The illusion of cooking

 The 100-Acre Sandbox is a self-contained city. We have a power plant, a water facility, road construction and the like. In addition to those things you just have to have to survive in the middle of a desert, we also have some fixins of a much nicer place, like a couple of gyms, pools and a wonderful corniche where people hang out at lunch and after hours.

We have a couple of little stores, but they’re not really grocery stores. One has a limited amount of food for sale, but that’s mostly for stuff like Red Bull and Copenhagen, which seem to be hot sellers. They also have toiletries and an ever-changing variety of “Embassy Baghdad” clothing and lots of booze.

There’s really no need for grocery stores because we also have a cafeteria and two snack bars that have food available from morning to late in the evening. Last time I was here, there was food available 24/7 but they’ve cut back, but boy, there is still enough.

So far this tour, though, I’ve tried to back off a bit. First, I was pretty much sequestering myself so that I could focus on the degree, but I’ve now gotten into the habit of doing lunch in my apartment. Since the portions are sized for He Man Security Team Members, there’s generally enough for dinner, too. Plus, since I was essentially jettisoned from Minsk, I wound up with lots of staples left from there. I’ve been cooking, in a limited fashion, rice and lentils for awhile now and just eating on it as the week wears on.

I’m nearing the end of the stockpile, though, and I’m kind of sad. There’s more satisfaction in eating when you prepare it yourself, but it’s hard to justify buying ingredients when there’s a cornucopia right in front of you. However, the food’s pretty routine, especially after the six-month mark, which I hit on March 15.  Since the cafeteria is halfway across the compound from me, I usually just go to the snack bar, and their menu hasn’t changed since I arrived. Although there are cold sandwiches and usually a boxed salad available, the hot dish is the same for whatever day of the week it is. I’m good with Sunday – chicken sandwich (not even close to Chick) and Wednesday, “fried rice” day, but other than that … meh.

Some days are worse than others. Tuesday is some kind of chicken day in all the facilities and I’m just not a fan. But that’s the one night where one of the snack bars – the one that has a Fred Flintstone-sized Buffalo wing-like drumstick – has carrot and celery sticks. So far, if I’ve run out of Minsk food for the week, I’ve gone and gotten a cup full of them and then a soft-serve ice cream for dessert.

But this past week, I got an idea. I’m going to start scavenging for ingredients and pretend to cook. One day had cream of mushroom soup. That’s not a meal to me – it’s something you put in rice. So I got a cup and came home and froze it. Then Tuesday rolled around and I snagged carrots and sautéed them and tossed in with the soup. (I got celery too, but I also got hungry and then the celery was no more.)

The next move is to head to the other snack bar, which is closest to me. It always has this dahl soup and unseasoned steamed white rice. It’s probably the plainest and flavorless rice ever, but the plan is to take a bunch, toss it in a pot, add some spices (which I have from Minsk) and then add the carrots and cream of mushroom soup. Then I can shred one of the Sunday chicken breasts and have a real meal.

It’s no exactly home-cooked meal, but it has the illusion of one, and that’s a nice change of pace.

Jack of all trades, master of two

 

After what seems like an agonizingly long time but really was just over a year, I finished my second masters degree! Yay! I am done! In the end, it will likely turn out as useless as the first, but my hope is that it helps me get an “excursion” tour in HR after I finish up my tour here. Technically, it isn’t needed, but the idea at the time had been to secure an HR tour after this, do it for three years and then apply as an HR officer down the road. (Waaaay down the road.) Circumstances may change, but that’s still an option.

And oh man I am just so glad it’s over. Let’s just say that the theoretical world of academia doesn’t fit into the real world of the Department of State. I’ve endured a whole bunch of “this will work in your organization” while I am thinking, uh, no, that doesn’t happen.

But now I can check a box and, hopefully, will be able to apply for our student loan reimbursement program. I’ve never had a student loan before and technically could have swung this without one, but the idea of it costing $3k rather than $13k was a lovely thought, so I took out a loan. My God, that’s an insurmountable amount of paperwork. I barely had the patience and can’t imagine how complicated it must be for kids to maneuver through it. How about this – lower the cost of college tuition so people can afford it without mortgaging their future?

But anyway, the coursework is in the past – for now. In an ironic twist of fate, as soon as my final class started, I got word that I also was accepted to a separate certificate program through work. It’s a diversity and inclusion certificate out of Cornell and is a shadow of what the masters program was. All four classes combined should be complete in eight weeks, which is the amount of time that one of the other courses took.

Gosh, I am just so relieved it’s over.

This weekend – and my weekend is Friday-Saturday – was wonderful because I didn’t spend half of it in the office doing coursework. (The internet is better there, and I have a giant computer screen instead of the little laptop one, so I can get more done.) On Friday, we had a practice drill with some defense stuff so I got to hang out outside (albeit wearing an armored vest and helmet) and on Sunday, we did a large-scale medical drill and I got to drive around three visitors. Both were out-of-the-ordinary things that were fun to do while not having to stress about writing some academic paper.

I also read a book strictly for pleasure, which I haven’t had a chance to do in awhile. (Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am.) Now, I plan on just totally vegging out and watching TV for a bit, just to detox my brain. We also have a St. Patrick’s Day run on March 18, after whatever even there is on March 17.

At some point, I really should take a stab at playing guitar; the one I bought for my last go-round in Baghdad is sitting again by the sofa, just waiting. But right now, it’s back to R&R planning. America is not the No. 1 plan this time but is a secondary destination. No. 1 is Mexico, where I hope to go to the dentist. That wasn’t the original plan, but now that I’ve learned Mexico is a dental tourist destination I’m kind of excited because I haven’t been in probably a year, and then it was only a cleaning. It’s a little sad that I’ve never been to Mexico at all and instead of researching Cozumel or whatever that I am looking at dentists! But I figure Cozumel will be available once I get there; the dentist is something I should line up first.

Key West is also on the agenda; the songwriters’ festival is a bucket list item. So stoked for that. I hope everything comes together. There’s still so many obstacles in the way; I wrote out a timeline of every movement that has to happen and it was a bit daunting. But one day at a time