Pedal to the floor 'til I’m out the door

This time next week, I’ll be in America. But now, I’m still all-in here.

Hopefully, next week is a bit less hectic, but holy smokes, I am glad the penultimate week ended. Honestly, I’m not even sure what the biggest highlight was, because I just had one project after the other.

Probably, though, the packout was No. 1. It was Thursday, and followed by the second outreach event of the week. I’d like to say I was relieved when it was over because that was it, but Friday was a daylong event in my department that I had to help plan.

Packout itself went just fine. I barely have anything – about 850 pounds and 25 boxes. Someone who packed out the next day, by comparison, had 86 boxes and 3,000 pounds. I tried; I really did. My air shipment, though, came in at only one box and it weighed less than I do. I’m allotted up to 250 pounds of that, plus 7000 pounds of the boat stuff, which was what the 850 was.

Now I’m really living skeletally, which isn’t so bad since my apartment came fully furnished. But it’s completely devoid of personality, not that it had much in the first place.

And I’m, of course, finding stuff I forgot to pack. In the follow-up landlord inventory, we opened a drawer I don’t remember ever opening before but obviously had, because there were two cookie cutters from Australia in there. Luckily, I had planned on mailing a sleeve of DVDs to myself at my new office, so I’ve already added them to the box.

Yesterday, we had a spring party (can’t call it Easter) and I remembered to hold out the brownie mix, but, in rationing next week’s oil for breakfast (I had to pack the PAM, as I can’t put it on a plane), I completely forget to reserve 1/3 a cup for that. And I also packed up the measuring cups, so basically I had to completely guess at that and just hope I still have enough oil to make hash browns for the next few mornings.

I am just so glad the week is over, though. Tuesday night, I coordinated a Peace Corps presentation. When I signed up, I offered to do it March 1 or 3, since that’s Peace Corps week. The person said sure, but when the schedule came out I was down for the 22^nd. And even though it’s not that hard – I had a panel of six, including one couple that had met in service in Mali – it was just one more thing added onto the big week.

Friday was the nightmare, because it was this team-building day for my department. I got tagged to be on the planning committee and it was just stressful for many reasons, but fortunately, it, too, ended. Sadly, it ended with a HUGE waste of paper and plastic, because one of the “games” we did was to put together these packets or cut out stuff from paper. It just killed me; I was ankle-deep in paper.

But it’s over, and now I’m staring down my last week. Fortunately, it’s not quite as packed as the last week, but I do have book club on Tuesday over and above work.

And people are crawling out of the woodwork to ask me to lunch or dinner. And, while I appreciate it, I’m just not able to take everyone up on it, and since I can’t, it doesn’t seem fair to accept some and not others. I’m really torn.

We did do a happy hour after the teamwork-building day, so I hope that stands for something. We’re also having a party or something at work, but people are pressuring me to do more. I’m an introvert; I’m OK just saying thanks or you’re welcome, depending on the situation.

Whatever happens, it’ll be an emotionally wracking week.

Anyway, I think I mentioned that I planned on taking a few photos with my old stuffed dog, so here are some photos of my now-empty apartment and its complex.

Last getaway

Took two days off last week to get old in Perth. Oh, man. They had this giant yellow orb in the sky. I think it was the sun, but it’s been so long that I’ve seen it that I couldn’t be sure.

And the sky was BLUE. Who knew?

Oh, it was a welcome getaway, and my last one from Guangzhou. I’ve only got one weekend left, and there is a spring party at work so I’ll go to that and not anywhere out of town.

The flight was nonstop. I watched three movies – “Creed,” “Mockingjay 2” and “Star Wars” – and napped a little. Really, since before moving here I never thought to visit Perth before, the nonstop-ness of the flight was the attraction. It was around $625 and seven and a half hours – not bad at all.

Perth itself is a small, walkable city and I walked and walked. It was fantastic. The following day, I went over to the beach and wandered around there and just hung out. Read For Whom the Bell Tolls and just enjoyed being in not Guangzhou.

Saturday, I went snorkeling. I’d hoped to dive but my flight was set to leave at 8:30 on Sunday morning and that’s not enough time between so I had to settle for a snorkel. And it was amazing. I saw a stingray that was about three meters across. It scared me to death, honestly, but it was just meandering its own way.

On the second snorkel of the day, I was a little bit away from my snorkel buddy and saw this big thing move. I looked over and I swear I thought it was a manatee. I realized it was moving too fast and was too white to be one and realized it was a sea lion! I surfaced to find my buddy to point it out, and it was right beside him. He could have pet the thing!

When we got back to the boat, though, and I asked him how close he got to the sea lion, he said, “What sea lion?” He’d been facing the other direction and completely missed it. It was so very amazing.

And now I’m back at work. The flight back was uneventful, but I hit my China fatigue at the airport, when I was back in the line and every person in front of me was checking multiple bags. Even though I’d arrived early, it took forever to get to the counter and by the time I was checked in, I had 30 minutes to get through customs and security. I ran, but there were no shortcuts for people who were late. I finally  got to security and an airport worker came through asking for people on the flight. I identified myself and she said, I kid you not, “Why are you so late?” and I wanted to throttle her. I wasn’t late. Everyone else was super slow, especially the group of three women that completely unpacked their suitcases at the counter, blocking anyone else from checking in. AARGH.

