Busy Beavers, Bosch and British Babel

Lots happening, busy life – that has been the past couple months for Olga and I. First news first – Olga has officially taken a job with the American company Bosch & Lomb as its first national sales representative. Her first three months will be spent just in Almaty, but then she’ll branch out and be traveling more to other cities within Kazakhstan. So, congratulations to her! This is a big step career and salary wise.

I have completed my first Master’s level course with what will hopefully be an A (to be confirmed tomorrow). It was a mix of interesting, boring, studying, and of course writing and researching. After having not formerly studied in a classroom setting for 3 years, it was a bit strange getting back into the swing of academia. But I’m glad I have and even if I don’t finish my Master’s here, just taking classes and expanding my knowledge is useful, healthy, and potentially beneficial if I want to transfer in the future to a program elsewhere.

Several weeks ago, Olga and I traveled with some friends to a small village about an hour and a half outside of the city to go camping and swimming. We drove out to this lake and grilled out, hung out, and lay out in the sun. At night, we slept outdoors, even though it was raining. In an event that played out to our advantage, the wind earlier that evening had blown over one of those sun tents that you see people set up at the beach and it had destroyed the frame. We took the covering off of that and laid it over top of our sleeping bags and gear and stayed dry the whole night.

Work has been a bit slow since the entire Executive Vice President’s office is on vacation except me. On the one hand, it’s been super boring and super quiet with little to do with the exception of the occasional translation of incoming mail, but on the other hand, it has given me time to work on my research paper and study for exams. At the end of July, I have a couple days vacation that I’m going to take and travel to Pavlodar to visit friends and go out to the village with my Russian buddies. I’m looking forward to the break from Almaty and “getting back to my roots.”

With the 2010 World Cup coming to an end, I’ve made a commitment to get in shape and lay off the liquid carbs after it’s over. I’ve been going to many games and drinking beer and it’s showing its effects in my torso, even in spite of the biking I do. I’m going to try to ride more on weekends and get into swimming (if I can find a cheap pool) and rock climbing. Since I hate gyms, I look for activities to do rather than machines to work out on, which is fine with me because I’m not trying to be the next Mr. Universe.

I’ve also taken on some side work to add to my modest salary – I’m editing news updates for Visor Capital, an invest bank headquartered in London. Every evening, I get emails from analysts in the company with their news updates and I edit the English, correcting errors and clarifying. The tricky part is that it has to be in British English, which is taking some getting used to. You wouldn’t think there are that many differences, but there are. Even simply things like formatting dates, capitalizing and personal addresses are different. Another small and insignificant skill I have gained.

In general, life is good and the summer isn’t blazing hot (knock on wood), but time is flying and I’m worried that I won’t be able to break into the development field if it doesn’t happen soon. The more experience I have in education, the less I’ll have in projects and grants and I’m worried that I won’t be able to transfer those skills and knowledge. If you hear or see anything international development related anywhere in the world, let me know! Well guys, a that’s thaaa thaaa thaaa that’s a that’s all folks!

Since one of our assistants quit, I've been moved closer to my boss's office. My desk is on the right.


Olga attempting to ride my bike, but having trouble with the high seat ;-)


Yes, you know you love my handlebar mustache (don't worry, i only had it for about 5 minutes).


The trimmed beard?


"Umka" (Smarty), the cat that Olga allows into our apartment and feeds, even though it has an owner next door.


On Zach's last night in the country, we went out to a bar and showed him off right!


Earlier in the evening, we met with our two former Peace Corps trainers, Dinara and Nina for some drinks.


Just outside of the village of Kurti, we were near this lake and saw a team of horses cooling off.


The group we went with - my friend Alina is the girl int he white shirt, sitting in the middle, olga is sitting at the bottom of the picture. A very interesting group of people - the darker guy sitting across from Olga can throat sing and there was a yoga master there as well.