It’s 10:30 pm on a Monday night and already past my normally early bedtime. But I’m up waiting for a work-call from Bishkek. Because of the 10-11 hour time difference between Washington DC and Bishkek, we normally have meetings really early in the morning here, catching my colleagues over in Kyrgyzstan before they leave for the day. But this time, we are also connecting a colleague who is located in Oregon, i.e. three hours behind my time, so it was more convenient to switch the day and do it early in the morning across the world instead. And yes, constantly working with between six and eleven hours’ time difference, like I do, changes the context in which we work because it’s always necessary to keep in mind that there may only be one or a few hours available when I get to the office in the morning until my colleagues have left for the day. So it’s important to have a clear picture of what needs to be done by the end of the day already at the start of the day. Also, an empty inbox at the end of the day may be overflowing when I get to the office the next morning, since some of my colleagues have almost done a full day’s worth of work by then. But I also find it fascinating how easy it still is, despite all this, to work effectively with a team that is spread out across 14 time zones. Because my colleagues and I work for the same managers and see each other on a regular basis, and because we share a common culture in the organization’s goals and values, I barely think about the geographical distance between our offices. I know my workplace is not the only one working in this way, but I’m sure there will be a lot more in the future. Wouldn’t it be great if, for example, universities were spread out more across the world? So that students could take their different classes in places that are closer to the specific topic? I think there are universities that are already doing this (like John Hopkins/SAIS and Columbia University) but maybe there will be more in the future…  

While waiting for their call, I’m studying Russian grammar and vocabulary for a test that I have tomorrow. Kind of fitting, even though our call, of course, will be in English.  

Sometimes, life just goes a little faster than I have anticipated and my blogging always has to pay the price for that. Actually, not that much has happened since I last posted, but I’ve had a lot of work.

In the meantime, 2014 come to an end and I tried to think of what the past year meant for me. At first, it didn’t seem like the most exciting year because my life is still very much the same as it was last year. Not bad but it somehow seems a little slower than it did a few years ago. Nevertheless, when I go through the year, quite a few things actually happened. For example, I got to see five new countries – Rwanda, Malawi, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, and South Africa. I also did no less than two trips to three different places in Florida this year – West Palm Beach, Miami South Beach, and Key West. So I saw a lot new place even though several of the trips I had planned did not come about last year.  

  Going to the Caribbean has been a dream of mine since I was little and I wasn’t disappointed. Who could with the perfect mix of paradise beaches, turquoise water, a city built by Spanish adventurers, and a history filled with pirates?

As for my work, there were no major changes in 2014, mainly because I started this job in August 2013 and I still kind of settled in last past year. However, I learned a lot about agricultural risk management, about leading teams, and about how to approach analytical tasks. I also met a lot of interesting and knowledgeable people through my work, and saw so many new places. So 2014 was a rewarding year in that regard! 

   I saw tea plants for the first time in my life in Rwanda. 

2014 was also a year when I picked up several old and new hobbies. I learned to take better pictures and how to use my new camera. I am still not the photographer I aspire to be, but at least it was a start. Music and especially singing has always been my main hobby, but I haven’t done much of it these past years. But back in March, I found a great singing teacher whom I started taking classes for, and I bought a piano a few weeks ago, so music is back in my life again. I also started painting a little, which is something I did a lot when I was younger. And back in January, I signed up for Russian classes at work, so I am now studying Russian four hours per week since about a year, and although I am still far from fluent, I have made quite a lot of progress. 

   I spent several weekend afternoons painting on A’s rooftop last summer. 

However, the biggest achievement in 2014 was perhaps that I finished the first draft of the book I’ve been writing on for the past four years or so. I still have a lot of revisions to make, but I probably wrote more than half of it this year, and the first draft is completed since Christmas Day.

      Research for the book took me to Coney Island and Brighton Beach last summer, one of the many places that my heroine visits over the course of her summer adventure. 

So in conclusion, 2014 was not an amazingly exciting year, but my life didn’t stand entirely still either! As for my mind map that I laid out in the beginning of the year? Well most of my goals were achieved with the exception of several travel destinations and with less food policy focus than I had hoped. But there is always 2015…

On the shore of Lake Malawi, which I visited not only once but twice in 2014!