But it’s two weeks left and this week is going to be super, super busy. I pack out on Thursday but I also have a presentation tomorrow night, and another on Thursday night. They were my last shots at OT, so I took them.  As soon as I hit U.S. soil, I take a pay cut and I wanted to alleviate any downturn in the salary. April and May are going to be awfully expensive.

Speaking of expensive, one tour I did Down Under was the Perth Mint, where they refine gold and silver coins. We watched the guy pour a gold bar, which was fascinating. Apparently the gold they use for the bar is poured and hardened every hour, and it’s been the same gold for some long length of time that I’ve forgotten.

I couldn’t afford anything in the mint store, but I did weigh myself and learned that should I ever come across Midas and shake his hand, I would be worth $3.1 billion dollars.

Goodbye to Hong Kong.

What more appropriate thing to do is there in your last month in Guangzhou than go to Hong Kong?

I went with two colleagues and had a wonderful time. Got a haircut, ate a great burger, saw a movie, met a friend and wandered around a bit, which is what you’re supposed to do in Hong Kong.

The weather was a bit chilly. Due to some weird weather front, it turned about 60 degrees in SE Asia, and a little drizzly.

Stayed at a different place in HK than I’ve stayed before, and took intra-city buses for the first time. I’ve taken buses to the outer islands, but, on my last trip, learned a trick that would have saved me lots of time commuting. Instead of the metro under, down, over and back again, we took a bus right under the harbor. It was five minutes to the hotel instead of 40. I never would have learned that trick.

Didn’t buy much, but I never do. You eat in Hong Kong, you don’t really shop. Or at least I don’t. I enjoy the food, and the basic burger is just fabulous. It’s The Burger Club, if you ever find yourself there. Just fantastic.

One of my goals was to run down my metro card. I’d put a lot on it assuming I was going to Disney, but got med evac’ed instead. Anyway, part of my reasons for wanting to go was to spend the money on the metro card, which can also be used as a debit card around town.

And score! I was so successful, I ran it to -$1.20! (That’s maybe four cents.) Hong Kong is expensive. I burned through about $1000 HKD. And all I really did was eat!

I brought my stuffed German shepherd with me and tried to photograph him at various places in Hong Kong, but my camera batteries died. My two colleagues took some photos, so if I can get them, I’ll add here.

I’d decided to take the dog with me, Flat Stanley-style, to take goofy pictures of where I live. We went for a walk last night to pick up some sports equipment and he got some shots, too. I’ll take him to the gym tonight.

Do you need a hug?

Slowly recovering from a migraine that took hold at a baby shower. My guess on the trigger was being out all day; I’d worked out in the morning (13km), then swam, then ate pancakes and headed out to the Western food store with a friend.

I didn’t need anything but was due for some chat time, so we walked 30 minutes to the store. Today’s quite humid and maybe that started to do me in, but I didn’t notice. We shopped – well, she shopped, I window-shopped – and then walked back. I drank more tea and prepared for the baby shower.

I’m close to the end now and my metro card doesn’t have too much left. I’m saving that for next week’s trip to Hong Kong – I have to get to the train station. So I walked to the baby shower. Luckily, although I had never been to the exact place before, I had a good idea. Again, it was about a half an hour. (Seems walking here is like driving in Orlando – everything’s 30 minutes away.)

Had a good time – not enough people to overwhelm me. I’m still quite the introvert and I really have to psych myself up for these, no matter how much I like the people involved.

I did get a little lost on the way. I knew it was off a certain metro stop and I got there OK but wasn’t sure how exactly to get to the actual apartment. It was within site, but getting there was a little tough.

Anyhoo, the brownies were worth it. The party – a TexMex baby shower, if you can picture that – had good food and these amazing brownies. I thought they were blonde brownies, but they were Mexican brownies. Apparently that means “add cinnamon and cayenne pepper.” I’d made similar cookies for a Christmas party, but the brownies were WAY better. I am getting that recipe.

But as the afternoon wore on, the migraine started. It didn’t blow up until I got home, thankfully, and I downed Excedrin migraine and watched “Tomorrowland” while laying fairly still. It wore off, thankfully, but now I’ve downed Tylenol PM and headed for bed so I have to make this quick.

Two similar but random events happened on my little excursions. As my colleague and I were headed back, we crossed through this park-like thing and this well-dressed woman, wearing what appeared to be professional clothes and who was walking with a group of people, broke out from them and ran toward us. She had this huge smile on her face and said, “Welcome to China! Can I hug you?”

Both my colleague and I were completely taken aback and shook our heads no and kept walking. She was closer to the woman, and as a black person, probably was the one who caught the weirdo’s eye. There are a lot of Africans in the Guangzhou area (when ebola was hot, it was reasoned that if it started in Asia, it would have stated in Guangzhou), but not so much in our little area. And as a tall redhead, I get long stares all the time. Together, we were quite a pair, and apparently we needed a hug.

I’ve no idea what this woman’s friends thought. It was extremely random, and I thought fairly unique. But then, walking other party, this random guy walked up to me and wanted me to “talk for a minute.” He was holding a phone, and I figured he wanted a photo and I said no thanks, I was late which was true.

Maybe I should have accepted the hug.