Oh, my, this has suddenly become a very hectic week.....
Here's what I have on my 'to do' list now....
1) Replace the flight documents that I picked up yesterday, and promptly lost.
2) Do some online research about my holiday destination, and try to make some budget hotel bookings.
3) Contact the old college friend who I'm hoping is going to be able to give me a free crash for at least part of my stay.
4) Go to a foreign language bookstore to try to pick up a Lonely Planet Guide or similar. (Although my buddy The Choirboy has promised to lend me his Shoestring Guide to South-East Asia...)
5) Go to a bank to try to purchase some foreign currency.
6) Go to a bank (unfortunately, I'm afraid it has to be a different bank) to pay my next quarter's rent a week or so early.
7) Hope one of the local barbers will return from holiday - and waive the Chinese superstition about it being bad luck for a man to have his hair cut in the first month of the Lunar Year - so that I can get my shagginess shorn. (Otherwise, I will have to shave my head again; I am not going to a hot country with this much hair!)
8) Go to a computer markeeeeeet to geeeet myself a new keeeeyboard.
Oh, and, not having been on a holiday in over 18 months, I probably have to do some shopping for new clothes, and maybe some luggage as well.
All of this would not be such an onerous load if..... I weren't also juggling half a dozen new job enquiries/applications and the possibility of one or two interviews later in the week, and devoting 4 or 5 hours every afternoon to preparing and delivering classes for a private student (which includes a gruelling hour-and-a-half or so of travelling to and from the distant northern suburb where he lives).
And blogging about it all, of course....
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Plus... trying to 'pre-cook' some blog posts, to create the illusion that I am still here.
And if you have time, Lord... I really should look into setting up a 'roaming' facility on my mobile phone. Probably not possible on China bloody Unicom, but I ought to check...
Exciting! Where (in SE Asia) are you headed? How long are you allowing yourself to holiday?
Oh, all very hush-hush. I might let you know when I get back.
I am close to regretting the decision already: it has made this week into a nightmare.
And then.... my editor at the publishing house, the one who's started looking on me as her go-to guy when she's forgotten to ask anyone to take on one of these sow's ear sewing jobs for her with only a few days left before her deadline, that one, despite having been told that I was leaving on holiday in a few days, e-mailed me THREE new assignments - one of them 22,500 words long.
I said NO. Politely, butfirmly.
Aaargh. I've been in one of those situations where I'm very good at calculating subconsciously how long it's going to take me to do stuff, and I knew I didn't have enough time to get it all done this week; and the anxiety about this has been leading me to wake up at 5 or 5.30am every morning!!
The mountain has only become just about climbable because my time-consuming private student (also overwhelmed by his schedule!) cancelled his series of classes early, giving me TWO FULL DAYS to try and get on top of things. TWO FULL DAYS which I seem likely to spend mostly blogging and SLEEPING.
I have also, somewhat recklessly, taken on yet another editing assignment (private client, much better rate; not the 22,000 words-for-peanuts job the educational publisher tried to foist on me): so much for 'free time'!
The mountain - I hope - remains vaguely climbable... because I've ditched most of the items on this list. I can't face the nightmare of a Chinese bank, so I'm just going to take some US dollars I have left over from my last trip there; I know 'roaming' on Unicom is going to be prohibitively expensive or impossible, so I'm not even going to bother asking; The Choirboy came through with the loan of a good guidebook (although I haven't had time to read any of it yet), so I don't have to worry about buying one of those; there are still no hairdressers operating in the city (not inexpensive men's hairdressers, anyway; not in my neighbourhood)), so the head shave it is. And so on.
Nearly there, nearly there.
Glad that things are (mostly) falling into place! The undertaking of more work in the midst of your mysterious (and soon-to-be-less-shaggy) travel plans is either impressive or insane--but good luck either way.
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