Wrapping Things Up

I'm scheduled to leave the Embassy on Saturday to start the journey home.  That will be the end of my tenure with the State Department, a 6-month stint that has been extremely rewarding.  Ever since my last post, I've been working like a madman in the office, trying to wrap up several projects and get things ready for handoff.  I can't say I'm handing them off to my replacement, because there isn't one.  If (and that's a big "IF") they ever get somebody in here, it'll be many months down the pike.  In the meantime, there's one guy who's getting custody of my files and some of my duties, and I need to be able to tell him what needs to be done.  So I've been trying to gather a lot of information together in a sort of "How To Do Skip Rohde's Job For The Complete Idiot" guide.  Yes, I hear the wags out there saying that it should be a 1-page book, and half of that blank.  But you're wrong.  It's two pages, including the copyright notification.  

Today I passed a milestone.  (Much better than a kidney stone, but that's beside the point).  Today I finished up a report on the status of our ongoing projects.  For the record, there are 256 reconstruction projects still ongoing at the present moment, most of which, contrary to media reports, are going well.  There was a big meeting this afternoon that discussed a couple of key projects from that list and the way forward for both of them was locked in place.  Then I had this great feeling of relief, as in "My work here is done ..." I was able to shift my focus from finishing the big reporting jobs to wrapping up my desk and getting files ready for handoff.  Late this afternoon I was able to go for a jog around the compound.  It was a nice day for once and I was happy to be able to get out and enjoy it.  Then this evening, a group of us got together for a special Italian dinner.  Most enjoyable.  

I'm looking around my room at this mess and thinking about packing.  Right now it looks like the aftermath of an explosion in a dollar store.  But there's a logic to it.  I keep trying to get stuff into boxes, but every time I do that, I wind up needing something from the boxes the very next day.  So half of what I pack soon gets unpacked again.  I'm thinkin' that I should just organize my stuff into general piles: this stuff gets packed up and stored until I come back, this other stuff goes with me on the trip, and that other stuff gets mailed home or thrown out or something.  Decisions, decisions.

But now it's late and I'm bushed.  Time to hit the rack.  I'll worry about my dollar-store explosion tomorrow.