Posts by Jonah

I applied for a cool looking job at Compassion International recently. Michele wrote me an awesome letter of recommendation (she knows the big kahuna there). And I wrote a kick-ass story for the part of the application called “Statement of Faith.”

But I haven’t heard back from them. Apparently, they got lots of applicants.

Back when my family lived in Colorado Springs, my Sunday school teacher at the church we attended was a guy named Al. He always had an interesting lesson and truly employed the Socratic method. I think it’s been the only time in my life when I couldn’t wait to get out of bed on a Sunday morning. Unfortunately, we alternatively hyperactive and sullen teenagers started to drive him nuts, and he quit being de facto youth group leader to protect his sanity. Anyway, Al worked at Compassion. So I looked him up, see if I could get an edge on the inside.

Al doesn’t work there anymore. He’s started up his own consulting firm, helping organizations gather and enable volunteers. So I wrote him an e-mail and sent him a copy of my resume (because that’s what I do these days, send out as many random resumes as I can). He was excited to hear from me and told me he was passing my credentials on to a client of his.

Well, today his client gave me a call…the head of the fairly new volunteer wing of a major organization, to be exact. He is looking for someone to mind the organizational aspects of the program, freeing him up to do the fancy talking. It’s doing stuff that I would enjoy and that I’ve got experience with. It sounds perfect. He asked me what my minimum salary requirements were, and I told him $25,000/yr., and he said this position would pay 24-30, depending on experience (more money than I’ve ever made, to be sure). He’s a USAFA grad and thought it was cool my husband teaches people how to fly. He’s also got nieces and nephews who attended Wings Like Eagles. He told me their names, and I recognized them. Then he said that he was going over HR’s head to contact me, and we were going to have to pretend like this phone call never happened. The position would have to be posted inhouse for a week or so, then I would have to apply through the human resources department. He would call me back in a week to let me know what to do next.

So I’m very excited. Even if it doesn’t work out, it’s still very encouraging to get a call like that, from someone who’s never met me but seems really willing to hire me. I just have to tell Michele and Duncan my days with them might be numbered.

Speaking of which, Duncan handed me a company checkbook and a huge file of bank statements and deposit slips today. The earliest date on them is 1996. I started entering them into an Excel spreadsheet… because I know how to use Excel now!

But I may have to hurry.

Actual Fact: In 1936, Adolf Hitler declared Mickey Mouse to be an enemy of the state in Nazi Germany.

My mom and dad are in Singapore for three months. Dad is heading up the Integrity Media regional branch while they find someone to take over there.

Some interesting facts about Singapore…well, I thought so anyway:

Oral sex, public spitting, and failing to flush public toilets are all illegal, although bar-top dancing and bungee jumping are no longer. Importation of chewing gum used to be against the law, but the US insisted that Singapore end its ban on selling the substance in order to join in a free trade agreement. (Apparently, Wriggly has some really powerful lobbyists.) Sugar-free gum is now available…but only sold by dentists or pharmacists, who also have to record the buyers’ names. In all this time, there has never developed a black market for gum.

Singapore gets about half the water it needs from rainwater. The rest it imports from Malaysia.

Singapore used to be part of Malaysia, which kicked the island out in 1965, forcing it to become a sovereign nation.

Singapore is the second highest most densely populated country in the world, right behind Monaco.

Singapore has one of the highest per capita gross domestic products in the world and unemployment is at only around 3%. Yet 84% of the population live in public housing.

Serious offenses like murder and drug trafficking are punishable by hanging. Amnesty International claims that Singapore has hanged 400 people since 1991, “possibly the highest execution rate in the world.” But the government claims this figure is exaggerated. Still, Singapore enjoys one of the lowest crime rates in the world.

Singapore is also the world’s biggest bunkering hub with 23.6 million tonnes of bunkers sold in 2004.

Can anyone tell me what the heck a bunker is?

I awoke this morning to the doorbell. Then some knocking. I wasn’t dressed, so I didn’t answer, but then the phone rang. It was our landlord informing me that our downstairs neighbor was complaining about our water heater leaking. He was out of town, so I had to wait around for the plumber to call.

Indeed, the water heater was running (it’s a very loud monster), which it doesn’t do unless someone’s just taken a shower, and Berck had been gone for hours. I figured out how to turn the water to it off, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn the gas off, so it just kept heating what water was left in there, putting it under greater pressure and causing it to leak some more. I put a bunch of bowls underneath to try to catch the drips. Then every so often I opened the release valve at the bottom of the tank and emptied some of the contents into a pitcher. For a 40 gallon tank, I wasn’t about to make 40 trips to the toilet, but I kept it from leaking more until the plumber came.

The plumber turned off the gas, so the thing finally stopped leaking. But he had to go buy a hose to empty the old water heater and get a new one to replace it. He’s back now installing the new one.

In the meantime, I’ve been applying for some jobs. I’ll go to work as soon as the plumber is gone. He’s currently soldering some copper pipe with a blowtorch.

Today I

* Fixed Michele’s laptop wireless connection so it would talk to her desktop
* Sent a change of address message to all of the people who e-mailed Duncan to his old e-mail address since August 1 to use his new e-mail address
* Searched through Michele’s cumulative notes for specific contacts in Colorado
* Converted scanned documents through OCR into word processing documents and combined them into single documents
* Picked a bunch of rosehips

The last task was by far the most fun (and was, of course, on my own time). Michele has been using a bunch of the rosehips she picks to make rosehip mead. Doesn’t that just sound wonderful?

I don’t think there’s any better way to wind down from the day than by going and picking fruit.

Unless you’re a migrant worker, obviously.

Berck came out for supper, and we had burgers and corn on the cob straight from the garden and two bottles of Duncan’s homemade wine.