| Jackie's profileMy Corner of the WorldBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
|
May 25 Whole lot a Shakin going on...Another large after-shock occurred about 4:20 p.m. local time in China on Sunday. The US Geological Survey puts it at 6.0. Chinese seismologists are reporting that it was 6.4. Either way, it was a significant jolt. Early news releases indicate that fatalities were minimal compared to the May 12th quake, but that around 70,000 homes were destroyed. At this point, those structures have to be so weakened that they are just crumbling into rubble with each successive jolt. The devestation is unfathomable - both in the loss of human life and property damage. For the survivors, I'm sure they will live with the psycological damage for the rest of their lives. Even the damage to the national psyche will be long lasting too...I keep remembering how angry and victimized we felt as a nation after 9/11, and that was over a loss of fewer than 4000 people. I can only imagine the feeling that comes from knowing that more than 80,000 of your countrymen were killed in the blink of an eye. It chokes me up.
On a personal level, I'm more than a little nervous about this upcoming trip - my anxiety comes from several sources, some earthquake related, and some just plain old fear of the unknown. I'm trying to work through it, but I'm not sleeping well and as the trip gets closer, I'm getting grumpier by the minute, which Joe is quick to point out. He's feeling the stress too. He's worried and doesn't want me to go. My mom doesn't want me to go, I don't want me to go... but I don't want this hanging over my head for another year either, so at this point, I'm resigned to going and getting it over with.
We're undoubtly going to lose money - lots of money, boatloads of money, a person's whole yearly salary worth of money. I can't see any way that we'll be able to save this conference financially, but the cost of canceling it now would be even worse... cancellation penalties at hotels and convention centers don't come cheap, even in China. And, who knows what sort of damage we'd do to our reputation. We're just cultivating our international image and canceling our first international conference would not be good for that.
I'm hopeful that this experience will turn out to be one of those things that even though you dread it, and you can't wait for it to be over with, in the long run, you learn from it and are glad you experienced it.
Prayers are greatly appreciated - both for me and my traveling colleagues, but more importantly, for those millions of people who are directly affected by this horrible disaster.
May 24 Nothin could be finer than to be in Southern China in the Summmm-ah-ah-erI'm going to China - I probably should have been blogging about this for awhile, but I've been too busy being scared out of my wits to blog about it...
The center of earthquake that happened on May 12 is about 200 miles north west of where I'll be going. The city is called Chongqing and the population is about 29 million people, or around the combined populations of the top 16 US cities; New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philladelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, Jacksonville Fla, San Francisco, Columbus OH, and Austin Tx. That's a lot of people that I won't be able to communicate with, which, considering my talkative nature, has me a bit concerned.
I've been working with very nice people at the Convention Center and at 2 Western-style hotels. Their names are Lucy, Jane and Sandy - somehow I don't think those are the names on their birth certificates. We've mostly been communicating via email, and they all are quite proficient in English. I've made a real effort to reduce my use of slang and Americanizations, and they seem to be trying really hard to figure out what I mean. They check and re-check about things that they don't clearly understand.
Lately I've been working on the menus for the meals we'll provide to our conference attendees - I got the proposal from the convention center this week and I'm going to try to attach it here so that you can see some of the delacacies that we'll be sampling... I'm looking forward to trying some of it, but other dishes... not so much. I think that I'll definitely pass on the Sliced Pig Ear with Oil Sauce and the Ox Tendon Jelly, but count me in for the Sauteed Shrimp with Chicken, Steamed Baby Lobster and the Sacher Cake, which is a traditional Chinese sweet cake... I'll definitely try that.
The menu below will be for our all-conference banquet on June 11. You can see the price is RMB158 per person which translates into about $23 per person. A menu that included Lobster and Shrimp and this many items would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 per person, at a convention center or hotel in Boston or San Francisco.
中式晚宴GALA DINNER 时间time: 6月11日Jun.11th,19:00—21:30 地点avenue: 会议中心4楼宴会厅, 4F, Grand Banquet Hall, Convention Center 价格price: RMB 158 / Per.people (drinks & wines not included)
冷菜Cold dish:
热菜Hot dish:
点心Desert:
More on this subject later -
April 05 Back from CalifornyI've been back from San Francisco for almost a week and I'm doing ok on catching up on my sleep. I got home around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday and promptly fell into bed. I also took Monday and most of Tuesday off of work - after spending a week listening to a constantly ringing phone and working 14 to 17 hours a day, I needed to be alone and just have some chill-out time.
I only saw a couple of areas of SF this time. The conference center and the hotel I stayed in are about 1 block apart and that's virtually where I spent my week. Three of my friends and I went to dinner at a converted bath-house right on the Pacific Ocean on the Saturday night before the conference started. We watched the sun sink into the ocean and talked and laughed and cried - about life and the passage of time and the paths we'd walked.
