I’ve heard many times that it takes a year to really get the hang of a job. So, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that at 10.5 months into our travels, several aspects of our work have suddenly fallen into line.
Today, I finished my work at 2:30pm. The latest I’ve finished since we arrived in Vietnam is 5:00 – but most days it’s been between 3:00 and 4:00. And that includes time for personal emails, errands, finding a place for lunch, kibbitzing and walking around a bit.
I then have time to write the blog, work on other projects and enjoy where we are. Best yet, Emily and I are back to watching movies before bed at night like we used to do in Greece and Turkey. Suddenly, the workdays have a new flow.
Being me, I’ve been busy analyzing it. The amazingly good Internet here in Vietnam is hugely helpful. Speeds are great and it seems to always work – unlike so many places we’ve been.
Being back in places where we don’t drive around has made a difference too. In Bali, there was always the time of getting to and from town and sometimes around it. Add in that we went grocery shopping sometimes and that Emily couldn’t walk a block without at least staring if not stopping at one of Ubud’s many shops. It slowed us down.
We also have fewer distractions. We loved all of our guests in March and April – but of course, enjoying them took time. So, we juggled work to make more room for fun – which added a certain stress in and of itself. This all culminated with changing our trip itinerary to go to Malaysia before Singapore – which took some work, planning and coordinating. We discovered that last minute changes debated in a hurry and planned during the week is not good for business.
In short, we have a certain flow that we’ve found works for our work. With just us in places where infrastructure is good – everything has sort of settled into place.
It helps a little that my main client approved me for another business content project that pays more – and to me – is easier. I have a much easier time writing 400-500 word articles on “Are Life Insurance Benefits Subject to Probate in California?” (No) and “What Percentage of Health Insurance Do Employers Pay” (80 percent on average in 2010) than “Pros and Cons of a Paper Health Record” and “Medical Waste Disposal” like I did in early April.
Everything just combined to make life a little easier. The timing couldn’t be better since I’m interviewing for a job, trying to get more articles published and exploring turning this blog into some kind of a book. I’m also about to start doing some independent permanent placement healthcare recruiting work when we get home and I plan to get the ball rolling during our last month of travel.
Meantime, my beautiful wife has been dealing with a group of exceptionally dumb students. One of her schools offered her a special project to revise curriculum and then teach two sections of the course she helped design. At first, it was exciting.
Unfortunately, they stuck her with a particularly low functioning group that has been plagiarizing left and right. While one might think plagiarism makes her job as easy as recording a zero in the gradebook and notifying administration, at this school plagiarism cases become major ordeals.
Thus, Emily has had her hands full of academic dishonesty on top of her usual workload.
She’s been fighting hard to have her students disciplined and/or removed given that advisors tell her things like, “She really just didn’t understand that copying is plagiarism. She honestly thought it was okay. But I’ve explained it to her and she understands now. Can she make up the assignment for partial credit?”
For more than six months, Emily has been trying to arrange it so that she can teach multiple sections of classes on the same exact schedule. Two of her schools that give her regular work give her classes with staggered start and end dates. So, she often teaches two sections of the same class for the same school – only one class is in week four while another is in week one. It makes the whole thing more confusing and take longer.
Today, both schools said they would sync up her classes starting…June 28th – the day after we fly home. Not that it won’t make a difference for her at home…. it’s just ironic.
Luckily, Emily’s about to finish with her little plagiarists, not to see that group again for at least awhile.
Both of us have plenty of work and are grateful, as usual.
This week, we’ve both been working to get more done than usual before Friday. That’s because tomorrow morning at 8am, a van will pick us up and take us to Halong Bay where we’ll spend three days and two nights cruising the bay on a Chinese Junk, visiting caves, kayaking and swimming. We come back Sunday night to another workweek in Hanoi.
Then it’s off to Vientiane, Laos via Bangkok. Naturally, with work going so smoothly, we’re nervous about the jump to Laos. In India and Nepal, we discovered how bad Internet could really zap our time. I often worked until 3 am and was exhausted. Now I’m done by mid-afternoon. The work hasn’t changed that much.
Much like in India and Nepal, the people we contacted at hotels in Vientiane weren’t always sure of their Internet speed. We were quoted a wide range of numbers – which is never a good sign. We have found in the past that people don’t always know what they’re saying.
Nonetheless, we found a very nice hotel claiming 100 Mbps – an excellent speed if it’s true. However, if things don’t go well, we may do like many Americans before us and retreat from Laos. We know Thailand has what it takes and we’re prepared for the fact that we may have to return to the Kingdom.
I feel like at this point in the trip, we’ve come into our own work-wise. We know our jobs, how to do them and how to take them with us. We know what questions to ask, what to watch for as we scout out our next accommodation and how to develop workable backup plans. So far, there’s been nothing we haven’t made work. So, we’re hopeful about Laos.
Of course, this blog has been my primary project since the day we left. I have written an entry everyday. I’m not going to let a little weekend boat cruise throw me off. Therefore, I pre-wrote the next two blogs about things I probably would have covered anyway. They’re set to auto-post each day to keep you entertained. Thanks for reading. We’ll be back Sunday.
Sent from my iPad
