HeyChristine.com

Sunday,
August 25th
On this date last year...

"Kind of a big deal..."

Let's see.

Friday evening, I met up with Joann, Alf, and Jill for dinner at that Mei-Kung Thai restaurant on Yen-Chi Street. A very pleasant time we had up until some DRUNKARDS next to us started giving us problems which prompted me to SAY something and almost start a fight (lol), but otherwise, we had fun. Afterwards, as Joann and I were walking on Jen-Ai Road, we spontaneously decided to go get a massage where they totally beat the #&*%! out of us (ouch!), but that's cool (not!). We stayed until well past 2 a.m. I think.

Joann and I talked for a very long time that night, as both of us are going through some major changes right now, such that by the time I got back to my apartment ~ 3 a.m., I picked up the phone and called my parents, my brother, Cindy, and Kevin in the States to tell them that...

I'm coming home.

Hopefully not too many people will read this and freak out, but truthfully, I'm still a little nervous about it myself, although the decision is firm.

It's kind of a long story as to how this all came about... an email from Corrina that she wrote last week assessing where I am in my life... watching the latest episode of Sex in the City where Carrie lets Aiden *GO* (I'm like, what the!)... getting a CARE package in the mail from Jenny who has never, ever, sent me ANYTHING during the ~8 years I've been in Taiwan, just to say that she missed me... and recognizing that with the exception of meeting my web designers face-to-face, there is nothing that I do in Taipei that I can't do from the States.

Nothing at all, and isn't that the beauty of the Internet?

I've created the entire ORIENTED.COM community from sitting right here in front of my computer.

These days, I usually just go to the gym after work, have late dinners by myself, spend my weekends at home most of the time as I just don't feel like going out partying any more, I go to the beach when I can but more and more, I think about my friends and family back home and MISS them. Don't get me wrong... I love all the people in Taipei and I love my lifestyle here, but the time has come for me to start setting ground in the bay area where I ultimately want to be.

I think what did it was when I was babbling to Ginny about everything and said, "It's just that I'm tired of seeing my parents only once a year and always feeling pressure to jam everything into a few weeks, know what I mean? And when I go home for Christmas this year, I just don't want to HAVE to get back on the plane and come back...", to which she smiled and said, "So don't."

And then I thought out loud and said, "Wait..... why should I wait until the END of the year? The only thing holding me back is finding someone to take over my rent and putting in my one-month's notice...", referring to my day job at CETRA.

So out of nowhere... it hit me.

Just like that.

I'm putting in my resignation this week, and plan to be back in the U.S. by the end of September.

That's in five weeks, more or less.

Wow.

I know, I know.

The website is going to take another 2 to 3 months before the whole thing will be ready to go as far as COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES are concerned, so with project delays and the like, realistically, that puts me almost to the end of the year. At that time, I suspect that I will need to do quite a lot of traveling back and forth to Taipei, Shanghai, etc. to set things up, and expect to be all over the place from January going forward. But by then, at least I will have one foot in the U.S. and will have already started to run things from there.

Not planning to look for a job, as my days of working for someone else are over.

I'll be running ORIENTED full-time -- which is more than I've been able to do here with my trying to handle my day job just to freakin' pay bills -- and am borrowing money to hold me over until the company starts to pull in some revenues.

That was the original plan, of course. I just didn't think I'd do it so soon, although truthfully, NOW IS THE TIME if I'm ever going to do it, while the rest of the site is under development. Worst case scenario is that I don't like living in San Fran and move back to Asia in January 2003.

Ain't no big deal.

Ultimately I'd like to have a home in both places, so you can say that I am taking steps to do just that.

Cat's out of the bag... wish me luck.

Photos are from lunch on Friday with Ginny when she came with me to the tailors. She kept making fun of me by making fun of herself and saying, "When I put this outfit on this morning, I felt like I was wearing YOUR clothes!" which cracked us both up, lol. I do wear that outfit a lot. She and I went to the beach on Sunday and had a really wonderful time together. Awwww... SHUCKS!

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