Damn, last night I had all of these ideas for blogs seeing as I'm behind on my blogging and now that I'm sitting down ready to write, I can't think of a thing to write about. My brain doesn't work so well anymore and it can be really frustrating.
The most important thing on my mind right now is a possible new job. It is sudden. Just last week I had decided to give up looking for something new and just resign for another year. To get into the nonprofit "world" I had to take a big pay cut and move back to Beijing from Shanghai, which is what I wanted all along. I wanted to be in Beijing with ZY and I wanted to do nonprofit work. At the time the money didn't seem important and it was made to sound like I would have room to grow in this position. It has now been two years with the same salary and as I approach the end of my contract and get ready to resign, I know that my salary will continue to stay the same and it's a little frustrating for me as I begin to think about having kids and how we're going to pay for all of that when I'm the only one with an income.
Ah the pressures of being the bread winner.
I had an interview this past Saturday afternoon in Starbucks and I can't say it went well. I mean, there were no awkward pauses so that's good, right? On the other hand, I have this problem with talking in circles to answer a question when I'm not confident with one short answer. It didn't make things any better that less than a few feet away sat two old foreign men on their lap tops. I could have sworn that one of them was listening to the entire conversation and that made me even more nervous. I started imagining what he was thinking about me! Such as... "Wow, this girl is really screwing up her interview" or "Damn, her face is getting really red. How embarrassing for her! She's never going to get the job."
The man interviewing me was from a headhunter company that is doing some pro bono work for this nonprofit organization. He told me there were a few other people in the running for this job and that we would all be interviewing with this org's executive director when she was in town this week. At the end of the interview he told me that he thought I was too young and didn't have enough life experience for the position but did say that the exec director was more interested in our chemistry. So I have hope yet although I am the underdog! I don't have an interview time yet as he is going to talk to her today and set it up. In the back of my mind I keep thinking he's going to talk me down and she's going to decideto not even meet me which would be a damn shame. For her and for me.
Yesterday met up with Emily and Jess to talk about the interview and they helped prep me. It's really all about me having confidence in my skills and in myself and selling myself. I can be timid sometimes and down on myself and I need to be really confident tomorrow. It was nice hanging out with them over happy hour drinks and nachos. I think we've decided we just have to set a schedule for meeting up or it won't happen. Like, every other Monday night we do dinner or drinks.
Anyway, the interview's tomorrow hopefully and I will soon have an update before I'm off to Thailand! Yes, you heard me right, I'm heading to Thailand this Friday night. I have some annual leave to use before my contract's up and the tickets to Thailand were cheap! Of course once everything is multiplied by 2 it doesn't seem so cheap anymore... but it doesn't matter. We'll start saving when we get back. Like we always do... Right. Ok, that's a complete lie but it's a good intention and we really should try harder.
So we're heading to Koh Phangan. Not sure yet where we'll be staying but I should probably hurry up and at least book the first night! This is my 6th time to Thailand but first time going there so I'm excited and happy we decided to try something new. Thanks for the recommendations Ann and Jess! We love Krabi but we aren't going climbing this time so we might as well go somewhere else. I'm going fake tanning for the next few days to try to work on a base but after 2 times, I'm not seeing much of a difference. The only color I got after yesterday's session are red butt cheeks. Ah well. I'll keep trying. I don't want to get there and be peeling and in pain and shit like usual. It takes me a while to get a nice tan going...
What else? Just went to the dentist and had two cavities drilled and filled and had my crown finally put in. No pain this time surprisingly and no numbing. It's great! And my teeth feel fine and they're not too high so I'm very satisfied with my dentist's work but not by the fact that I'm going to owe them like 2-3000 dollars for the work that wasn't covered by insurance. They only cover USD1000 per year for zy and I and we both racked up some expensive bills at the hospital. That's another reason we shouldn't be taking this trip to Thailand. I've never been good at giving up some things so that I could be responsible and save. I usually borrow until I get the money to pay them back. It's really bad! And to think I think I'm ready to be a mom. I don't know if I'm responsible enough...
Ah, it was zy's birthday this past Saturday and on Friday night we had some of his friends over for dinner. For dessert he had requested I make his favorites: pecan pie tarts and these chocolate covered cake balls. The cake balls are kind of strange but super easy to make. You make a chocolate cake (they say a box mix is fine but the second time I made them I made the cake from scratch) and then mash it up into crumbs in a bowl and add a thing of store bought icing (second time I also made the icing from scratch) and mix it together. Then form balls, put in freezer to harden then dip in melted chocolate (chips). The pecan pie tartlet thingies are super good with cream cheese, butter and flour in the crust and the filling is basically brown sugar, vanilla, and an egg or two. Oh and a few pecans. I didn't have a thing to make tarts so I used a small cupcake pan. Desserts were great and Valentina even made her first cheesecake which happened to be a Bailey's white chocolate cheesecake... Oh my! I was happy everyone was stuffed and couldn't finish the cheesecake and have been enjoying eating it for breakfast the last 2 days!
For dinner he wanted mashed potatoes and I made a huge pot of them. I also slow cooked beef and carrots and onions, made some terriyaki baked chicken, spinach curry, cheesy broccoli and garlic bread. It was a random menu but not one of my most random ones so I was doing OK. The beef and gravy was going to taste wonderful over my awesome mashed potatoes (why are they awesome? because I don't skimp on the butter, cream and salt and pepper). The only problem was that I had made the mashed potatoes the night before and was originally going to cover them and put them out on our balcony to keep them cool. In the end I thought, no big deal, there is no meat or whatever to go bad. I'll just leave them on the counter in the kitchen. Well, as I was heating them up the next night I tasted them and realized they had completely turned sour. I guess all of that milk and cream in them needed to be refrigerated! I tried to add milk and more salt but no, there was no hope for my potatoes and I almost cried. I had been picking at them the night before and they were awesome so it really sucked, especially because zy had been raving about them to his friends and was looking forward to them.
So I learned a lesson the hard way. Cliche, cliche but oh so true.
OK I think I've written enough to make up for last week. I'm going to be adding some new photos on flickr soon so check them out: www.flickr.com/sarahvoss.
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