So, in the very secure building where I’m working for my time here, the only computers I have access to are closed networks (nothing I can email in or out of), and other than surfing through briefings that are stored on the closed networks (I have a limited tolerance for briefings) or messing around in Excel for no reason (I didn’t like doing this in Iraq, either), I don’t have much to do with the free time between things that seems to be much of the spin-up for this particular job. Sigh.
But I decided to use the blank book that I brought with me (for notes during briefings–all right, to be honest, it’s to doodle during briefings or make the puzzles I’m doing look official) to good reason, so I wrote, longhand, some thoughts for my blog today. If this works and things are slow at other times around here, I’ll probably do the same thing.
Here goes:
My counterpart is using the computer for some other project he’s working on. It’s irritating not to have access to the computer, but to be fair, I’ve been hogging the system for the last day and a half and it’s only right that he should have a turn. (We have twice as many people as computer stations because once we go on shifts, our ranks will be correspondingly thinned.)
I find myself looking forward to the time when we do start shifts, etc, because the past week has been very much without form, and I don’t function well without any schedule at all. My natural bent is to, when I’m not required to be anywhere and not needed anywhere, just take the time to myself and do what I want with it (reading books in my hotel room with the news on in the background). But such is not to be…
I had one of the Korean translators today explain the Korean writing system and alphabet to me. It was very interesting, and not nearly so complex as I thought it was. He thought that my interest in Arabic was crazy–”it’s all just a bunch of squiggles”. Which is funny; I remember thinking the same thing. Now that I can pick out individual letters in Arabic (though I only remember about half of them for the sounds that they make), I don’t see the language in the same way at all. (For comparison, the Arabic alphabet is below.)
Posted by Kjirstin 
