Already running late in 2015

Good thing I didn’t resolve to stick to a posting schedule. My weekend posting has sort of gone to pot. Mostly that’s because I head out of town so often but I had no excuse this past weekend. All I did was go to a baby shower on Saturday and a hot pot party on Sunday.

Both were overwhelming successes so far as I was concerned. I bought a Grimm’s fairy tale book for the mom-to-be and she really appeared to be touched by it. People should always buy books. They’re awesome.

The hot pot party was an amazing amount of food. We had about 35 people there – a friend’s house – and I think everyone brought food to bring 35. We ate most of the meat but there was so much left over.

So it was a really good weekend, in town and everything. I needed to keep my mind off the fact that my bid list was going to come out on Monday.

This is the list of potential next posts. I’d figured that there’d be about 15 on it, and I was exactly right. Some are darn cool, but some aren’t going to be available to me because of the timing.

It’s highly possible that my top choice, which is a management position, won’t work out for timing. I am done here in December and it starts in May. You’re supposed to plan for a month of home leave and then allot for some training. For that position, there’s not four months of training. I’m still listing it high because that’s the job I want.

The second contender for me is a front office position in a small consulate. Normally I wouldn’t be interested in front office, but it’s a really small consulate and that’s kind of my ideal. I like knowing who all I work with.

No. 3 would be a position a security office in a post that’s larger than Guangzhou. It would be awesome but probably would require a car. I’m not sure if the other two would.

Anyway, the thing with the list is now I’m supposed to research and bid. Bids are due February 20, but honestly, I could send them in tomorrow. I mean, there’s a possibility that they might add a post or two, but I’m comfortable with my top three and don’t really expect the order of the rest of them to change. (It’s not 1-15 so much as it is high, medium and low.) But we won’t know until Feb. 27 which one we’ve been selected for. That’s a LONG time from now!

So I need to keep busy, which works out because I am pretty busy right now. Over the three-day weekend, I am headed to Taipei. Only today did I even bother to search for stuff to do there; I’ve just had too much on my plate.

Last Friday, I did my movie outreach and we watched “Twelve Angry Men.” I had 42 people there and you can imagine how surprised I was when more than one asked me, “So what happens to the accused if Henry Fonda isn’t on the jury?” How on earth does a Chinese audience know who Henry Fonda is?

Here was a random suggestion that came out of the meeting: if evidence is unearthed later that overturns a conviction, hold the jury accountable.

Last night, I “supervised” the outreach event, which was English teaching. Tomorrow, I have another; a bunch of the former Peace Corps volunteers are going to speak at the Thursday event.

I’m all over PR this month; I’m also doing a media one on January 29 as part of a panel, but I can’t do my regular movie one in February because I am traveling to take a class.

February really is a busy month, because it’s one of the two HUGE Chinese holidays – the new year. We’ll be exiting the year of the horse and entering that of the goat.

My work trip will leave on Saturday the 7^th or whatever it is (checking would require the effort of turning a calendar page). The class starts Monday but if I’m going to the Philippines I’m going to get as much out of it as I can. I’m hoping to go diving.

After the class, I will leave the following Saturday and fly back into Hong Kong, not Guangzhou. This is because I already made plans to hit up Disney again. The kid count is going. It was one officer and her family and now we’re up to three. The adult count is six, I think, and we’re up to six kids. I’m counting myself as an adult.