Thursday, October 18, 2012

Back in Oakland

Thought it was time for me to update my blog. I've been back for 2 weeks now and nearly finished with "working out of the SF office" and starting my vacation. The last two weeks in HK passed by really slowly. I studied a  lot during our 4 day holiday, which ended with going to the wedding of a former coworker. Had a hectic few days at the office after that trying to wrap up stuff. The day of my flight, I went with my luggage to the Kowloon Station and checked in there. Now I understand all the hype about having an in-town check in. It's so convenient! You can check in 24 hrs before your flight and then spend the rest of the time free of your luggage. I packed a lot of books in there last minute.

That day was the last day for another one of my coworkers and we went out to dinner. Wish I was able to stay longer but I had to leave them early for the airport. I bought a lot of candy at the airport. They made my hand luggage, which just had a few papers and my stuffed animals, really heavy.

Really jetlagged the first couple of days being back. I literally felt dizzy in the afternoon so I spent a lot of time sleeping. I think sleeping more is good since I've been feeling sleep deprived all summer. I've been sleeping 8 hours a day here so it's not bad.

Working at the SF office is interesting. I'm sitting at the other side of the office as the geotech group so it's kind of hard to join in their informal chats. I've only had lunch with them a couple of time since I've been meeting up with other people for lunch. I can definitely get some solid work done with no one to bother me but it gets kind of lonely. But the last few hours of the day tend to get stressful as I'm trying to wrap up stuff and get ready to take calls from the HK office at 6pm, which is 9am their time. People here tend to all get in around 8am, don't take very long for lunch, and then all disappear around 5-6pm. Whereas in HK, we don't get in until 9am, sometimes take 1.5 hrs for lunch, and don't leave the office until really late. The smaller office is also kind of nice since everyone seems to know everyone else. When I tell people how big the HK office is, someone remarked, "so you don't even know everyone in the office." It had never occur to me that you would know everyone in the office.

Anyway, still stressed out about the PE exam. Don't think I've studied enough for it. And it's definitely been a while since I've taken a test like this. Can't wait for it to be over. Then I can add de-stress to this vacation.