I just read this article in the Washington Post. On first glance, I found it surprising that so many civilians don't know anyone in the military. I can think of E, the Air Force captain who likes to express herself with shoes. There's M, too, a Navy enlisted woman who has to make a tough decision about reenlisting next year. Or R, a young Air National Guardswoman who couldn't decide if she'd done the right thing by joining rather than going to college (she's been deployed to Iraq). Or K, the Marine who was sent overseas for months with while his wife and baby leave the place they've been living to go stay with family for a while. Or probably a dozen more who I've been friends with for a while, before they or I move on.

But despite a reasonably large amount of experience with the military, I was pretty surprised to learn that a pair of brothers I grew up with, in a nice middle class Atlanta neighborhood, are serving in Iraq. That isn't a choice that many people I grew up with made, but I have a ton of respect for them for making it.

I agree with the article, it's a bad thing that our leaders think of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marines as being part of the other. They really aren't. But it's a symptom of a society where for most people of my class and age, joining the military isn't something that even crosses their mind. It's so foreign to their experience.

Well:

I thought I had a choice about this extension. Friday morning, though, I got an email with a subject line of "approval of extension." The email was a forwarded chain of emails to my boss in Washington, the guy who actually holds the billet I am on, and my American bosses out here to get approval for me to stay. All of the approvals came through before I even got copied on the email. Well, except for my Australian boss, who luckily is perfectly happy to have me stay longer.

I was a little annoyed that I didn't get a choice in the matter, but I know that our HR person (who started this whole chain of events) was just trying to be helpful and thought if I said I would talk about staying with my boss, I meant that I wanted to stay so long as my boss was OK with it.

I think I've been backed into a corner here. I don't really mind staying, I just wish it had been handled differently.

I suspect the main reason that the HR person wants me to stay till my replacement comes is so they can keep my apartment, which is fair enough. The rental market here sucks, and I do have a pretty great place.

Cooking:

So I did make the tortilla chips and they turned out pretty well. It was kind of hard to always tell when they were done, so a few turned out chewy and gross, but most were really tasty. I made guac too, and I've been eating guac and chips for dinner for the last couple of nights. And last night it was just guac with a fork...I have bizarre eating habits.

Also, I've taken up swimming again, so that maybe I won't totally suck at water polo. It feels pretty good. I've even worked partially out why my stroke is so slow. I'm up to about 1200m of nice slow swimming. I miss my free pool in Maryland, though.

I've also been told that I can probably stay a few more months out here if I want. Now I'm facing my ambivalence about it all. I have to make a decision before I talk to my two bosses who don't know (yes, I have three direct bosses...don't ask). I don't know what I'm going to decide. It's kind of funny that I jumped at the chance for the six month extension and am really hesitating over the 3-4 months more.