shipping research materials back and forth or traveling with additional bags, those fees add up, too.
5. Taxes in your home country. US taxpayers, if you plan to take advantage of the tax break on foreign income, be sure to know how many days you can be in the US each year. We didn't look into this very closely before we went. For a variety of reasons, I don't think we would have done anything differently, but we did just end up paying a largish chunk of change in taxes here. So this is something to be aware of. Also keep in mind that you may be taxed on certain benefits (plane tickets home, shipping allowances, etc.). In our case, at least, these were reported as income on the earnings documents our employer provided.
6. Treating yourself when the going gets tough. This one probably won't apply to everyone. If you end up getting a job someplace where you speak the language, the climate is nice, the cuisine is world famous, and there is plenty to see and do around you, you might not feel very stressed out. And...some of things things weren't the case in our situation. We spent a good amount of money traveling as a reward to ourselves. This was fine--it was something we planned to do, and we'll have lasting wonderful memories of it--but it costs money just the same. Sometimes people also treat themselves by going out to eat or drink a lot, shopping, etc., and all of those things add up.
7. Storing any stuff you neither got rid of nor brought with you.
Wishing everyone job offers in sunny, happy locations for now!
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Sushi Burritos!
Not all that long ago--but pretty far away--I first had the idea to eat a sushi burrito. I was walking through Almaty's Green Bazaar, and saw uncut sushi rolls for sale. I was hungry, and they looked delicious, so I wanted to buy one and just eat it like a burrito. I didn't, and to this day, I don't know if this was an amazing culinary opportunity missed or food poisoning safely avoided. So imagine my excitement when I found out that sushi burritos were actually a "thing" here!
I read about a sushi burrito restaurant called Buredo in the Express newspaper, and knew I had to try it. Scott was a good sport and went along with me on Saturday. The line was out the door when we got there, and my heart sank, but they processed everyone very efficiently. I could see when I got to the head of the line that someone in the back was preparing sheets of nori with a thin layer of rice which could then be filled with fish, veggies, etc.
The end product was a little different from the sushi burrito I almost ate in Kazakhstan--it was much thicker, like a regular burrito. This was probably a good thing, since a regular uncut sushi roll probably wouldn't be enough for lunch. And it was delicious. Mine had plenty of salmon sashimi, which is one of my favorite things.
Buredo is far enough away from where I live and work that I doubt it'll become a regular haunt for me, but I'll certainly go back when I'm in the neighborhood. It's not often that I get to make up for a meal that I failed to eat!
I read about a sushi burrito restaurant called Buredo in the Express newspaper, and knew I had to try it. Scott was a good sport and went along with me on Saturday. The line was out the door when we got there, and my heart sank, but they processed everyone very efficiently. I could see when I got to the head of the line that someone in the back was preparing sheets of nori with a thin layer of rice which could then be filled with fish, veggies, etc.
The end product was a little different from the sushi burrito I almost ate in Kazakhstan--it was much thicker, like a regular burrito. This was probably a good thing, since a regular uncut sushi roll probably wouldn't be enough for lunch. And it was delicious. Mine had plenty of salmon sashimi, which is one of my favorite things.
Buredo is far enough away from where I live and work that I doubt it'll become a regular haunt for me, but I'll certainly go back when I'm in the neighborhood. It's not often that I get to make up for a meal that I failed to eat!
Thursday, March 31, 2016
So You Want To Work Abroad...
Does anyone remember a post I wrote a while back in which I alluded to moving? Well, it's probably time to share the reason behind that move. We moved because I was offered a job in the DC area. Scott and I have resigned from our jobs in Kazakhstan, and will not be going back there.
When we first accepted our job offers in Kazakhstan, we planned to stay there for at least three years, and maybe longer. Part of me feels sorry that our plan didn't work out, particularly when I think about some of my students over there. But we also had good reasons for leaving, and in the end, very few decisions don't come with an element of regret.
It's funny thinking back on my expectations when we decided to work over there. I have very fond memories of studying abroad, and I thought working abroad would be similar, but with a salary. I started this blog in part because I imagined having all sorts of cool adventures and discoveries that I wanted to document. And there was some of that--along with an awful lot of life as usual, but without many of the comforts and conveniences of home.
Since I'm not going back, I thought I would write a small series of posts on working abroad. I realize, of course, that no two jobs anywhere are the same, and that even at the same job, everybody has their own individual experience. I'm also not trying to either encourage or discourage other people from working abroad. But I wanted to document some of my thoughts on the process and lessons learned (sometimes lessons learned the hard way) in case it would be useful to anyone else.
Since lessons learned the hard way often have an air of negativity to them, though, I thought I would use this post to list some of the very positive aspects of my experience there:
1. We met all sorts of interesting people. Between our colleagues and our students, we met a lot of great people, many of whom we may never have met otherwise. Isn't it funny how life works that way? You do something seemingly random, like taking a job in Kazakhstan, and end up gaining a social circle.
2. In spite of the constant interference from work and "real life," we took some great trips. Uzbekistan had been on my list of must-sees for a long time, but I don't know if I would have seen it if I hadn't already been so close. We saw some great things in Kazakhstan itself, too--particularly the flamingos and the Aksu Zhubagly nature preserve. Georgia hadn't even been on my radar until eating Georgian food in Astana,and I'm really glad we went! We chose Austria for our spring break trip last year in part because of the direct flight from Astana, and I'm very happy to have visited it, too. I had never seen Europe (aside from airports and the European half of Istanbul), and now I'm anxious to see more of it.
3. We were able to save some money more quickly that we would have in the US. Not having to pay rent makes saving much easier.
4. I got to stretch my wings professionally. My teaching experience prior to going to Kazakhstan consisted of having been an adjunct instructor for a year. Then, all of a sudden, I was starting a program and making all my own teaching decisions. I'm very grateful to have had that opportunity.
5. My attitude toward stuff has changed for the better. Having a massive forced de-cluttering session before moving to Kazakhstan and back to the US has changed the way I think about possessions. I doubt I'll ever be a hard-core minimalist (too many craft supplies, for one thing), but I am thinking much more carefully about both stocking up on anything "just in case" and holding on to stuff I'm not really using "just in case". I think I finally have it in my head that more stuff does not necessarily make life any easier.
Stay tuned for lessons learned and (possibly) helpful tips!
When we first accepted our job offers in Kazakhstan, we planned to stay there for at least three years, and maybe longer. Part of me feels sorry that our plan didn't work out, particularly when I think about some of my students over there. But we also had good reasons for leaving, and in the end, very few decisions don't come with an element of regret.
