H2.. Ohhhhh!

Word of the day: envy [en-vee]

1. A feeling of discontent of covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc.

Example: Natasha is extremely envious of everyone that gets to go home on ADVON. 

Boy, am I! I've been plugging away at work for the past week or so and trying my best to ignore everyone that is completing their redeployment preparations. It isn't working; every time I leave my office or check my email I get inundated with reminders intended for those lucky souls.

We have reached that awful part of deployment, the part where redeployment is finally in view and countdown-close which means time has stopped in Afghanistan. If ever there were a time in my life that I wished to have Adam Sandlers remote from Click it is now. I would loooove to fast forward a month or so to get out of this terrible waiting period. At least when I'm in the last couple weeks left I'll be busy handing off my job and prepping to come home! 

When this perpetual boredom set in a few days ago I went to the education center to try to schedule my GRE. True true to my luck, they only have one scheduled (for February) but they don't know if they'll hold it or not! To be generous and to round up, that gives me zero motivation to study. Thank God for my kindle. Also for Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and blogs! Speaking of blogs I have two new blogs for you to follow:

Muse & Miscellany
MuseandMiscellany.com

+Megan created an entertaining and well written blog that covers beauty, literature and other aspects of an every day southern girls life. 

Translation Failed

TranslationFailed.blogspot.com
+Rebecca  has hysterical posts that track a girls adventure as she moves from America to be an Au Pair in Germany (with little to no knowledge of the German language)! 

Both girls are intelligent and outspoken, which makes for a great read. 

I don't know how I would keep my sanity out here if I didn't love to read. I suppose I would rot my brain watching videos/movies/tv non-stop. I have witnessed a few mush-minds develop over the last six months, which makes me so glad my parents would lock us outside (or prop us up with a good book in inclement weather) instead of using the TV to contain us. I benefit a hundred different ways from that. Thanks mom and dad! 

Aside from battling boredom I have to admit that I have been losing the skin care battle. I am more blemished than an oilier-than-average 15 year old! Being a girl that thought 2 pimples was catastrophic during adolescence, this has been a hard pill to swallow. I've tried 2 different face washes, foregoing face wash in lieu of face wipes, gentle body wash, tough actin' body wash, all of the above, and none of the above, all to no avail! Just as I was adopting a melodramatic countenance to match my newly acquired prepubescent skin I had an epiphany. I was washing my hands in the bathroom and thought, "H2...Ohhhhh!! The water! The damn water!" They take dirty river water and dump chemicals in it to make it less hazardous; essentially they give us water we can shower in but is unfit to drink. How did I not see this sooner?! Of course my skin is breaking out. Of course my skin dries out even after generous applications of lotion. It's like going through the car wash and leaving before the final rinse. I've been parading around with left over chemicals and dirty river remnants all over me! 

The obvious solution to my problems has been staring me in the face. 

Literally. There's always a bottle of water within arms reach and water points are more abundant than bathrooms and bus stops combined out here. 

I tried out my miracle-cure last night and today my skin feels great! The only tip I have for anyone else living out here (or weird enough to try this at home): pop your water into the microwave for 20 seconds or so, so when you turn off your nice warm shower and dump the water on yourself you don't induce shock like I nearly did!

I still have no idea how to cure my exorbitant boredom but at least I have a fighting chance at returning home in the same general condition that I left in!