The Wandering Monkey

Day 7 of America.

 

I have been going to different places.  I spent one and half days with my friend Steve.  He and I worked on a computer game while I lived here.  The game never got finished, but Steve and I became good friends.  He's gotten married while I was away.  He's been married almost two years, so he must have gotten married just after I got in China.  I don't remember if he sent me a message about it, but I was very busy those first few months out here so I might have forgotten if he had told me.

 

Although this 'vacation' cannot be considered a luxury trip, it is giving me a good chance to see people living their lives as they normally do.  I am staying with different people, and they are going through their normal routines for the most part.  I see what they do in a normal day, how they live their lives on a normal basis.  It is very good for me, because I can compare what my life is like in China to what their lives are like back here.

 

Tonight I'm supposed to go to a party which has a lot of swing dancers.  I haven't met up with any of them yet, if you can believe that!  I have to go from one person to another, hoping they will let me sleep at their homes, so I haven't been able to meet most people for lunches or coffees.  But tonight I should run into a whole bunch of them.

 

I'm talking to folks about jobs, especially in China.  I'm going to have a lunch with my old friend who works at Google, but again it does not look like there is anything solid there.  My chances are probably better somewhere else, though I don't know where that somewhere else is just yet.

 

Today is Sunday the 11th.  I think on the 15th I go on to Chicago.  (I'll have to check my ticket for the exact date.) 

 

I like the San Francisco area and I would probably want to live here if I were to live in the United States again.  Of course, everything depends on the job situation.  Here's how I'm looking at how things will go in the next few weeks:

 

I'm going to continue to send out intenet resumes and talk to everyone I can about job positions taking me back to Shanghai.  I would not mind a job which involved travel, including Shanghai, Beijing, and the U.S., if that were possible.  I'm looking to get a decent salary, but probably less than I used to earn in consulting. 

 

I do not think I want to begin a new consulting agency in China, because at the moment I'm not up to doing all of the setup work.   I'd rather take a job with an existing company or a consulting job through an agency, even if it means a little less money.  (Being an entrepreneur is very exhausting, especially when it's not making any money!)

 

However, the time before Christmas and until after Western New Year is not the best time for finding a job.  Most companies are busy with year-end projects, and everyone is looking to take a vacation, too.  Plus, new budgets for personnel tend to become available at the beginning of each quarter.

 

My return ticket is scheduled for January 3.  If I have not found a job or don't have any prospects for a job, I don't know that I will return to Shanghai on that ticket.  I've got to get work, and I can't return without one.  I think the prospects for finding a job in Shanghai are, ironically, better if I stay here rather than go there.  I can't get a job with a local company because my Chinese is not fluent.  Foreign companies would hire me, but for some reason they do not take local candidates seriously.

 

Of course, a lot of this plan depends upon where I would stay if I decide to stay in the US longer.  Would I stay with my mom in Chicago?  (Could I stand doing that?  Given the very, very cold weather?)  Would I stay in San Jose, since that's the most likely place I'd do an interview and probably the most likely place to get some temporary work to make ends meet in the meanwhile?

 

In the end, it would seem that I need to get some sort of work plan sorted out no matter what I decide to do.  Shanghai has been great to me but the last coulple of months have been significantly stagnant.  If it looks like I won't be making it back to Shanghai on the January 3rd ticket, I would probably want to get rid of the apartment, which would mean a big hassle.  I left most of my clothes there, and old Shanghai Swings documents, and DVD's.  In the end it's a lot to keep track of, and if I got rid of the apartment, where would I put it all?

 

Ai you.

 

Lots of questions and not a lot of answers.  Everything would be much simpler if I had the job and the stable income, but so far I have heard absolutely nothing back from all the resume submissions.  It's not encouraging.  Even a rejection would be better than no word at all, because I may be able to learn what the employer wants.

 

Most people I talk with say I'm worrying too much.  My resume is strong and my position to get a job is strong.  They say I'm just worrying too much, and that it's part of my personality to do so.  They said I worried a lot about when I started up the e-commerce consulting job seven years ago, and look how that turned out.  I ended up having more work than I could have asked for seven years running.

 

So I'm going to try to relax a bit.  Keep focused and keep taking actions to get my goal, but not worry about it.  Perhaps it happens in a month, maybe longer.  Who knows what will happen?  Worrying is not going to help in any case. 

 

Ah well.  All for now.

 

-J