It's funny thinking back on my expectations when we decided to work over there. I have very fond memories of studying abroad, and I thought working abroad would be similar, but with a salary. I started this blog in part because I imagined having all sorts of cool adventures and discoveries that I wanted to document. And there was some of that--along with an awful lot of life as usual, but without many of the comforts and conveniences of home.
Since I'm not going back, I thought I would write a small series of posts on working abroad. I realize, of course, that no two jobs anywhere are the same, and that even at the same job, everybody has their own individual experience. I'm also not trying to either encourage or discourage other people from working abroad. But I wanted to document some of my thoughts on the process and lessons learned (sometimes lessons learned the hard way) in case it would be useful to anyone else.
Since lessons learned the hard way often have an air of negativity to them, though, I thought I would use this post to list some of the very positive aspects of my experience there:
1. We met all sorts of interesting people. Between our colleagues and our students, we met a lot of great people, many of whom we may never have met otherwise. Isn't it funny how life works that way? You do something seemingly random, like taking a job in Kazakhstan, and end up gaining a social circle.
2. In spite of the constant interference from work and "real life," we took some great trips. Uzbekistan had been on my list of must-sees for a long time, but I don't know if I would have seen it if I hadn't already been so close. We saw some great things in Kazakhstan itself, too--particularly the flamingos and the Aksu Zhubagly nature preserve. Georgia hadn't even been on my radar until eating Georgian food in Astana,and I'm really glad we went! We chose Austria for our spring break trip last year in part because of the direct flight from Astana, and I'm very happy to have visited it, too. I had never seen Europe (aside from airports and the European half of Istanbul), and now I'm anxious to see more of it.
3. We were able to save some money more quickly that we would have in the US. Not having to pay rent makes saving much easier.
4. I got to stretch my wings professionally. My teaching experience prior to going to Kazakhstan consisted of having been an adjunct instructor for a year. Then, all of a sudden, I was starting a program and making all my own teaching decisions. I'm very grateful to have had that opportunity.
5. My attitude toward stuff has changed for the better. Having a massive forced de-cluttering session before moving to Kazakhstan and back to the US has changed the way I think about possessions. I doubt I'll ever be a hard-core minimalist (too many craft supplies, for one thing), but I am thinking much more carefully about both stocking up on anything "just in case" and holding on to stuff I'm not really using "just in case". I think I finally have it in my head that more stuff does not necessarily make life any easier.
Stay tuned for lessons learned and (possibly) helpful tips!
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Styrofoam Shark Teeth
A friend of ours who is still in Kazakhstan was kind enough to send us a box of things we needed, which arrived here the other day. He took it to the campus UPS store, which provides boxes and packing material. From our own experience shipping from there, the employees are very conscientious about helping customers with the packing process, so it wasn't too surprising that they had been generous with the packing material. What did interest me was what the packing material looked like.
These pieces of packing material were made of styrofoam, which in and of itself is somewhat noteworthy these days in the US. Styrofoam packing material seems to have largely fallen out of favor here, for any number of very good reasons. I'd sort of forgotten how to deal with it when it does arrive. Even after we took out our belongings, the box appeared to be almost full of these little styrofoam pieces. How does that even happen? And more to the point, how were we going to dispose of them, living as we do in a building with fairly narrow trash chutes that couldn't possibly accommodate a large box filled with styrofoam?
We resorted to having Scott use our snow shovel to scoop the styrofoam pieces out of the box and dump them into garbage bags that I was holding open. We filled two entire garbage bags, one of which burst open as soon as I dropped it down the trash chute. Sigh.
Usually, at least in the US, we refer to this particular variety of packing material as "styrofoam peanuts" because of their shape. These didn't seem to be particularly peanut-shaped, so I've decided to call them styrofoam shark teeth. I considered calling them styrofoam boomerangs, but was afraid that would encourage them to come back.
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| Exotic packing material from Kazakhstan |
We resorted to having Scott use our snow shovel to scoop the styrofoam pieces out of the box and dump them into garbage bags that I was holding open. We filled two entire garbage bags, one of which burst open as soon as I dropped it down the trash chute. Sigh.
Usually, at least in the US, we refer to this particular variety of packing material as "styrofoam peanuts" because of their shape. These didn't seem to be particularly peanut-shaped, so I've decided to call them styrofoam shark teeth. I considered calling them styrofoam boomerangs, but was afraid that would encourage them to come back.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Happy To Be Home
We left our apartment in Astana to go to the airport early in the morning last Saturday. Ever since this trip, flying out of Astana has made me very nervous. Having a flight canceled and needing to return to our apartment would have been a particularly unwelcome development in this case since we had already gotten rid of our food in preparation for our leave of absence. I decided that my main goal for the day was to leave Kazakhstan, and that I would try not to worry too much about how long it took to actually get home.
It was probably good that I didn't set the expectation bar too high because we had a very Kazakhstan-esque (or at least Astana-esque) exit from the country. Not only did our plane need to be de-iced when it came in from Austria, but the high winds made it impossible to get it de-iced. So after they boarded us late, we sat on the runway for a couple of hours, waiting for the winds to die down. We did eventually take off and land safely in Austria, but by the time we got there, we had already missed our connecting flight.
There were no more seats on flights to the US from Vienna that day, so we had to fly to Munich, and from there, to Newark. The flight to Munich was fine. The layover was short, but we didn't need to go through customs or security, so we had enough time. Newark was another story. By the time we got through customs and rechecked our bags, the TSA had closed one of its security lines. In order to cope with the influx of passenger in its other security line, the TSA instituted a cordoned-off multi-line system. We stood in one line...in order to get to another line...in order to get to the line where we actually removed shoes/belts/coats and ex-rayed our carry-on luggage. By that time, we were running against the clock, and the gate was far away. We took off in that direction...only to find out that there was a last minute gate change that would require running in the other direction. We then overshot the gate because it fell somewhat out of numerical order.
In the end, we had to beg to be allowed on the plane. The employee at the gate was convinced that we were garden-variety dopes who had simply failed to arrive at the airport two hours early (I ask myself here why information like what flights passengers are coming from isn't more readily available to these employees). Another gentleman joined us completely out of breath, having also come from an international flight. Even though my primary goal was to get out of Kazakhstan, I was relieved to not have to spend the night at Newark.
Scott and I are now happily ensconced in my parents' house and pathetically grateful to be out of the clutches of the airlines for the foreseeable future. Several of us in the house have colds at this point, but even being sick is a bit easier at home. We are happy to be home, and anticipating a very merry Christmas tomorrow.
It was probably good that I didn't set the expectation bar too high because we had a very Kazakhstan-esque (or at least Astana-esque) exit from the country. Not only did our plane need to be de-iced when it came in from Austria, but the high winds made it impossible to get it de-iced. So after they boarded us late, we sat on the runway for a couple of hours, waiting for the winds to die down. We did eventually take off and land safely in Austria, but by the time we got there, we had already missed our connecting flight.
