{"id":6542,"date":"2022-01-09T04:40:41","date_gmt":"2022-01-09T09:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=6542"},"modified":"2022-01-09T04:40:41","modified_gmt":"2022-01-09T09:40:41","slug":"long-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=6542","title":{"rendered":"Long week"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It seemed like a very long week! The holidays are over and the Christmas tree in the atrium is gone. The consular staff is all back in the office after some took time off at the end of the year but we\u2019re all still being very cautious about COVID since numbers are still high in Liberia. There\u2019s a last push of students trying to get visas for spring classes and we\u2019ve had a few emergencies with U.S. citizens \u2014 yesterday brought several calls from the duty officer. I guess it\u2019s back to business as usual!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had a nice video chat with my former boss Nomi who\u2019s currently in Tijuana &#8211; we had a great time catching up. John and I finished season three of \u201cBerlin Station\u201d and are lamenting there are no more seasons! I read Cal Newport\u2019s \u201cDeep Work\u201d yesterday and have been pondering how to use some of his ideas for doing less \u201cshallow work\u201d &#8211; he hit the nail on the head talking about the tyranny of email and its constant distractions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The manager of the embassy cafeteria made John and me a special dinner of salmon to take home one evening &#8211; it\u2019s the small things! The consular section celebrated our employee James\u2019s 53rd birthday with a cake this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"240\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/744C41B4-5A6B-4F24-AF2C-E5D186699880.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6547\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/744C41B4-5A6B-4F24-AF2C-E5D186699880.jpeg 240w, http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/744C41B4-5A6B-4F24-AF2C-E5D186699880-225x300.jpeg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><figcaption>Happy birthday, James!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This would have been Joyce\u2019s 98th birthday. Rest In Peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"243\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/F70663CE-4FB4-4D79-85E1-E9A25CB9A7C6.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6549\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/F70663CE-4FB4-4D79-85E1-E9A25CB9A7C6.jpeg 320w, http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/F70663CE-4FB4-4D79-85E1-E9A25CB9A7C6-300x228.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It seemed like a very long week! The holidays are over and the Christmas tree in the atrium is gone. The consular staff is all back in the office after some took time off at the end of the year but we\u2019re all still being very cautious about COVID since numbers are still high in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6542"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6542"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6551,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6542\/revisions\/6551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}