I don't know why it's taken me so long to post this last piece I wrote while I was traveling with the Malaysians - it's just been sitting on my computer, waiting to be copied and pasted. The last week has been busy, though, with news of a hearing date for Noah's Law and catching up with life in Maine after two weeks away. I'll write more about the hearing soon. For now, here's a story from my recent adventures:
If you’ve read the posts about our travels home from the Bahamas, you know I have a bad track record when it comes to flying – more often than not, I run into some kind of trouble. So far on this trip, my flights have gone amazingly smoothly, and my suitcase has made it to each destination on time. I did run into some unique excitement when we arrived at the St. Louis airport last night, though…
I was toward the back of the plane, so I was among the last in the group to exit. I started walking through the terminal, following the signs to the baggage claim, when suddenly there was a security guard right in front of me, holding his arms out and telling everyone to stop walking. I was totally confused – why couldn’t we continue on to the baggage claim? After a minute, a guy with a headset on came over to explain to us that they were filming a movie and just needed to stop traffic for a couple of minutes.
Since I was toward the front of the group, I started looking at the cleared area, trying to see if there was anyone famous wandering around, but all I could see was several people with headsets. Finally, after three or four minutes, they let us go again and I continued down the terminal, still looking around to see if there was anyone famous in the vicinity, but not slowing my pace at all. I figured they were probably filming some kind of low-budget movie and I probably wouldn’t recognize the person anyway.
When I got to the baggage claim, my suitcase was already on the carousel since we’d been delayed. I grabbed it and pulled off to the side to wait for the rest of the group. As the others gathered, they were talking excitedly about the filming. I asked if there was anyone famous, and they looked at me like I was crazy. “Didn’t you see him? Didn’t you see George Clooney standing right there?” Somehow, I totally missed it – I was twenty feet away from George Clooney and didn’t even realize it.
I guess I’ll take that kind of airport excitement over the kind I usually have…
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Traveling with the Malaysians
I wrote a few posts while I was traveling with the Malaysians last week, but didn't have a chance to post them in the midst of all the conference craziness that followed. I'll post one of the updates below - just be warned that I wrote this a week ago...
As I mentioned earlier, I’m traveling with a group of 18 people from Malaysia this week. All of them have been to the United States before, many of them several times and a few have even lived here, so they are fairly familiar with the American culture and speak English quite well. That said, there have been some moments when the cultural differences have been apparent, and sometimes amusing.
For example, many of them have been trying to figure out my story. They are having a hard time grasping the fact that I work for the association that is based in Ohio, yet I live in Maine. Perhaps the issue lies in the fact that they are not familiar with Maine. On Monday, I was chatting with one of the men and mentioned that I live in Maine, and he asked me what state Maine was in. I finally just settled for the explanation that Maine is quite close to Boston, and he was satisfied.
On Tuesday, we headed to a facility in San Jose, so we spent more than an hour on a bus. As we drove through San Francisco, the guy in the next seat started chatting with me about Coach purses. He was comparing Coach to Prada, and talking about how Coach is such an affordable option. I wasn’t sure how to respond, though I certainly wondered why he knew so much about purses.
We headed to St. Louis on Wednesday, and I sat next to one of the three women in the group while we traveled from the airport to the hotel. Shortly after we settled into the van, she leaned over and whispered “The men on this trip aren’t very gentle.” I had absolutely no idea what she meant – how were the men being rough with her? It wasn’t until she continued talking that I understood what she meant. “They didn’t even try to help me with my suitcase,” she said. Ah – she meant they were not gentlemen.
Fun times, fun times…
As I mentioned earlier, I’m traveling with a group of 18 people from Malaysia this week. All of them have been to the United States before, many of them several times and a few have even lived here, so they are fairly familiar with the American culture and speak English quite well. That said, there have been some moments when the cultural differences have been apparent, and sometimes amusing.
For example, many of them have been trying to figure out my story. They are having a hard time grasping the fact that I work for the association that is based in Ohio, yet I live in Maine. Perhaps the issue lies in the fact that they are not familiar with Maine. On Monday, I was chatting with one of the men and mentioned that I live in Maine, and he asked me what state Maine was in. I finally just settled for the explanation that Maine is quite close to Boston, and he was satisfied.
On Tuesday, we headed to a facility in San Jose, so we spent more than an hour on a bus. As we drove through San Francisco, the guy in the next seat started chatting with me about Coach purses. He was comparing Coach to Prada, and talking about how Coach is such an affordable option. I wasn’t sure how to respond, though I certainly wondered why he knew so much about purses.
We headed to St. Louis on Wednesday, and I sat next to one of the three women in the group while we traveled from the airport to the hotel. Shortly after we settled into the van, she leaned over and whispered “The men on this trip aren’t very gentle.” I had absolutely no idea what she meant – how were the men being rough with her? It wasn’t until she continued talking that I understood what she meant. “They didn’t even try to help me with my suitcase,” she said. Ah – she meant they were not gentlemen.
Fun times, fun times…
Thursday, April 16, 2009
On the Road
I’m currently traveling with a group of people from Malaysia, playing tour guide as we go from city to city, incubator to incubator. Our first stop was in San Francisco, which I’ve always heard is a fun city, but unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to explore much beyond a few blocks from our hotel. However, I was lucky enough to be staying in a corner room on the 19th floor of the hotel, so I was able to see the bay and watch the cable cars traveling up and down the road below.
