A Daring Adventure

Of the State Department Weekly Blog RoundUp... (and of Other Stuff, too).

First and foremost, I would like to talk this morning about the State Department Weekly Blog RoundUp! 


Today is Friday, and that means that Valdysses at the blog You Can't Get There From Here has posted this week's Blog RoundUp on his own blog.  In fact, it's been over a month since the RoundUp has gone State-Blogger-Wide, and tons of wonderful, hilarious, talented bloggers have hosted the RoundUp on their own sites. 

I can't TELL you guys what a treat it has been to have this picked up and hosted far and wide across the State blogosphere.  Each person brings their own voice and their own ideas to the project every week, and it's just an incredible treat!


So please, State Bloggers, take a moment to visit the RoundUp's calendar and sign up for a time to host the RoundUp!  (You can even sign up for a slot as early as next week!  Hint, hint!)  Any and all State bloggers are welcome... whether you're a brand new applicant or a seasoned veteran... whether you've hosted the RoundUp before or not... all are welcome!  Please sign up!

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In personal news this morning, this previously-melted-down, homeschooling-for-ten-years, Type-A-control-freak-mother is off to register her baby (my youngest, Zachary, pictured above) in public school (for this upcoming fall) this morning.  I have an appointment to register my older son, Matthew, on Tuesday.  We'll see where this takes us.  We'll see if I actually get into Chinese at FSI with James.  We'll see if I can even cut it if I DO get there.


(I've heard that spouses often... um... choose to pursue other endeavors rather than finish those super long, super-hard language classes.  And that those super-hard, super-long language classes are sometimes a something-that-rhymes-with-WITCH (Worldwide Available).)


Possibly leaving behind homeschooling forever...makes me cry.  I've devoted my entire life to it for ten years.  I've hung out with Stunning, Famous Homeschool Glitterati... I've written for Awesome Homeschooling Magazines... I've interacted with International Educational Giants to try to make them more homeschool friendly.  I tend to believe that I can speak intelligently about every form of homeschooling curriculum out there (yes, seriously), and I want to vomit at the idea of putting my boys into a spiral math program.  (Seriously.  Spiral math programs are Satan.) 


So I'll keep you posted on how this works out. I may chicken out at the last minute.  I'm allowed to do that, you know. 


In the meantime, we're still tutoring with our (LOVE HER LOVE HER LOVE HER) Chinese tutor that I snagged from FSI's Mandarin Chinese Instructor rolls.  In fact, we recently went to her home for a couple of sessions of Chinese, and her beautiful outdoor flower garden called to my camera:












There is so much beauty in the world. 

ShamWow! (or: Fun with the Chinese Language)

Before I start making fun of our entire family for our obvious lack of Mandarin Chinese skillz, I want to first hit on something that is actually IMPORTANT.


A couple days ago, I talked about State Department employee money issues and decisions.  I got a comment from the lovely Tuk &  Tam folks, asking about the reimbursement of closing costs for pre-employment houses. 


It is our understanding, though we are not at all experts, that State only offers closing-cost assistance to new State employees who were previous federal employees.  Translation:  if you were already a federal employee before State hired you, you may qualify for having your pre-employment house's closing costs reimbursed.  Other than that, there's nada.  I'm sorry.  :(  And that would only be triggered if/once you are assigned to a permanent domestic assignment that is more than 50 miles away from where you resided when you were hired.  Again... sorry.  :(


Now, it's time for me to make fun of myself and my family. 

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Back when we went to the Washington DC Zoo, we bought Zachary (the 11 year old) a stuffed panda bear.  He has a fascination with panda bears now, as they are not just seriously cute, but are also very much associated with our next post (Chengdu, China, fall of 2011)(Shenyanigans). 

At the time of the zoo visit, we had yet to meet with our Chinese tutor (LOVE HER LOVE HER LOVE HER), and so, when the zoo began to rhapsodize about their panda bears, they used the Chinese name for "panda bear," which sounded exactly, to our ears, like:

ShamWow! 


You know, like this guy:

So, of course, the stuffed panda's name instantly became ShamWow.


ShamWow is totally awesome:







He even dances! 






(True story:  yesterday at Chinese class, our tutor began teaching my boys how to say things like, "The panda is dancing," and, "I love the panda's face," and, "The panda is MINE," in Mandarin...a great way to keep the boys' attention!)


We've now met with our Chinese instructor twice (LOVE HER LOVE HER LOVE HER), and our ears are starting to be able to pick out the different tones in the Chinese word for "panda," which is xiongmao. It's not *exactly* pronounced like ShamWow... it's pretty close, mind you... but it's more like:

She-ohng-mohw-uh

(Or something like that.)



And get this!  In Chinese, which one is the "shoe"?



Is THIS the "shoe?"

Nope!  This is:

Crazy! 

~  ~  ~ 

In other news, our two boys got together with TulipGirl's four boys and jaunted around Washington DC this past week. 


We traveled deep into the heart of downtown Washington DC.  We hit both the Air & Space Museum AND the Botanical Gardens in the same afternoon.


I didn't get a whole lot of pictures at the Air & Space Museum because I was too busy gabbing my fool head off with Mrs. Tulip Girl.  But I did, at least, get a shot of The Spirit of St. Louis:



 



And I got to hear all about the flight from Zachary, my 11 year old, who talked about how Charles Lindbergh had a hard time staying awake the whole flight across the ocean (because it took so long), and how he had no windows to look out of, really, so it was a really hard flight, and how he landed in a country that didn't speak English and so that was hard for him too... etc... (if any of that is wrong, just please don't tell me.  I'm busy being happy that my kid knew what the plane was). 


But once we headed to the Botanical Gardens (my absolutely FAVORITE PLACE in Washington DC), my camera had more work to do.


We passed these lovely flowers on our walk from the Air &  Space Museum to the Botanical Gardens:


 












And then, once inside the Botanical Gardens, it was... NIRVANA.


Flowers everywhere!  Beauty everywhere!  I could just... LIVE in that place.


Okay,  I think I know the name of the following flower.  It's... Bougainvillea, right?






And these next two... I think they're Orchids, right?







 
The Orchid above is an interesting little thing.  It gets bees to pollinate it by looking like a bee, itself.  So bees come over to investigate (okay, it's a little more involved than that.  It looks like a GIRL BEE and the BOY BEES come over to, um, investigate) and the flower basically tricks the boy bees into pollinating it.


Tricksy little flower.


There are breathtaking waterfalls at the Botanical Gardens.  This one is in the main area:






And these next two are in other rooms:

But the flowers are, by far, my favorite.






Such a gorgeous, gorgeous place.