Another week in review!

Last week was a pretty busy week - it was E's birthday on Wednesday, so we coordinated a celebration for her at the office and a dinner in the evening with friends at one of the local restaurants. The restaurant is located in a Guest House (or small hotel) called the Green Goose. (DARN! I forgot to upload my pictures to my computer to post!) We decorated and had party masks to help keep a youthful spirit. =) She's a year younger than I am, but was originally planning on spending her birthday out of the country with either friends, family or her husband. Due to business needs, she stayed in Bangladesh for another 2-3 weeks...so was a bit depressed on her birthday.

I forget - have I mentioned that I started taking Wado-Ryu Karate here in Dhaka? At first I just started taking classes for exercise. We have 3 classes every week for an hour, and I sweat liters of water! (Okay, that's an obvious exaggeration, but my gi is soaked by the end of class.) I'm finding that I'm really enjoying the class, especially now that the sensei is concentrating on giving us self defense on Tuesday classes. It's weird - you get NO belt when you first start out. After about a month - if you're serious I guess about attending classes, you get a white belt. I got a black stripe on my white belt a few weeks ago. (It's electrical tape wrapped around the front of the belt...but it works.) I'm hoping to get my yellow belt before I head back to the US for a visit on July 10th. Then I will be at the same level that I was when I left my last karate studio. =)

Oh - in case you were wondering, the instruction is in english. The sensei is from Pakistan and used to have a studio in Texas somewhere.

I'm hoping to get as high as I can before I leave Bangladesh, then I want to see if I can find a place where I can learn Krav Maga. Krav Maga is a martial art that is strictly focused on self defense. There are no katas (which are choreographed karate moves that we learn in various martial arts for technique). It's all about incapacitating your opponent so that you can get away. It originated in Israel and is often taught to military and police organizations as a fighting technique.

So - Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings I go to karate. I also joined the Self Challenge 2007 at www.self.com - I'm trying to get in shape because I'm having problems getting insurance. I missed a payment on Cobra, so they canceled my policy and my insurance application at Blue Shield was denied. DAMN! My long term care policy with Aetna was also recently canceled because I lapsed my payments - but they never sent statements to my house, so how was I supposed to know. =(

If there's one downside about working overseas, it's managing all of your bills at home! Online bill pay is awesome - but apparently insurance companies are bad with this. At Aetna - online bill payments from your bank are sent to a clearing house and it can take 4-6 weeks for the payment to reach the insurance billing department. How freaking lame is that? A paper check is apparently the best way. LAME!!!

So - I'll need to figure out my insurance stuff when I get back to the US...and reapply for long term care in case I get injured and need long term care (knock on wood).

On a weird note - I tried out my first Chinese restaurant in Bangladesh on Monday evening after work. It was a work meeting. I'm used to getting stared at now by the local Bangladeshis because I don't know - I'm a rock star. =) (Really - because they apparently don't know that staring is considered rude.) Anyways - what was weird was that all the restaurant patrons were staring because apparently they don't see Asian women???!!! (Or a Pakistani man with 2 Asian women and 1 French woman?) I dunno - but the restaurant had only a foreigners (some guys from Africa and a few tables of Japanese, Chinese...) But MAN - did we get some stares throughout dinner. SO FREAKING WEIRD!

Over the weekend I stayed in one day to watch internet videos - I'm hooked on this animation series called Bleach. I know I'm a nerd. Anyways - if you like Japanese Anime, check it out. Then went shopping for DVDs and groceries on Saturday.

So - that was my week! =) Sorry for the long blog...I'm just catching up on things!