There were no more seats on flights to the US from Vienna that day, so we had to fly to Munich, and from there, to Newark. The flight to Munich was fine. The layover was short, but we didn't need to go through customs or security, so we had enough time. Newark was another story. By the time we got through customs and rechecked our bags, the TSA had closed one of its security lines. In order to cope with the influx of passenger in its other security line, the TSA instituted a cordoned-off multi-line system. We stood in one line...in order to get to another line...in order to get to the line where we actually removed shoes/belts/coats and ex-rayed our carry-on luggage. By that time, we were running against the clock, and the gate was far away. We took off in that direction...only to find out that there was a last minute gate change that would require running in the other direction. We then overshot the gate because it fell somewhat out of numerical order.
In the end, we had to beg to be allowed on the plane. The employee at the gate was convinced that we were garden-variety dopes who had simply failed to arrive at the airport two hours early (I ask myself here why information like what flights passengers are coming from isn't more readily available to these employees). Another gentleman joined us completely out of breath, having also come from an international flight. Even though my primary goal was to get out of Kazakhstan, I was relieved to not have to spend the night at Newark.
Scott and I are now happily ensconced in my parents' house and pathetically grateful to be out of the clutches of the airlines for the foreseeable future. Several of us in the house have colds at this point, but even being sick is a bit easier at home. We are happy to be home, and anticipating a very merry Christmas tomorrow.
Friday, December 11, 2015
A Pack of Un-showered Academics Coming to a Civilized Restaurant Near You
Our apartment here loses water more often than any other place I have ever lived. The only rival for this honor is the apartment where I spent a summer in Jordan years ago. Jordan is a country with frequent water shortages; I'm not entirely sure what the problem is here.
We lost water around 10:30 on Wednesday evening. When I brushed my teeth, it was fine. When Scott went to brush his teeth, it was gone. I always get antsy when this happens because we never know what to expect. Sometimes it's out for just a few hours, and when that happens at night, it could be fine by the morning. Sometimes it's out for considerably longer, though, and very little information is communicated to us about what to expect.
Scott had to get up early for a work function that started at 7 AM (!). No water at that point, so he had to go stumbling out in the cold without the benefit of a hot shower. I got excited when, a few minutes before 7, I heard water in the pipes. I turned on the faucet, and it was running again! The water is usually yellow or brown when it starts running after being off for a while, though, so I did not immediately leap into the shower, thinking that I'd have time to let the water run clear and still get a shower before needing to give a final exam at 1 PM. But about a half hour later, when I tried to turn on the faucet again, the water was gone.
I figured maybe I would wait it out. I fixed myself breakfast because I was hungry, and wanted to eat before the shower I would surely get to take before giving my exam. Still no water, but I created a few icky dishes with food congealing on them.
As the morning wore on, I tried to get some things done, but I kept being distracted by the water situation, and getting up to try turning on the faucet. Then I had to give myself a time limit for the water coming back on. It takes time to walk to my office these days because of all the slick walkways, and going outside with dripping wet hair is not the best idea. At around 11 AM, I received an email saying to expect the water to be out all day. Grimly, I resigned myself to a sponge bath (made possible with tap water I had stockpiled in old bottles after having been subjected to a few too many water outages) and headed to campus. At least there, there would be flushable toilets.
Maybe it shows how spoiled I am that not having a shower would cast such a shadow over my day. But it did. It's hard to feel as if I project any authority when I feel like stench waves are radiating from my body like in the cartoons. Then there was the thought of food congealing to my dishes at home. I'm not a great housekeeper, but the thought of a mess getting worse as time goes on really bugs me.
Sometime in the afternoon, a friend of ours suggested a group outing to Kakao Dak, a local Korean restaurant. The main branch of Kakao Dak is located a ways from the university, in a large complex where faculty who either (a) have been here for several years, or (b) occupy higher positions, live. So, a big, un-showered group of us piled on to the university shuttle that takes the people who live there home at the end of the day. We then proceeded to take our unwashed selves to Kakao Dak and drown our sorrows in Korean-style fried chicken. Fortunately, Kakao Dak wasn't very crowded. I think we inspire mixed reactions from the locals even under better circumstances, and it's hard to see how descending un-showered on a restaurant would improve our image. (In my opinion, it was completely worth it to avoid the problem of more dirty dishes that couldn't be washed, however).
I was pathetically grateful when the water came back on in the evening. Having running water in one's home is such a convenience, and I can only imagine the resourcefulness required of people who do not have that. That being said, I'm looking forward to what I imagine will be fewer water outages next semester while we are on leave.
We lost water around 10:30 on Wednesday evening. When I brushed my teeth, it was fine. When Scott went to brush his teeth, it was gone. I always get antsy when this happens because we never know what to expect. Sometimes it's out for just a few hours, and when that happens at night, it could be fine by the morning. Sometimes it's out for considerably longer, though, and very little information is communicated to us about what to expect.
Scott had to get up early for a work function that started at 7 AM (!). No water at that point, so he had to go stumbling out in the cold without the benefit of a hot shower. I got excited when, a few minutes before 7, I heard water in the pipes. I turned on the faucet, and it was running again! The water is usually yellow or brown when it starts running after being off for a while, though, so I did not immediately leap into the shower, thinking that I'd have time to let the water run clear and still get a shower before needing to give a final exam at 1 PM. But about a half hour later, when I tried to turn on the faucet again, the water was gone.
I figured maybe I would wait it out. I fixed myself breakfast because I was hungry, and wanted to eat before the shower I would surely get to take before giving my exam. Still no water, but I created a few icky dishes with food congealing on them.
As the morning wore on, I tried to get some things done, but I kept being distracted by the water situation, and getting up to try turning on the faucet. Then I had to give myself a time limit for the water coming back on. It takes time to walk to my office these days because of all the slick walkways, and going outside with dripping wet hair is not the best idea. At around 11 AM, I received an email saying to expect the water to be out all day. Grimly, I resigned myself to a sponge bath (made possible with tap water I had stockpiled in old bottles after having been subjected to a few too many water outages) and headed to campus. At least there, there would be flushable toilets.
Maybe it shows how spoiled I am that not having a shower would cast such a shadow over my day. But it did. It's hard to feel as if I project any authority when I feel like stench waves are radiating from my body like in the cartoons. Then there was the thought of food congealing to my dishes at home. I'm not a great housekeeper, but the thought of a mess getting worse as time goes on really bugs me.
