New apartment; New job 4/26/2009

Wow what a change in my life this experience is being in Kuala Lumpur.  Scott and I moved into our spacious new apartment that is right across the street from where I work.  Unfortunately there is a very busy street between work and the apartment so I have to walk a distance to take a pedestrian bridge across that busy street but it is still only about 15 minutes.  The hardest part is at the end of the day when I have to walk up those three flights of stairs to cross the bridge.  I'm sure it is good for me.  Scott has been a real sweetheart by walking me to work every morning and meeting me at the bridge when I come home.

The apartment-

It is a three bedroom apartment.  Each bedroom has its own full bathroom and then there is the "maids bathroom" and a hallway bathroom.  The kitchen is small but very pretty with black and white granite counters.  The living room and dining room are together making a nice big room.  It is so bright with full length windows in both the living room and dinning room.  There is a balcony with chairs that you could sit on.  Usually too hot for Scott and me.  We like looking out and enjoying the city views from our nice air conditioned apartment.  We have a laundry room and a storage room.  It is very nice and roomy.  I have my things spread out in all three bedrooms. Scott only has his things in two bedrooms.  We are anxious to get our sea shipment to have the rest of our furniture and get our house all fixed up.

Work-

Well I am on my own now.  It is a daunting task.  I have so much still to learn but I am starting to get the hang of things.  I am trying to organize my office so that I can find things.  I spent almost all day Saturday just trying to catch up.  I finally had to just quit and go home around 4:00 p.m.  It is going to take me quite a few hours to get it where I want it.  We have a lot going on right now.  I had to make arrangements for two FBI employees who are coming in to do a survey of our office for some new equipment.  We are having a training session for about 40 of the Malaysian Police and I have been working on that.  On Monday, I will have to finish the preparations for the five instructors coming in.  I have a good relationship with the Ritz-Carlton and put my people in there.  They are so accommodating and have taken people at a moments notice.  We have a TDY (temporary) Agent that came in until my new boss (Legat) gets here.  Greg Gilmartin is just transferring in for a three-year assignment just like me.  I also have to do everything to get Greg set up.  The annual property inventory is due and just when Beverly was going to show me what to do, I found out I didn't have the right accesses to do it.  Yikes!!  I also have a mandated financial statement due in two weeks that I have heard is unreal to fill out.  I just try to take each day at a time, because I do tend to get stressed when I look at all I have to do.  My Acting Legat is wonderful and he asked me if I would like some more training.  Of course I told him I would love it.  He asked me if I would like to go somewhere.  He told me he would send me to any legat I wanted to go to, or; if I preferred, I could have someone come in.  I told him I would prefer to have someone come in so he is making the arrangements for that.  Everyone tells me there is a magical six-month period of learning the job and after that everything changes and life becomes so much easier, so one month down five to go.

New Experiences-

We went to our first night club.  Beverly the LOA I am replacing had a going away party at a nightclub.  What an experience for two-old fogies.  Most everyone smokes and drinks and life gets pretty merry as the night progresses.  There was a girl band with one guy and they were pretty good and very cute.  After one coke light, I was having a hard time keeping Scott from going out on the dance floor and just barely managed to keep him down, it took all my power.  (Yeah, right.)  After we had been there about an hour and a half, I managed to convince Scott it was time to go.  He reluctantly left.  I found out later that lots more people came and then they went on to another club.  Maybe next time we'll stay longer???!!!

Driving is not the only thing that is different.  People also walk on the left side of the sidewalk.  Crazy, I know.  The light switches turn down when you want them on and up when you want them off.  Plus all the switches are on the same wall for everything, bathroom, bedroom, fan and hot water.  We are constantly flipping the wrong switches before we finally get the one we want.  Now that it has been almost a week we are actually starting to figure which switch to hit the first time.  We are so smart!  We have a button that flushes the toilets but at the hotel you flushed the toilets by pulling up on the handle.  Now this is the funniest thing of all.  All of the bathroom floors drop down about an inch.  We've come close to killing ourselves a time or two tripping over that little ledge.  I had the reason all figured out why this was.  There is this little hose by the toilets that I thought you used to spray on the floors to keep them clean.  Well I was wrong.  You do use them to spray with but it is not the floors it is your own backside.  I was telling Beverly about using this little hose to clean the bathroom floors and she said the ones by the toilets and I said yes, and that is when I found out what they were really used for.  We sure got a good laugh about that.  Gosh, we Americans are sure uncouth.

Church-

No callings yet, but we are involved in a musical called "Parables".  The music is very pretty.  Scott and I have solo parts and are in the choir.  The District (like our Stake) is putting it on.  We will be performing in August.  I have a business trip scheduled but couldn't quite remember the dates so am hoping it doesn't conflict with being part of this production.  Miow Lin is in charge of it and came up to me after Relief Society and asked if I would sing a solo part, so just like that I am involved.  The same thing happened to Scott and now he is involved.  I just hope I will be here for it.

Every day we become a little bit more familiar with our surroundings and every day we feel more and more like we belong.  What an experience.

Side note,  it is raining right now and about 90 degrees.