Final Episode
I suppose I should blog
something about my final day at work, which was yesterday. It is a major life event and all. ..... um, well, it was different. Not something one does every day. (Well, some people do that, I guess. Me, I stick with a job until my wife makes me move.)
Let me step back a few months. I gave my notice, unofficially, back in January. I knew that I was going to quit my job sometime this summer and didn't think much about it. China was in the future, the job was the here and now. Then around May both "jobs" started getting busy. I was torn between putting in overtime at work and doing all the things needed to prepare for China. After our training in June, I was all psyched to go. I was getting used to turning down overtime requests and was kind of looking forward to not having this work thing interfere with our preparations. This final week, however, my attitude made a subtle shift. All the negatives were pretty much gone from my mind and all I was noticing was the good things about work. Maybe because it was my ego was getting constantly stroked as people were saying goodbye and wishing me well. Or maybe it was because I no longer had to worry about the problems and could just enjoy the positives. I don't know.
Anyway, if the last week was "Happy Time", to steal a phrase from an erstwhile coworker, yesterday was "Über Happy Time." I got cake, I got cards, I got flowers. Well wishes and compliments from everybody. Promises of beer after work. (off premises, of course.) I even got to work on a job that was built in Quark XPress, for old times' sake. And then, it was over. As I punched out for the last time, there was a brief moment when I felt the gravity of what I was doing. Quitting a good paying job, for crying out loud! One I held for over thirteen years! But the spiritual crisis passed as I had to pack up my flowers and get over to my beer. Sometimes it's a blessing to be a shallow individual.
So anyway, yesterday I was a appreciated, respected and honored pre-press professional. (Not to mention well-fed.) Today I'm unemployed klutz, tracking paint on the carpet and rushing to finish my home improvement to-do list. Still well-fed though. I'm sure I'm going to be mourning the old job in the days to come, but I'm looking forward to taking on the new tasks. I'm sure I'll have ample frustrations, but hey, I might be able to get a blog entry out of it. What could be more important? ;-)
Doo-doo-Doo-doo....
I swear, my house is in the Twilight Zone or something. It's growing. Weeks, er, months ago, I measured the upstairs rooms, to calculate the amount of paint I'd need to paint everything. My calculations indicated that a gallon of paint should cover a room. The first room I painted was indeed amply covered by a single gallon with paint to spare. When we did the second room, I thought we were going to run out, but we didn't. For the third, I skipped the closet, and we were fine. But I had to skip the closet. You see where this is going, don't you? Today, we started painting the girls' room and had to break out the leftover paint from the other rooms. (Yes, we're painting everything the same boring color. We don't have time for creativity and variety.) This should not be. My calculations said that we had enough paint. I didn't spill
that much paint....
Workload
We've got word about what my wife, Yau Neih, will be teaching. She'll have 14 hours a week (class time, that is) split over three courses: Newspaper Reading, Oral Conversation and Listening Comprehension/Oral Conversation. We've also been told that she'll have two groups of students: 2nd year English majors and a group of non-English majors for the Oral Conversation. (One of those required courses. I'm sure you collegiate types will remember those.) The Dean said that the latter class might have as much as a hundred students! The Dean still needs to work out the details. He and our boss were talking about how to deal with the number problem. One suggestion is that Yau Neih put in an extra two classroom hours a week and split the monster class into two large classes. The other suggestion was to split the class but have me teach one of the sessions. We nixed that right off. Not only don't I have the required bachelor's degree, but I skipped out of most of the teaching ESL sessions when we had our training. It wouldn't be fair to stick those poor kids with such a poorly qualified instructor. Plus I'm hardly a good conversationalist. Does China really need 50 of their best and brightest learning how to nod politely while someone else does all the talking? Now if they wanted me to teach them how to write poorly crafted weblog entries, it would be a different story...
So write already!
Sheesh, I'm not doing too well here, am I. All week, I've been meaning to write about the latest news. There have been some changes to our itinerary. The original plan was for us to fly from Seattle to San Francisco, then make the big leap across the ocean to Hong Kong. After a few hours layover in Hong Kong, we'd then fly to the capitol city for some orientation. Then, a few days later, we'd make the flight to our new home. It was a good itinerary, though I had been secretly hoping that we would have gotten a train ride in there, as we did when we adopted Bunnah, all those years ago.
So, anyway, like I said, plans have been changing. You see, the school is picking up the tab for in country travel, so they have control over how we travel. I guess the airfare was too expensive, so we got word that the new plan was for them to pick us up in he capitol and drive us to the school. That was somewhat good news, as I would get the chance to see the countryside as we did on the train. (There is no train option in this case--at least according to the map I have.) The only drawback was that the trip would take about nine hours. Then a couple of days later, we get word that the school might not be able to fit the four of us plus our luggage into any of their vehicles. So we may end up taking a sleeper bus, much like
this one. (Michael Manning, the photographer and blogger, is my hero. I want my blog to be like his when it grows up.)
So what does the future hold? How will we get to our new home? I don't know. Whatever it is, I'm going to make sure I've got film and batteries for my cameras.
Humility
I admit it. One of the myriad of emotions that I feel about this whole China venture is pride. Most people, when they learn of our intentions are impressed. Some are even envious. This, of course, works it's way into the egotistical centers of my brain and begins the inflation process. "
Why, I am a pretty impressive fellow, aren't I?" I think to myself, "
I mean, going to live overseas and all. Heh. Thankfully there are plenty of humbling moments to keep myself in check.
Two of these have come about this past week through our attempts to rent our house. We've signed on with a rental agent and they've started advertising. They've go the house listed on their website, and have put a big "For Lease" sign in front of our house. Last Wednesday two different families came by to look at the place. One was a mother with her small daughter. She actually liked the house and asked if her husband could come over and take a peek the next day. He came by in the afternoon and chatted a bit with Noodles as he scoped out the place. He had somehow heard that we were China bound and was suitably pleased for us. This, however would in no way serve to inflate my ego, because he also revealed that he himself had lived for awhile in Mexico, traveled extensively as a photographer for
National Geographic and had even spent a month in captivity in an African prison awaiting the proper "fees" required for his release. Not much bragging room left for
me there.
The second dash of humility was given to me yesterday. My weekends have been devoted to repainting the interior of our house and this weekend past saw the completion of the fourth of the seven rooms that need a coat. We were about halfway done with the dining room when a couple of women stopped by and asked if they could take a look at the place. I welcomed them in, and one of the first things they asked, as they walked through the already repainted living room was, "Are you going to repaint the place?" It turns out that the question was less a criticism of my paint job than an attempt to find some work. Apparently these ladies are painters during the summer months. Still, I spent the rest of the day noticing what a dump I live in and what a lousy job of repainting I was doing. (Attention potential renters: That was hyperbole. The house is structurally sound and has... visual character. Yeah that's it. And as for the paint, well, paint jobs never last forever.)
Countdown
Well, one month from now 'll be on a plane, heading to China. Or maybe sitting in an airport, grumbling about a delayed flight. Or perhaps some unexpected life event will find me nowhere near an airport. But my money's on the airplane scenario. Anyway, here starts the new blog,
A Short Letter Home. I had originally thought about calling it
A Hamburger Abroad, but that felt a bit presumptuous. I mean, Mark Twain, I'm not. Fortunately I thought of an alternative. The significance of the name, in case your wondering, is that my Chinese name literally means "short letter". So there you go.