Sometime in the afternoon, a friend of ours suggested a group outing to Kakao Dak, a local Korean restaurant. The main branch of Kakao Dak is located a ways from the university, in a large complex where faculty who either (a) have been here for several years, or (b) occupy higher positions, live. So, a big, un-showered group of us piled on to the university shuttle that takes the people who live there home at the end of the day. We then proceeded to take our unwashed selves to Kakao Dak and drown our sorrows in Korean-style fried chicken. Fortunately, Kakao Dak wasn't very crowded. I think we inspire mixed reactions from the locals even under better circumstances, and it's hard to see how descending un-showered on a restaurant would improve our image. (In my opinion, it was completely worth it to avoid the problem of more dirty dishes that couldn't be washed, however).
I was pathetically grateful when the water came back on in the evening. Having running water in one's home is such a convenience, and I can only imagine the resourcefulness required of people who do not have that. That being said, I'm looking forward to what I imagine will be fewer water outages next semester while we are on leave.
Monday, December 7, 2015
Trilingual Tissues
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| Yep, that's snow outside my kitchen window! |
I've always had some trouble wrapping my mind around language use in Kazakhstan. Both Kazakh and Russian are widely spoken, but since I don't speak either one, I get only occasional insights into when each of them are used. I know that the government is working hard to increase usage of Kazakh. It also seems that some parts of the country prefer one language over another. When I traveled to southern Kazakhstan last spring, I was interested to hear from some of the Russian speakers I traveled with that some of the locals seemed to have trouble conversing with them in Russian.
Scott and I are taking a semester of unpaid leave in the spring, and one of my classes threw a lovely going-away party for me last week. The language situation in Kazakhstan was one of the topics we chatted about during the party. I asked them if they thought that the use of Kazakh was growing in Kazakhstan, and they thought it was. They told me that Kazakh pretty much disappeared as a language of instruction in most of the schools for a long time, and that the textbooks were in Russian. They said that even now, most films and literature are in Russian, so it was useful to maintain Russian skills. One student pointed out that it was also useful to have a way to communicate with people from other former Soviet republics.
One thing that I found particularly interesting is that the students said that while they often mixed Kazakh and Russian together when they talked, there were certain words that they always said in Russian. One student said that she had a four-year-old nephew who was saying those words in Kazakh because he heard them on a Kazakh cartoon show. So, it seems that Kazakhstan's language use is evolving over time.
Interestingly, one of my students also asked me if it was true that Americans speak Spanish as well as Kazakhstanis speak Russian. I had to reply that although Spanish is a popular language to study there, foreign language education in many parts of the US is very weak and many Americans did not think learning a second language was very important.
I do think American attitudes toward foreign language education are changing. I know some communities are starting foreign language classes in elementary school, and I know preschool foreign language immersion programs have become popular in some areas. But I will be surprised (and thrilled) the day I find an American equivalent of the trilingual tissue box I found in Kazakhstan.
Monday, November 30, 2015
Journey Into Insanity and Thanksgiving Adventures
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| One of Denver's cows! |
Scott and I went to Denver last week for a conference. The travel portion itself went about as well as could be expected. None of our flights were cancelled, like when we went to the same conference last year. We didn't have to sit next to anyone objectionable, like what happened when we flew back to Kazakhstan after our winter break last year. Still, though, it's an awful lot of time in planes and stumbling through airports between flights, with all sorts of opportunities for having jet lag and contracting minor diseases from our fellow passengers.
I used to adjust to new timezones very quickly, and never really understood the problem of jet lag. Now, I totally understand. I didn't do so badly in Denver itself. I woke up several times each night I was there, and felt wide awake each time, but always managed to get back to sleep. Coming back to Kazakhstan was another story. We returned late Wednesday night, and I got some sleep then. I then proceeded to put in a full day of work on Thursday, and thought for sure I would sleep soundly Thursday night. Wrong. I was up most of the night, and looking down the barrel of another full day of work on Friday. I'm so disappointed; I feel like I've been stripped of my only (somewhat) super power.
Regarding the diseases we had the opportunity to catch from our fellow passengers, Scott was sick with a cold most of the time we were in Denver, and is still recovering. I thought I might escape this one, but then I started coughing on Friday. It's the type of cold with a dry, itchy cough that seems completely impervious to any cough suppressant once I lie down, and I'm looking forward to recovering. I spent much of last night trying to arrange the neck pillow I take on long flights so I could sleep sitting up.
On the bright side, Scott's conference presentation went very well, we got to catch up with some old friends and colleagues, and we got to eat some of the foods we had been craving. While we didn't get to do as many Denver-specific activities as I might have hoped, the mountain views were very pretty. Also, we shipped some stuff to my parents' house and I got a flu shot. Try not to envy my glamorous lifestyle too much...
We celebrated Thanksgiving with some of our friends here on Saturday. Thursday was a regular work day here and many of us had been traveling, either to conferences, or on student recruiting trips. I volunteered to make a "pumpkin" pie out of butternut squash, using this recipe. I was excited to try making the pie with butternut squash, and we had most of the ingredients we needed. We didn't have any brandy on hand, but Scott suggested that local cognac would be a good alternative.
I had two problems: I didn't have a pie pan (or anything remotely similar), and though I've made pie crust before, I didn't feel like doing it in my kitchen here. Before we left for Denver, I purchased some sort of frozen pastry dough that I thought might work as a pie crust. I intended to buy one of those disposable aluminum pie pans while in the United States.
On our first morning in Denver, we trekked out to Whole Foods to eat at the breakfast bar and pick up some important provisions like peanut butter. I kept my eyes peeled for an aluminum pie pan, and didn't see one. What I did see were aluminum pie pans with graham cracker crusts. For some reason, it didn't occur to me to just buy one of those and use the crust they came with. I suppose my ability to reason was another casualty of jet lag, and I was kicking myself all day Saturday for not having purchased one of those. There were no supermarkets particularly close to our hotel in Denver, so our Whole Foods trip was our only chance to take care of that problem.
As Saturday approached, I emailed everyone in our Thanksgiving crowd to ask to borrow a pie pan. Our good friends/next door neighbors offered a silicone cake pan that they had baked a pie in, and I gratefully accepted it. On Saturday itself, though, I started having doubts. How would I get a crusted pie out of the silicone cake pan without having it crumble? Also, would one pie even be enough for a crowd?
I doubled the filling recipe to take care of the problem of feeding a crowd, but was still at a loss for how to make the pie. I did some looking on the internet, and came up with the idea of baking two things with the filling: crusted mini pies in my muffin tin, and a crustless larger pie in the silicone baking pan.
I used a coffee mug as a template to cut out circular pieces of pastry dough to line the muffin tins. I put it in the oven to bake. When I checked back, the pastry dough had puffed up like giant flaky muffins, way past the point of using them for pie crusts. So, that plan was obviously out.
