The Weekly Wrap-Up: March 21-25, 2022

Hermanos y hermanas!

(I'm not even working on Spanish. Why.)

Hello from the frozen landscape of Indiana. I'm not enjoying this brief return to Winter. It is Spring. The calendar says so. 

Speaking of calendars, I discovered this week that I have skipped a whole week in my desk calendar. So I'm no longer wondering why I have felt so discombobulated of late. 

This week has been quite full. I had one pup from Sunday to Thursday, and I have another pup Friday to Sunday. Thankfully, these pups are pretty easy to care for. They are both quite sweet. Plus, they allow me to work from the office. 

I've been working on French this week. But with Brian gone, I'm also fielding a lot of questions about things I don't normally deal with. But I think we have a solid team, and I'm happy to keep things going here while Brian works with refugees in Hungary. Speaking of, you can help provide supplies!

Speaking of speaking of! RADIO IS BACK, BABES! Yes, after literal YEARS, we have once again recorded a radio spot! I don't have the final audio yet, but I do have a lovely example of how we work. Way back before the coof, we had an idea for another superhero spoof. (nice!) When the bosses came to us asking about a spot about Ukraine, we harkened back to our original idea and adapted it. Jason wrote it, got it approved, and then we had to refine it some more once we were in the studio. They always take more time than we think. So here's what we ended up with:

I also had a chance to work with some lovely ladies on a project launching in April.

Julie Bishop is the wife of the Executive Director of OMS USA. You should know Sarah by now. And Lydia is our fantastic editor. 

Finally, we had a production meeting this week. My team has been doing a fantastic job with projects. Eliana just published all of Korean, which has been so long in coming, and Lynae has been formatting Hindi booklets, which is another longstanding project. Veronica continues to do battle with Japanese and Arabic. We're doing two versions of Japanese because there are actually four scripts you can use to write the Japanese language. We're trying to reach as many people as possible. And Arabic is hard because it is right to left and it's hard to see what you're typing in Word because Microsoft is sus. But we are prevailing!

That's about it for the week. Drink something warm, find a good book, and enjoy your weekend. 

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: March 14-18, 2022

I got to walk outside TWICE this week during the day. I'm not even going to complain that we're going to be cold again because Spring is Springing it up around here, and I am so here for that. 

This was a productive week! I published an Amharic volume and then a group of Indonesian booklets. I was able to resolve an issue with French booklets. I worked on many small projects and attended my usual meetings with aplomb. If I was you, I'd wanna be me, too. 

Name that song reference.

Anyway, yes, it has been a good week. But we always have plenty more to do.

The main thing I want to focus on this week is a trip my boss and his wife are taking. They are going to Hungary for a couple of weeks to help with the refugee crisis there. Our team in Hungary has already been hosting many of the missionaries who had to evacuate Ukraine, and they have also been sending teams to the border with food and other supplies. My boss has a lot of ties to Eastern Europe, and I know this situation has weighed heavily on him. So please be praying for them as they travel and as they do what they can in a very precarious situation. 

Otherwise, have a good one, don't do anything I wouldn't do, and stay in school. 

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: March 7-11, 2022

The dogs have been successfully reunited with their owners. I have returned to my cold office in the basement. Life is resuming its normal course. 

Granted, most of that didn't happen until Wednesday afternoon, so I still spent the majority of the week working elsewhere. That was not always successful, which is why I've been spending more time in the office in the evenings and will probably spend some time in the office this weekend. I'm trying to get a group of Amharic published, which is still slow, but that's largely because I have to split one of the booklets. That always takes more time.

But we prevail! I had a lot of meetings this week about the future. They say, Aslan is on the move! Sorry, couldn't help myself. But yes, big things are coming to OMS. Most people are focused on the big stuff, but I have been somewhat preoccupied with the smaller logistical questions, like which accounts we need to keep and which ones need to change. Also, we still need to move some of development work out of Ukraine. We like our developers, but they have other things on their mind right now, and I think this whole situation has reminded people of the importance of having resources as much in your control as possible. Because you never know when Vladimir Putin will try to get that stick out of an orifice. (Sorry, not sorry, I can't be neutral on this. I lay the blame at one person's feet specifically and the Fall of Man in general.)

Anyway, you know how my weekend will go. I hope you get some rest. 

Bye!

The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 28 - March 4, 2022

This has not been a normal week. 

That seems like a vast understatement, given the circumstances. But still true, nonetheless. 

Personally, it's a weird week because I've been out of the office more than I've been in it. I'm taking care of two dogs right now. They're older, and they live a fair distance from OMS, so I've been working from there as much as possible. 

I've been working on fixing some of the template errors in T&M - little things we've noticed over the years that we constantly have to fix in each language because we haven't had the time to fix the templates. But we're compiling those errors and re-releasing a master set of files. I'm also taking the time to fix some of the English grammar and spelling mistakes so we can re-release those files and not have people call us up and say "Did you know..." and me be polite instead of letting out my frustration because of course I've noticed, I just couldn't do anything about it. 

Anyway. 

This week was also the culmination of The Hairies! As you know (I think I told you), the guys of OMS have been growing their beards out in Janu-hairy and Febru-hairy. Wednesday was the day to measure up. I wasn't really anticipating being in charge of things, but it's funny how things just happen. So Sarah helped me throw something together. I think it went well - we had prizes and everything. The most growth was 7 centimeters, and we had prizes for the best lookalike (look up Hamid Karzai), the best mustache, and the most artistic look. And because it's us, we did a little decorating around the office.

In other news, the world is a mess. More than usual. Which is saying something. It's frustrating when there's very little you can do to help. You can pray. You can donate. But you can't sit everyone down and tell them why they're being stupid and why they need to stop. So I'm doing my best to keep it from taking over my life. 

Not sure I'm succeeding. 

But we carry on. There is hope, and I have to rest in that. 

Have a pleasant weekend, everyone.

Bye.