In all honesty, as great as dinner was, (and it was great), the company was even better. My friends are three very different, but very strong women... we make a nice mix. We have fun and laugh together most of the time, but the times when we whine and complain and cry together are good too. No one is judgemental and we take each other as we are. We aren't always together as a four-some, sometimes we add another friend from the office, and sometimes it's just a combination of 2 or 3 or 4 of the 5 of us. It's nice to have such a caring and comfortable group of friends!
I've posted a few of the photos Debbie took from the deck of the restaurant ... you can see why it's a very popular place.
January 28 It's NOT a Stupid Time Machine!I averaged working 49.5 hours per week last year. I'm proud of myself, I shaved a 1/2 hour per week off my 2006 average. I don't know what I did with those extra 26 hours, but I'm sure I enjoyed them.
The downside, to this major accomplishment is that I've already started to work more hours this year than I want too, and my schedule over the next 6 months looks to be horrendous. I keep wishing it was July and thinking about that Verizon or Sprint or whatever it was, techy commercial where the good looking actor is selling some sort of new gizzmo. The punch line to the commercial is that there is a time machine at the back of the set - but it's supposed to be next to the guy, so he has to turn and walk toward it. As he's walking away, he mutters 'stupid time machine' under his breath.
How I wish I had a stupid time machine. If I had one, I'd either make every day be about 36 hours long, and stay at my present location on the time-space continuum, or I'd keep 24 hours in the day and jump ahead to July. I'm not sure which would be the better option, but if I did have a stupid time machine, I could try one, and if i didn't like it, I could just rewind it and try something else. May 12 Leaving on a Jet PlaneI'm leaving tomorrow for a business trip to NC. I'm looking forward to being in the south, but after my not-so-great experiences with US Airways, I'm NOT looking forward to getting on that big 'ol bird.
Work has been crazy for me lately... I've been averaging 60+ hours a week for the past couple of months and I'm just plain tired. When I get back from NC, I will make a quick trip to visit the family in Missouri for a wedding... I know that it will be hectic and that it means more traveling, but it will be such a relief to be there. I want to be involved in as much of the final wedding preparation as I can. My sweet Whitney is such a wonderful young woman. I wouldn't miss this time with her, as she goes through this once-in-a-lifetime experience, for anything.
And, bonus... I can definitely use a little 'me' time with the folks! My mom will have catfish and hushpuppies and make some southern iced tea for me, and hopefully I'll get to spend some early-morning time drinking coffee on the front porch with my dad.
Nice!
April 22 I'm BAAAAAAACKJust got home from a nine-day trip to Californy. I'm totally exhausted from working 18 hour days and from never really adjusting to the time change... hopefully I'll find time to share some of the funny and interesting things that happened while I was away....including the comment...'I hope there's no ice in that water'.
It's good to be back to my corner of the world!
April 08 It's been a long timeYeah, I know, it's been awhile since I tended my little blog garden, I'm sorry and promise to do better.... in June!
I have a really intense work schedule over the next 6 weeks or so, so I'm predicting that blogging may be sparse...unless stress levels go higher than I think they will and in that case I may blog more to help ease the burden on my dear husband's ear canals.
I love what I do, I love the people I work with and I love my job, but it is quite demanding on occasion. You see, I'm a problem solver....that's it....when you really boil it down that's what I do. My title says Operations Manager, but that's just a small part of what I do. My real focus is to take care of the rest of the staff. I make things work logistically so that they can take care of our customers' needs.
I've been with my current organization just a bit over 6 months. It's a great place to work, but I struggled with the decision to move from my old job because I had such good friends there, and I have this weird character flaw that makes me more loyal than any pet pooch ever thought about being. At my old job, we'd gone through a patch of really hard times; a couple of layoffs and eventually a merger with our only real competitor, so... times, they were a changin'. My organization ended up on the bottom of the merger-pile, and the whole culture of the organization changed....in 2 words, it sucked.
I lasted 19 months after the merger. I knew I needed to get out, but just did not like the idea of giving up, of letting down the staff I worked to support and take care of, of not being able to fix something that was broken. So, there you have it... I had to admit that I couldn't fix something...I couldn't make it work, I couldn't solve the problem...... if I left, in my mind, I was a failure.
However, I'm nothing if not practical, I could see that it was time to stop trying to push a rope and get the heck out of Dodge. The stress and frustration at work was affecting everything else in my life... my marriage, my relationship with my family, my health, the way I felt about myself.... literally everything was impacted by the sewer that I called work.
The really interesting part of this, (if there is an interesting part) is that while I recognized that I was not happy, I did not have a clue as to just how deeply the poison had seeped into my life. Being out of that nasty situation and in a much better environment, gives me a new perspective on the impact all of that vile crap had on me.
So, yes, I'm busy right now, I will always have 2 or 3 six week periods of time each year where I'm very busy, but busy-ness doesn't cause me stress, evilness causes me stress. I like busy-ness. Therefore, moral to this story, I'm busy, but I'm very happy and I'll try to blog when I can.
stay tuned.... I feel creative today, so there may be more coming later. |
|
|