My next plan was to bake two crustless pies, one inside the silicone cake pan and another inside a bread pan. The one inside the bread pan was obviously not going to look very pie-like, but I thought ensuring enough dessert for everyone was more important than appearance.
Amazingly, in spite of the improvisation, the two crustless "pies" turned out well. I would definitely make pie out of of butternut squash again. I like using canned pumpkin for baked goods when I'm back home, but I think the roasted pureed butternut squash was somewhat more flavorful. I'll look forward to having a pie pan and options for crust next time, though.
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Slippery Cakes Up Ahead!
I received the following in an email, written as usual in English, Russian and Kazakh:
Due to the weather conditions, roadways and sidewalks areas were covered with icing.
Ha! Icing would have been easier to walk through than what we actually had. Scott and I had been out of town, and returned to ice so hard and slippery that I was sliding around even in YakTrax. One of our friends told us there had been freezing rain in Astana right before we got back into town, which is unusual here. Usually, we get snow instead.
I know how difficult it is to learn foreign languages, and I would never want to make light of anyone's attempts to try, but I'm very comfortable calling this one a Google Translate tragedy. Just for fun, I plugged the Russian version of this email into Google Translate, and got the exact sentence that I saw in the English version of the email. Interestingly, that's exactly the sort of thing that I and other instructors and professors here have gotten after our students about. A cautionary tale on the importance of learning (i.e., studying and practicing) foreign languages, perhaps?
Due to the weather conditions, roadways and sidewalks areas were covered with icing.
Ha! Icing would have been easier to walk through than what we actually had. Scott and I had been out of town, and returned to ice so hard and slippery that I was sliding around even in YakTrax. One of our friends told us there had been freezing rain in Astana right before we got back into town, which is unusual here. Usually, we get snow instead.
I know how difficult it is to learn foreign languages, and I would never want to make light of anyone's attempts to try, but I'm very comfortable calling this one a Google Translate tragedy. Just for fun, I plugged the Russian version of this email into Google Translate, and got the exact sentence that I saw in the English version of the email. Interestingly, that's exactly the sort of thing that I and other instructors and professors here have gotten after our students about. A cautionary tale on the importance of learning (i.e., studying and practicing) foreign languages, perhaps?
Saturday, October 10, 2015
The Water Machine
We try to avoid drinking the tap water in Kazakhstan.
We actually never received any sort of "official" guidance on the water. But since our employer put hot/cold water dispensers in all of the offices and provides large bottles of water for them, I'm led to believe that everyone--locals and foreigners alike--is concerned about the quality of the tap water.
Since we never received any official guidance, we don't know with any certainty what the problems are with the water. Some people have told us it's heavy metals people are worried about, but we don't know where they may have heard that. Everybody seems to have their own system for dealing with this. I usually use tap water for cooking pasta, since I throw out so much of the water anyway, but bottled water for cooking anything else. I figure I'm probably getting some cooked tap water when I eat in the cafeteria or in restaurants, anyway.
I've lived in a lot of places where at least some of the people avoid drinking tap water, but this is the first place I've seen a machine like this.
You pay 10 tenge per liter (Kazakhstan's tenge is floating but today that is worth about 4 cents). So you can fill any size of container that will fit under the spout. I usually just fill 5 liter containers because they're big enough to last a while, but small enough that I can still carry two or three of them.
The first time I used this machine, I spent some time trying to decipher the Russian directions. Then I realized there were also English directions. Oops. Aside from my lack of attention to linguistic detail, it's pretty user-friendly. The water splashes a bit, but...it's just water. Also, the machine inexplicably rejects some coins. It's not a matter of denomination, so I wonder if it's a matter of older and newer versions of the same denomination of coin being slightly different in some way that the machine can discern but I can't.
I look forward to the day when I no longer have to worry about the tap water. But this machine is an okay way to get at least some of of our bottled water. And as a bonus, it is keeping our supply of small coins under control.
We actually never received any sort of "official" guidance on the water. But since our employer put hot/cold water dispensers in all of the offices and provides large bottles of water for them, I'm led to believe that everyone--locals and foreigners alike--is concerned about the quality of the tap water.
Since we never received any official guidance, we don't know with any certainty what the problems are with the water. Some people have told us it's heavy metals people are worried about, but we don't know where they may have heard that. Everybody seems to have their own system for dealing with this. I usually use tap water for cooking pasta, since I throw out so much of the water anyway, but bottled water for cooking anything else. I figure I'm probably getting some cooked tap water when I eat in the cafeteria or in restaurants, anyway.
I've lived in a lot of places where at least some of the people avoid drinking tap water, but this is the first place I've seen a machine like this.
You pay 10 tenge per liter (Kazakhstan's tenge is floating but today that is worth about 4 cents). So you can fill any size of container that will fit under the spout. I usually just fill 5 liter containers because they're big enough to last a while, but small enough that I can still carry two or three of them.
The first time I used this machine, I spent some time trying to decipher the Russian directions. Then I realized there were also English directions. Oops. Aside from my lack of attention to linguistic detail, it's pretty user-friendly. The water splashes a bit, but...it's just water. Also, the machine inexplicably rejects some coins. It's not a matter of denomination, so I wonder if it's a matter of older and newer versions of the same denomination of coin being slightly different in some way that the machine can discern but I can't.
I look forward to the day when I no longer have to worry about the tap water. But this machine is an okay way to get at least some of of our bottled water. And as a bonus, it is keeping our supply of small coins under control.
Sunday, October 4, 2015
The Clothing Conundrum
Today we went out to lunch with a couple of friends. We were planning to go on a walk in the park afterwards, but when we walked out of the restaurant, it was raining very lightly...with very heavy winds. So we walked ourselves over to the nearest mall for some coffee and highly caloric coffee shop desserts. That was almost as healthy of an option, right?
As the cold and the winds start to set in in Astana, I've been thinking a lot about clothing and how to dress around here. Before we came out here, I thought I had it all figured out: The warmer, the better, no exceptions. After all, I had read that Astana is the second coldest capital city in the world.
But here was the problem I didn't anticipate: The weather is certainly very cold outside in the winter (as well as large swaths of the fall and spring), but the temperatures inside, at least where we live and work, are almost always suffocatingly hot. Scott and I spent a good number of weekend days last winter wearing shorts and t-shirts inside our apartment, with the window open. And if anything, I tend to be more sensitive to the cold than the heat. In past workplaces, I always kept a sweater on hand. (On a related note, did anyone else read about how office thermostats are often set with men in mind?)
So, with that in mind, here are the lessons I learned last year about what types of clothing are useful--and what types are not--for this most fascinating climatic situation.
