testing

Just trying to see if photos work when posting from Picasa. So far, they haven't, and I have no idea what to do about it. I like posting from Picasa because it's so easy to incorporate photos into posts.

This was a woman having a convenient nap at a mattress display in Trade Fair, which happened during my parents' visit.

the birds, the birds!

Why can't work be more like Angry Birds?

I submit to you, readers: guilty as charged! I am an Angry Birds afficionado.  But nothing more.  Lately I've found myself slingshotting the adorable and talented flightless avians towards captive exotics' cages and evil monkeys while waiting for lunch, stuck in traffic (in the passenger seat only!), or taking a five-minute disengage break from the daunting number of tasks and the implications of sub-tasks at the new job.

In Angry Birds:

Tasks are clear.  The objective is directly in sight.  (Free the birds/kill the monkeys!)

If you make a mistake, you can start over immediately.  Especially helpful in that window of time between you knowing you missed that last monkey, and the moment the game picks up on that and taunts you with soul-tamping evil monkey laughs and "Level failed."

Every sub-task has a clear function (each bird has its own specialty).

When you get tired of it, you can close it - or revisit any level you know you kicked ass on.

Learning curves are clear; they show you the trail of the previous bird you've fired so you can easily modify your next try.

Maybe this post should be titled "Why Angry Birds is perfect for people with ADD," instead.

In my new job:
Many tasks are clear, but the path is not.  Three months from now, I need to have delivered a deliverable.  Some steps along the way are enumerated, but the onus is definitely on me to organize myself, hold myself and others accountable, and keep delivering.  Having lazed around for so long, with no one but myself and Jens to be held responsible to, I'd forgotten how it feels to be working for others.

Still, after five days in the job I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.  It'll be a challenge the whole way through but I'm coming to terms with the pace of the day and how to talk to others.  Also I have to take initiative - which lately has become harder and harder for me, but in a new environment is easier.


As I've suddenly switched from zero commitment to 11-hour days (8:30am at work to 7:45pm finishing German), we have had to reconfigure who does the errands.  Jens, despite suffering an unknown bug all week, has been a saint in picking up our bagels, topping up the electricity, going shopping and anything else needing to be done during business hours.  I hope we can figure out a way to share the duties better, but this first week it's been a godsend.  And I'm finally motivated to get to bed early because I know I'll need all the sleep I can get to survive the week!

Jens has also committed to making tiramisu this week to use the mascarpone sitting in our fridge.  We've been looking for ladyfingers around here with no luck, so he's making those from scratch too.  Last night wasn't his best for baking but he's going for it again tonight.  You should be jealous of me, 'cause I'm about to have homemade tiramisu!

New floor, new roommate

The tile layers might just be finished.  They came yesterday to re-tile our bedroom.  The bed's pushed to a corner and we aren't supposed to move it for a couple of days.  One thing they left behind is dust.  Lots and lots of dust, as well as some dusty handprints on doors, doorframes, and walls, and spatters of grout on a couple of walls and windows.  I suppose their job isn't, technically, to clean up after themselves (let alone to try to work cleanly in the first place).  Another facet of customer service lost here...

There are also a couple of tiles that sound loose in the kitchen; however, the tiler explained that because their grout isn't cracked, they'll never shift or tent like the ones in the other rooms.  We'll see how that prediction works out.

The work day at Esoko tends to go from 9:30am to 6pm.  This is an issue for the German class I'd like to take, which runs 5:30-7:45 four days a week.  Finally, the opportunity to be taught by a German again, and I may have to show up to class an hour late every day!  Not to mention, I'd essentially be on the go 12 hours a day.  I'm hoping we can work out a compromise where I get to work around 8:30 and leave at 5:30, then get to German half an hour late every day.  Most of the people in the class are familiar faces, but there's one new guy who last night asked me to help him perfect his American accent in my free time, gave me a hair-raising car ride most of my way home, and today called me to ask if I have any books in German.  There's taking advantage and then there's taking advantage of new contacts.  Like the time the neighbor downstairs asked me to do "anything I could" by asking my boyfriend to get the neighbor's son a job at Google.  The kid had almost finished his certificate in IT.

At the job, there's a lot to get used to and I have to get up to speed really quickly, so I'm having meetings daily with heads of departments to walk me through how everything works.  It will be a challenge.  At the moment, not fully familiar with what I have to get done, I'm nervous- but if they say I can do this first project in three months, then I can do it.

We have a new roommate: a 10-month Google intern.  Not much more to say on that front!

New Job!

My parents' visit came and went, full of adventures, experiences and learning opportunities.  I'm trying now to cut down the photo album - so far, I've picked out 90-something photos from the first week, though there won't be as many from the last few days of the visit once I download those.

Today's my first day on the job at Esoko, a company which runs an internet- and phone-based system connecting farmers to local market prices for their goods and helping them keep inventory.  I will be keeping tabs on the Partner team, which stays in touch with Esoko's on-the-ground partners who train the farmers and implement the system.  I'll write the newsletter and update the training materials for new partners.  It provides not much structure and lots of freedom, which will be a big challenge for me.

From my building, I can see the fountains in Nkrumah Circle (locally named just Circle).  Streams of gushing foot traffic cross the road on a pedestrian overpass.  Several times a second, the street noise is punctuated by eloquent honks.  On the other side, I glance down Ring Road to Busy Internet, a locally-founded internet cafe and now provider that's made itself into a landmark.  Behind the building rises Asylum Down, a neighborhood with as many highrises as one-story cement houses.  It's a vivacious but more business-oriented part of Accra and I'm in the thick of it.

Looking out from the rooftop garden (a tiled plaza bordered by scrappy cement planters) onto one of the chambers of Accra's thumping heart, I saw all the essences of life bustling below me, and I told myself - I can't let them down.  I am going to thrive here.