October Catch-up

Gosh, what a surprise. Six weeks have sped by without a single blog post. Shelly has been doing her part and has written three posts, and I haven't even gotten them posted. I'm going to post a bunch of stuff today without backdating it, but most likely, the last thing you read was September 9.

And just to follow up, the new iPods did finally make it to Hong Kong, and my old iPod held out just long enough to keep me entertained on my daily commute to work and walk home. Thanks to Uncle Larry for sending me a story about iPod costs around the world. Hong Kong is the cheapest place in the world to buy one, so I upgraded at the right time!

Work has been crazy. Somehow, I've taken on way more than I should have. We're in the process of doing some reorganization at the office, and I'm not exactly sure of what my role will be next week, much less next month. In the process of the reorganization (brought about my editor's resignation), my boss's boss's boss came over from London to see what we've been up to (part of the reorganization has changed my boss's boss's boss from someone in Hong Kong to someone in London), and he seemed shocked by how much I've been doing, which gives me hope that I may be able to do less in the future, as he asked me how I could possibly think about the big picture and what's best for the magazine with all the copy I'm churning out. He also called me "the most prolific legal journalist in Asia." I got the feeling that this was a role he did not think I should have to have, which gives me hope for the future.

I also got a nice raise when our new financial year started in October. I will never again get a 17% raise. Hopefully, I will never again be as underpaid as I was prior to the raise.

The reorganization has given me some opportunity to redefine my role at the company. I hope to move a step higher on the organizational chart and become responsible for the magazine I've been writing for. My boss was responsible for much more, and I didn't want to take on her role, which was more of a manager role. I am enjoying my writing assignments way too much right now to give them up completely.

What else is new in Hong Kong? We had company in late September and early October when Shelly's aunt came to visit. She was actually here as part of a group of college friends that still get together periodically. One of the members lives in Hong Kong, and everyone packed up and flew halfway around the world. (Karen's friend introduced us to Happy Valley a year ago, which is how we came to live here. When we recently met friends of Shelly's cousin who were moving here, we invited them to Happy Valley for dinner. They live here now, too, so the circle goes on!) I believe Shelly has a post on Karen's visit that I'll post shortly.

Somehow, I managed to get enough work done that Shelly and I took a week's holiday in Indonesia in mid-October. It was an incredibly relaxing trip. I can only remember one other time when I needed a holiday as badly as I needed this one. I have some photos that I'll post.

So, with turmoil at work and my parents arriving for a week's visit on Friday, my life doesn't appear to be slowing down much. Time is really flying by. I also need to buy a new computer, as the one I'm using has been beset with problems since the beginning. I had a bad memory chip almost immediately, then I broke the screen in Manila, my hard drive died a year ago, and my CD/DVD drive died in April. I've fixed everything except the CD/DVD drive. It's now having trouble turning back on after being shut off, which means I'm leaving it on all the time. I've reached the point that it is more cost-effective to just buy a new machine, and now that the latest update to Apple's operating system is on the shelves, I'll be buying soon.

I'll be buying the extended warranty this time, too. (Though in fairness, at least part of the problems would not have been covered. Shelly and I have each dropped it, so I'm frankly surprised it works at all.) (Shelly would point out that she didn't actually drop it. In truth, Shelly placed it on my desk incautiously and Fat Choy did the actual dropping. Shelly would also probably point out that my desk was too cluttered for her to find a good place to put it, but that's another story.)