Useful: Silk long johns. Some days are cold enough that I, at least, need extra layers for my legs. Silk provides extra warmth while outdoors, without still feeling cool to the touch indoors.
Not useful: Synthetic long johns. Way too warm indoors. Ugh.
Useful: Jackets or sweaters than can be layered under a winter coat, but are not an integral part of an outfit. Layering is key some days to survive the short walk to work. But it's good to be able to peel off a lot of those layers once you're in the office.
Not useful: Heavy blazers or cardigans that are meant to "dress up" an outfit, and therefore be worn all day. I was so proud of myself when I found a wool sweater blazer on sale, too!
On a related note, lighter weight tops that are reputable enough looking on their own to not need a blazer on top are extremely useful.
Useful: Pants with enough room to layer long johns underneath if need be.
Not useful: Flannel-lined jeans. These are probably useful to winter sports enthusiasts, but they are way too hot indoors.
Useful: Work-out shorts. I have never worked out in such a hot gym in my life.
Not useful: Work-out pants. This is assuming, of course, that you don't have to go outside to access your gym.
Useful: Really warm winter boots.
Not useful: Very thick socks to wear with them. Admittedly, this will depend a lot on your boots. I bought myself a new pair of snow boots before coming out here, having had the same pair since college. My new snow boots are down-filled, and amazingly, were warm enough to wear all winter with just tights or trouser socks underneath. This is fine, since all of my super thick socks also date from college, so (a) I didn't spend money on them recently, (b) they're getting pretty floppy and not much fun to wear, and (c) it's easier to just change shoes at the office without also having to change socks.
Useful: A heavy duty hat that can't be blown off your head. I wasn't really sure what to do about hats before coming out here, but it quickly became clear that the hats I had brought out here were woefully insufficient. I ordered a down-filled hat with earflaps that fastens under my chin. It won't win any points for style, but it was a game changer in terms of my winter comfort.
Useful: A long coat with room to layer underneath. I'm not going to try to weigh in on which brands are best, but I think in this sort of climate, you do want something that covers a wide swath of your legs.
Useful: A balaclava or scarf you can wrap around your nose and mouth. Alas.
Useful: Heavy gloves or mittens. This probably goes without saying, but thin fleece gloves often won't cut it.
Useful: Yaktrax. They were a little bit of a nuisance, but I didn't fall once last winter!
Wishing everyone moderate, pleasant climates that don't require any clothing analysis!
As the cold and the winds start to set in in Astana, I've been thinking a lot about clothing and how to dress around here. Before we came out here, I thought I had it all figured out: The warmer, the better, no exceptions. After all, I had read that Astana is the second coldest capital city in the world.
But here was the problem I didn't anticipate: The weather is certainly very cold outside in the winter (as well as large swaths of the fall and spring), but the temperatures inside, at least where we live and work, are almost always suffocatingly hot. Scott and I spent a good number of weekend days last winter wearing shorts and t-shirts inside our apartment, with the window open. And if anything, I tend to be more sensitive to the cold than the heat. In past workplaces, I always kept a sweater on hand. (On a related note, did anyone else read about how office thermostats are often set with men in mind?)
So, with that in mind, here are the lessons I learned last year about what types of clothing are useful--and what types are not--for this most fascinating climatic situation.
Useful: Silk long johns. Some days are cold enough that I, at least, need extra layers for my legs. Silk provides extra warmth while outdoors, without still feeling cool to the touch indoors.
Not useful: Synthetic long johns. Way too warm indoors. Ugh.
Useful: Jackets or sweaters than can be layered under a winter coat, but are not an integral part of an outfit. Layering is key some days to survive the short walk to work. But it's good to be able to peel off a lot of those layers once you're in the office.
Not useful: Heavy blazers or cardigans that are meant to "dress up" an outfit, and therefore be worn all day. I was so proud of myself when I found a wool sweater blazer on sale, too!
On a related note, lighter weight tops that are reputable enough looking on their own to not need a blazer on top are extremely useful.
Useful: Pants with enough room to layer long johns underneath if need be.
Not useful: Flannel-lined jeans. These are probably useful to winter sports enthusiasts, but they are way too hot indoors.
Useful: Work-out shorts. I have never worked out in such a hot gym in my life.
Not useful: Work-out pants. This is assuming, of course, that you don't have to go outside to access your gym.
Useful: Really warm winter boots.
Not useful: Very thick socks to wear with them. Admittedly, this will depend a lot on your boots. I bought myself a new pair of snow boots before coming out here, having had the same pair since college. My new snow boots are down-filled, and amazingly, were warm enough to wear all winter with just tights or trouser socks underneath. This is fine, since all of my super thick socks also date from college, so (a) I didn't spend money on them recently, (b) they're getting pretty floppy and not much fun to wear, and (c) it's easier to just change shoes at the office without also having to change socks.
Useful: A heavy duty hat that can't be blown off your head. I wasn't really sure what to do about hats before coming out here, but it quickly became clear that the hats I had brought out here were woefully insufficient. I ordered a down-filled hat with earflaps that fastens under my chin. It won't win any points for style, but it was a game changer in terms of my winter comfort.
Useful: A long coat with room to layer underneath. I'm not going to try to weigh in on which brands are best, but I think in this sort of climate, you do want something that covers a wide swath of your legs.
Useful: A balaclava or scarf you can wrap around your nose and mouth. Alas.
Useful: Heavy gloves or mittens. This probably goes without saying, but thin fleece gloves often won't cut it.
Useful: Yaktrax. They were a little bit of a nuisance, but I didn't fall once last winter!
Wishing everyone moderate, pleasant climates that don't require any clothing analysis!
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Pictures From A Recent Saturday Walk
Before the cold sets in, Scott and I have been trying to take advantage of the weather and go on some walks over the weekend. I saw a few things I'd never seen before on one of these walks, so I'm glad I had my camera!
This year marks the 550th anniversary of the Kazakh Khanate, so at least some of the new decorations were in honor of that.
I wondered if these horses might have had to do with the anniversary, too, since I don't recall seeing them before.
My favorite one was painted with pomegranates. Too bad pomegranates don't actually grow in Astana!
I was curious about the origins of this one, too. I wondered if it might have been sponsored by the Israeli government or maybe the local Chabad.
No matter what the occasion, there is always more room for fake plants here.
And a sculpture I had never seen before! Near something that looks like a disco ball!
This year marks the 550th anniversary of the Kazakh Khanate, so at least some of the new decorations were in honor of that.
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| Apologies to the complete strangers in the picture--I wasn't patient enough to wait to take the photo! |
My favorite one was painted with pomegranates. Too bad pomegranates don't actually grow in Astana!