For the most part, my days have been fairly boring – I’ve been sitting in the back of the room while the Malaysians listen to presenters talk about working with biotechnology entrepreneurs. In fact, that’s what I’m doing as I type this post. The trip has had its interesting moments, though, or else I wouldn’t even bother to write about it.
On my first evening in San Francisco, I met up with M, an old friend I met while I was working in Houston six years ago. She was a weekly evening volunteer at the foster home, so I got to know her fairly well during the hours we spent chatting while holding the infants and interacting with the toddlers. M was a single woman in her early thirties, and toward the end of my year in Houston, she started thinking about adopting one of the babies who had come to us when he was just under two months old. His name was Ricky in those days, and he was and adorable baby boy with big brown eyes and the most infectious laugh I’ve ever heard in an infant. After much soul searching, M decided to begin the long adoption process.
M and I kept up sporadically for a while, and I was thrilled when I heard the adoption had been finalized. I loved seeing pictures of Ricky (though M renamed him) as he grew. However, we lost touch after a couple of years. On a whim, I recently searched for M on Facebook and found her profile. As it turned out, she’s living in the Bay Area, and when she heard I was going to be in San Francisco this week, she suggested we get together. I jumped at the chance, and we met up for dinner on Monday evening.
Seeing “Ricky” after all these years was a special treat. I bonded with the babies in our house, and those are the kind of connections that don’t just disappear. I’ve often wondered how the children are doing now. Ricky is obviously quite a bit bigger and he wears a very trendy pair of glasses now, but his face is almost exactly the same as it was when he was a baby. His personality is also much the same – interacting with him felt so familiar. M had told him about our history, and warned me that he might have some questions for me. About half-way through dinner he asked me if I still lived at the house for babies. I told him I’d moved away, and now I wish I’d talked to him more about what the house was like. Now, I’m thinking about writing him a letter so he’ll have something of his infancy to save.
Otherwise, I enjoyed catching up with M, although I always feel like something of a joy-kill when I give people the update on my life. In this situation, I also had sad news to share about the others M knew at our organization in Houston – Ann is going through a divorce, and Amee recently lost a long battle with cancer. I guess that’s the way life is sometimes, though, and M was comfortable talking about the difficulties of the last year. I’m always glad to be able to talk openly – I’d rather have everything out on the table than feel like people are tiptoeing around the topic of grief in an attempt to spare my feelings (though more likely they’re trying to spare themselves any discomfort).
I have more to report from my trip in general, but this is getting fairly long, so I’ll wrap it up now with a “to be continued…”
For the most part, my days have been fairly boring – I’ve been sitting in the back of the room while the Malaysians listen to presenters talk about working with biotechnology entrepreneurs. In fact, that’s what I’m doing as I type this post. The trip has had its interesting moments, though, or else I wouldn’t even bother to write about it.
On my first evening in San Francisco, I met up with M, an old friend I met while I was working in Houston six years ago. She was a weekly evening volunteer at the foster home, so I got to know her fairly well during the hours we spent chatting while holding the infants and interacting with the toddlers. M was a single woman in her early thirties, and toward the end of my year in Houston, she started thinking about adopting one of the babies who had come to us when he was just under two months old. His name was Ricky in those days, and he was and adorable baby boy with big brown eyes and the most infectious laugh I’ve ever heard in an infant. After much soul searching, M decided to begin the long adoption process.
M and I kept up sporadically for a while, and I was thrilled when I heard the adoption had been finalized. I loved seeing pictures of Ricky (though M renamed him) as he grew. However, we lost touch after a couple of years. On a whim, I recently searched for M on Facebook and found her profile. As it turned out, she’s living in the Bay Area, and when she heard I was going to be in San Francisco this week, she suggested we get together. I jumped at the chance, and we met up for dinner on Monday evening.
Seeing “Ricky” after all these years was a special treat. I bonded with the babies in our house, and those are the kind of connections that don’t just disappear. I’ve often wondered how the children are doing now. Ricky is obviously quite a bit bigger and he wears a very trendy pair of glasses now, but his face is almost exactly the same as it was when he was a baby. His personality is also much the same – interacting with him felt so familiar. M had told him about our history, and warned me that he might have some questions for me. About half-way through dinner he asked me if I still lived at the house for babies. I told him I’d moved away, and now I wish I’d talked to him more about what the house was like. Now, I’m thinking about writing him a letter so he’ll have something of his infancy to save.
Otherwise, I enjoyed catching up with M, although I always feel like something of a joy-kill when I give people the update on my life. In this situation, I also had sad news to share about the others M knew at our organization in Houston – Ann is going through a divorce, and Amee recently lost a long battle with cancer. I guess that’s the way life is sometimes, though, and M was comfortable talking about the difficulties of the last year. I’m always glad to be able to talk openly – I’d rather have everything out on the table than feel like people are tiptoeing around the topic of grief in an attempt to spare my feelings (though more likely they’re trying to spare themselves any discomfort).
I have more to report from my trip in general, but this is getting fairly long, so I’ll wrap it up now with a “to be continued…”
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