The Return of the Desk Zombie

Yi Shun Lai — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:50:39 +0000

I’m back at my desk for the first time in about a month. I can hardly believe it’s been such a long time, and I will readily admit to missing the small space that I’ve made my cubicle, with its crammed bulletin board and random toys over its working surface.
I feel like I haven’t had too much time to think. There have been very few down weekends since May, when we moved here, but the time’s been filled with good things, things that make me happy and proud, and things I’ll be able to talk about for the rest of my life–or, at least, until the Next Big Thing comes along. I’m worried that I’ve set the bar so high this year that every other year will pale in comparison.
Thing is, I didn’t really consider what a big year it’s been for me until my friend Ed pointed it out, while I was nearing the end of my deployment in Taiwan. I was moaning about post-deployment blues (which feel remarkably like post-race blues, actually) while online with him, and he said something like, “It’s been a very big year for you, Yi Shun. Turn that frown upside down!”)
I’m sure he only meant it as a flip comment, but I’ve been carrying that idea around with me for weeks now.
Post-deployment has been interesting. Certainly, my world is larger, my parameters for judgment are different, but it’s only obvious in small increments–like the other day, when I was showing a friend some photos of Taiwan after Typhoon Morakot, and she said, “God, it must have been terrible to see,” and I followed automatically with “It was a disaster area.”
I mean, duh. I can’t really say that anymore, without having the automatic snapshot pop into my mind.
Or when I found I’d gone weeks without regular TV of the brainless-sitcom (or even crime procedural) sort, and didn’t miss it, or much care. I’ve regressed to a certain level of childhood, it seems, where books were all that mattered. I don’t mind it.
Lara asked what it felt like to be in the field. It isn’t like anything, really. It’s like, you get there, you do the job, and you don’t do any processing until you get good and home and you’re way out of the situation. People who’ve never been in a situation where action counts most of all can’t understand it, and that’s OK.
Some part of you just takes over. The best, most useful part of the 9-day training course, by far, is when you’re sitting in the middle of class and someone standing just outside screams, “Fire! Fire!” and they make you go outside, run laps with your kit, unpack and repack your stuff, and then settle right back into class, as if nothing ever happened. It’s that ability to zip in and out of situations that they’re looking for: Address the immediate need, get back on track.
My patience for small things has slid rapidly downwards, although my taste for drama remains the same. I’ll still entertain calls about boy problems from my younger cousin, for instance, but I’m much more likely to snap, “Oh, Christ, who cares?” when she veers away from how he’s making her feel and rapidly into the “Why is he doing this to me?” school of thought. (She might argue that it’s always been this way with me, but I think it’s gotten worse.)
The amount of stuff in my house has become somewhat offensive to me. When you live out of one 35-litre pack for a few days and you do it just fine (okay, with meals out thrown in), you start to wonder why you have five hundred pairs of shoes, some of which you can only wear for two hours before they start to Piss You Off.
(That’s not to say that I’ll stop painting my toes before races and long training sessions, or that I’ll actually get rid of all of my shoes. Some things a girl just cannot give up. My immense bag collection, however, might do with a little pruning.)
My need for silence has increased exponentially. My preference for reading as a past-time is becoming a problem. I still love the city and all of its trappings, but I love this city most because of its lack of provincialism. I’ve been thinking about re-introducing myself to music as a past-time. (I have a keyboard, a saxophone, and a guitar in my storage room. I can only play two of those instruments, and only one of them kind of well.)
Mostly, I am tired. And hungry. For some reason I skipped dinner last night, and all of my English muffins are frozen.
And if you’re wondering why I’m thinking about the things that have happened over the last year, it’s because I turn 35 on Tuesday. Tuesday. 35. Mmmmhmmm.
Here are some photos from Taiwan.

This is the front gate to my home in Taiwan

The entryway to our Great Hall. It came down in the 1999 'quake.

This is the hallway just in front of our Great Hall. In earlier times, when I was young, it was lined with chairs for receiving dignitaries and other visitors.

This is the Ameican House. We don't own it anymore, but I wish we did.

This is a small part of my incredible, happy family. Love them, and miss them.

This is my great grandpa. I wish I had known him.

On perspective after Typhoon Morakot

Yi Shun Lai — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:00:51 +0000

…I should really have a think about that headline. Is this really going to be about perspective? Part of me is tempted to troll the web for other disaster-relief volunteers, see how their perspectives changed after their first real-life experiences, but that would be cheating.
The other part of me is just temped to lay the whole thing out in schedule terms, see if that helps me to make any sense of it.
Overall, I’m deeply impressed with the ShelterBox operation. I knew that we were fast, but I wasn’t aware of the real-time pace of work. My team lead, David Ray, only just graduated from the 9-day course a year ago, and has already been on four deployments, to Pakistan, Sudan, Somaliland, and Sri Lanka, I think. He’s itching to get one more in before class starts, and I can understand why.
In many cases, I know we’d have moved faster, if it weren’t for the lifetime pace of Taiwan itself. We really do work 24-7 when we’re in the field, whether it’s working to create plan As, Bs, and then Cs and Ds or actually delivering ‘Boxes and finding the best ways to get them to their destinations. We didn’t see other aid agencies until a full week after our team first landed on the ground.
This isn’t giving anyone a really good idea of what happens during a ShelterBox deployment, and maybe that’s just because it’s largely impossible to describe. We get in, we establish partnerships, we find some way to recon the areas, we ensure the ‘Boxes are cleared of customs and ready to go, then we deliver the boxes. Following that, we set up a couple of tents, make sure everyone’s all set, and we’re off to either the next area, if it’s that kind of disaster, or off home, if it’s that kind of disaster. In my first three days there we recce’d four sites and established need in two.
The fact that I had a language advantage was great, but it added to my feeling that I’ll need at least three deployments under my belt before I consider myself fully competent in the tasks that make up a ShelterBox deployment. I could read between the lines, which made for some frustrating times, and I could also tell when things were sliding downhill.
Anyway, here are some photos.

Sometimes we carry our boxes by hand

Uploading them by excavator is easier, though.

I love this photo, of the local police chief of Lai Chi and the demo tent we set up for them.

I like this photo of the hound of one of our Rotary Chia-Yi people. She's just had pups, which is why she looks a little disgruntled.

What kind of vehicle was this?

we saw a lot of this

the villagers of Ruei Tai were terrific teammates and quick learners

Mr. Lai (no relation), to my left, is the kind of neighbor you want--although his own business and home weren't damaged, he called for help for his neighbors in the village of Ruei Tai, just up the street.

More later, I suppose, as I process this thing. Lara sent a note that listed, although I know she didn’t mean it to sound this way, a number of ways in which something like this could change a girl. I may have to drag that out and use it as a rubric.

The Good Dirt » Taiwan

The Return of the Desk Zombie

On perspective after Typhoon Morakot