I was curious about the origins of this one, too. I wondered if it might have been sponsored by the Israeli government or maybe the local Chabad.
No matter what the occasion, there is always more room for fake plants here.
And a sculpture I had never seen before! Near something that looks like a disco ball!
Saturday, September 19, 2015
The Dumpsters Have Dreams of World Domination! Or...
I suppose the more boring and likely possibility is what I've come to call a "Google Translate tragedy." I received an email yesterday in three languages: Russian, Kazakh, and English. Here is the quote from the English portion that provoked my concern about the dumpsters' intentions:
We hereby inform you that due to the sport event in the Sport Center on September 19-20, 2015, the territory was liberated from the dumpsters.
We hereby inform you that due to the sport event in the Sport Center on September 19-20, 2015, the territory was liberated from the dumpsters.
On a related note, I'm happy to say that I don't think those of us who use foreign languages on the job will be replaced by machines any time soon.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Where Did My Attention To Detail Go? Oh, Yeah...
12-12:50
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1-1:50
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2-2:50
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3-3:50
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4-4:50
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Monday
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Class 1, Classroom A
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Class 2, Classroom B
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Class 3, Classroom C
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Class 4, Classroom D
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Tuesday
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Class 1, Classroom A
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Class 3, Classroom C
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Wednesday
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Class 1, Classroom A
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Class 2, Classroom B
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Class 3, Classroom C
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Class 4, Classroom D
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Thursday
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Class 2, Classroom B
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Class 4, Classroom A
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Friday
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Class 1, Classroom A
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Class 2, Classroom B
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Class 3, Classroom C
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Class 4, Classroom D
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Behold, my teaching schedule for fall semester. Is it just me, or does this seem particularly diabolical? The chart I'm posting here, by the way, is an adaptation of one I made for my own personal use at the beginning of the semester in order to keep track of the ridiculous meeting time and classroom changes depending on the day.
I'm not the only one who has trouble with this, either. One of my students from Class 2 missed a Thursday class and told me later that she had forgotten we had class that day.
In addition to what is readily apparent in the timetable, Class 1, 2, and 4 are different sections of the same course. Class 3 is a different course. So, I have the one different course smack dab between two of the same courses three days a week.
Also, because Class 1 meets on MTWF and Classes 2 and 4 meet on MWRF, Class 1 is always one lesson ahead of the other two classes on Wednesday. So on Wednesdays, I teach three different lesson plans.
Also, as is apparent on the timetable, Classes 2, 3, and 4 are back to back on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. That means no time to clear my head between classes, especially if students come up to me after class to ask questions. (I don't mind questions about the actual material I covered, but unfortunately, they're not always so relevant. Grade grubbing for one extra point on a test comes to mind.)
I was pondering all of this today, wondering why I had had so many brain farts over the course of the day, and I came to the sad conclusion that this is likely to be the case all semester, particularly on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
On the flip side, those three days have opportunities for exercise. While all of my classrooms are under one roof, I teach in three different "blocks". I have to traverse a common area on the ground floor to get between blocks. I generally avoid the elevators because they are hot, slow, and crowded. So a typical stair-climbing schedule on MWF looks like this:
1. Climb to 4th floor office on Block A
2. Go down four flights of stairs, climb to 5th floor classroom in Block B.
3. Go down five flights of stairs, return to 4th floor classroom in Block A.
4. Walk down one flight of stairs to classrooms in Block A.
5. Walk down three flights of stairs and climb to 5th floor of Block C.
6. Walk down five flights of stairs, and climb to 4th floor office of Block A.
My brain may be mush by the end of the semester (or perhaps by next week) but maybe I at least have the hope of some level of physical fitness.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Flamingos, At Long Last!
Incredible though it may seem to anyone who has ever spent a winter in or around Astana, Kazakhstan boasts a colony of flamingos for several months out of the year. Seeing these flamingos in the wild has been on my Kazakhstan bucket list even before we arrived. I've blogged about my two previous (failed) attempts here and here.
A few weeks ago, one of our colleagues started organizing another trip out to the Korgalzhyn Nature Reserve, which includes Lake Tengiz, where the flamingos stay while in Kazakhstan. The trip was for today, with a scheduled departure time of 6 AM. We had a lot of thinking to do. Should we take the near certain reward of sleeping in on a Saturday morning? Or should we forgo the sleep and have a long, bumpy ride to Korgalzhyn, where we had already failed to see any flamingos twice before?
We ultimately decided on the trip. We had an immediate reward of the departure time being pushed back to 7 AM, and a more long term reward of finally seeing the flamingos!
The ride to Korgalzhyn was even bumpier than I had remembered it. Some of the roads are in pretty poor condition, and the combination of the driver driving over some potholes, swerving wildly to avoid others, and speeding on the relatively smooth sections of road made for an exciting trip. We stopped at the visitor center where I had taken pictures of the flamingo gate previously as some sort of proof that these flamingos existed. We had a small breakfast that our guide had packed and used the facilities (outdoor squat toilets with no lighting!).
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| Mural at the visitor center |
Then we headed off to Lake Tengiz. As we approached, we could see lots of obviously tall birds in the lake, and my hopes soared. While the birds appeared white from a distance, they were indeed the flamingos! With the aid of binoculars and a telescope, we were able to get a much better look at them. We could really see their pink color when they flapped their wings or flew. Interestingly, their wings also had black feathers, which was a very striking contrast to the pink. We could even hear the flamingos honking at each other (I'm not sure that's the term ornithologists would use for flamingo vocalizations, but that's what it sounded like to me!).
Despite Scott's and my many efforts to get good pictures of the flamingos, we didn't have much success. A better zoom on the camera might have helped some, but the other issue was that the flamingos understandably didn't want much to do with a minibus full of sleep-deprived humans, and tended to fly progressively farther from the lake's shore as they saw and heard us approach. The two pictures below are probably our best ones of them. The little white dots are the flamingos. If nothing else, I think the pictures give an idea of the sheer number of them.
We also found some pink flamingo feathers and what appear to be flamingo tracks
I wasn't at all optimistic about seeing saiga, another famous steppe inhabitant. And we didn't, although we did see some saiga tracks. I was happy to even see evidence that they had been in the area. Between poaching and a mysterious wave of deaths last spring, the saiga have been having a very hard time.
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| I would have missed these, but the guide pointed out these saiga tracks to us. |
After flamingo-watching, we had lunch at a guest house near the visitor center, the same guest house where we ate when we visited Korgalzhyn last spring. The food was delicious. I wish I knew of a restaurant with such well-prepared Kazakh cuisine near us.
It was a wonderful day. It was amazing to be in the presence of large numbers of such an iconic animal in the wild. Our photos leave much to be desired, but I don't think I'll ever forget watching the flamingos through the binoculars and the telescope. Whatever else Kazakhstan may have in store for us, I am happy to have had this particular experience.
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| Beautiful blue sky on the steppe today |
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Holiday Walk Pictures
Monday was Constitution Day observed in Kazakhstan, so we didn't have to go to work. Yippee! Monday is one of the days during the week when I teach all four of my classes, so I felt like I was really getting away with something to have the day off instead.
We met up with some friends near the Radisson Hotel and walked to a complex called Highville to undo our caloric expenditure with a fried chicken meal at a Korean restaurant called Kakaodak. To the extent possible with the constantly shifting construction situation in Astana, we walked along the Ishim River. I took a few pictures along the way:
We met up with some friends near the Radisson Hotel and walked to a complex called Highville to undo our caloric expenditure with a fried chicken meal at a Korean restaurant called Kakaodak. To the extent possible with the constantly shifting construction situation in Astana, we walked along the Ishim River. I took a few pictures along the way:
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| Peaceful park scene |
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| Another of Astana's fake trees! |
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| There is a whole line of them here! |
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| Sadly, one of the fake branches met a bad end. |
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| The sign is proclaiming someone's love for Astana. I'm not sure about the colorful structures in the river. |
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| There is another sign proclaiming someone's love for Astana across the river. Also, you can see Astana's pyramid in the distance. |
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Refrigerator Tetris Time!
I wrote recently about central Asian melons, but really, at this time of year, there is quite a bit of all sorts of produce available. We went to the Yevrasia bazaar with some friends yesterday, and ever since we got back, I have been playing Tetris in my refrigerator, trying desperately to maximize on space until we can either eat or freeze our bounty.
Yesterday's haul included tomatoes (4 kg. of tomatoes, to be precise!), basil, cilantro, plums, peaches, nectarines, eggplant, strawberries, raspberries, walnuts, cashews, dried apricots, and a few types of Korean-style salads.
A couple of our friends hosted a tomato sauce cooking party, and we now have three ziplock bags of tomato sauce in our freezer. I tried loosely basing the sauce I cooked off a recipe that suggested cutting the tomatoes in half, scooping out the seeds, and grating them. I tried a spoonful of the sauce, and am happy with the result, but I think roughly chopping the tomatoes and then blending the sauce in the end would give a similar texture with a fraction of the work involved. I'll have to try that next time, and there almost certainly will be a next time because ideally, I would like to have more than three dinners worth of tomato sauce in my freezer. It's amazing how the 4 kg. bag of tomatoes that made my shoulder hurt all day yesterday cooked down so much. I don't think I'll ever take for granted the ready availability of canned tomatoes back home again.
We've also cooked down the mushy berries (in the case of the raspberries, almost all of them were mushy or broken apart by the time we got home!). The cooked berries are good for stirring into yogurt, putting on top of pancakes or French toast, or--my favorite from last year--making upside-down cakes.
I know realistically there is no way I'll have either the time or the energy to fill our entire freezer with yummy summer produce. But having some of it will both boost our spirits when the only tomatoes available are crunchy and cardboard-y (which is probably not even all that long from now) and salvage dinner time on at least a few hectic days later in the semester.
Yesterday's haul included tomatoes (4 kg. of tomatoes, to be precise!), basil, cilantro, plums, peaches, nectarines, eggplant, strawberries, raspberries, walnuts, cashews, dried apricots, and a few types of Korean-style salads.
A couple of our friends hosted a tomato sauce cooking party, and we now have three ziplock bags of tomato sauce in our freezer. I tried loosely basing the sauce I cooked off a recipe that suggested cutting the tomatoes in half, scooping out the seeds, and grating them. I tried a spoonful of the sauce, and am happy with the result, but I think roughly chopping the tomatoes and then blending the sauce in the end would give a similar texture with a fraction of the work involved. I'll have to try that next time, and there almost certainly will be a next time because ideally, I would like to have more than three dinners worth of tomato sauce in my freezer. It's amazing how the 4 kg. bag of tomatoes that made my shoulder hurt all day yesterday cooked down so much. I don't think I'll ever take for granted the ready availability of canned tomatoes back home again.
We've also cooked down the mushy berries (in the case of the raspberries, almost all of them were mushy or broken apart by the time we got home!). The cooked berries are good for stirring into yogurt, putting on top of pancakes or French toast, or--my favorite from last year--making upside-down cakes.
I know realistically there is no way I'll have either the time or the energy to fill our entire freezer with yummy summer produce. But having some of it will both boost our spirits when the only tomatoes available are crunchy and cardboard-y (which is probably not even all that long from now) and salvage dinner time on at least a few hectic days later in the semester.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Torpedo Melon
Does anyone know the name for this very tasty melon? My melon vocabulary stops at cantaloupe, watermelon, and honeydew.
Central Asia is known for its melons, and we're taking advantage of the tail end of melon season now. We were eating with some fellow expat friends the other night, and the subject of this type of melon came up. I referred to it as a "torpedo melon" but then wasn't really sure why I did, other than its rather torpedo-like shape, of course. Had someone told me it was called a torpedo melon? Or did Scott or I come up with the term to distinguish it from the other melon (one that is fairly small and round with an orange rind) that is common here, but not common back home?
Anyway, I figured out why yesterday when I was ordering groceries. The word torpedo factored in to the Google-translated version of our online grocery store's description of this kind of melon. So the name torpedo melon has stuck, at least until I hear something I like better.
I ordered the one in the picture from the online grocery store this week. It's pretty big--a great thing to not have to lug home from the store, in my opinion. Unwieldy though it may be, we'll certainly enjoy it. It'll be cold before we know it, and produce pickings will be slim, so I want to eat as much summer produce as I can.
Central Asia is known for its melons, and we're taking advantage of the tail end of melon season now. We were eating with some fellow expat friends the other night, and the subject of this type of melon came up. I referred to it as a "torpedo melon" but then wasn't really sure why I did, other than its rather torpedo-like shape, of course. Had someone told me it was called a torpedo melon? Or did Scott or I come up with the term to distinguish it from the other melon (one that is fairly small and round with an orange rind) that is common here, but not common back home?
Anyway, I figured out why yesterday when I was ordering groceries. The word torpedo factored in to the Google-translated version of our online grocery store's description of this kind of melon. So the name torpedo melon has stuck, at least until I hear something I like better.
I ordered the one in the picture from the online grocery store this week. It's pretty big--a great thing to not have to lug home from the store, in my opinion. Unwieldy though it may be, we'll certainly enjoy it. It'll be cold before we know it, and produce pickings will be slim, so I want to eat as much summer produce as I can.
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| Same torpedo melon as above, with my hand to give some idea of scale |
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