I think some family friends both have the right way to handle ‘retirement’- constantly be in a state of semi-retirement.  travel, work a bit, travel some more, get back in touch with reality with a bit of work… it sounds pretty good.  I think that would really make the holidays more exciting, and give you something to look forward to.  Every so now and then you need a bit of routine reality to make you feel special that you don’t HAVE to be there.

I would imagine anything gets boring after a while if you do too much of it.

I would imagine my granny gets a little bored from time to time, although the saving grace there is that she is old, and that even if she is going really well for her age, she starts to forget things… which means that she can experience the same things over and over again, and not get so bored.

This is the way I assume it works, but probably not.
I myself am happy watching The Simpsons over and over again.

As for me, I’m working a lot. (well at least, it feels like I am)

I’m not really teaching my boss as much as I should, like I was hired to do, in fact I’ve now been absorbed into his company, because it seems he really has no time to learn.

I did however create 2 on-the-go learning applications for him, which meant that he can still learn even if he ‘has no time’

http://imagination.trialsinlogic.com/moodle27/

http://quizlet.com/class/1280677/

the first one is a whole website, with links and materials (although I haven’t updated it for a while)

and the 2nd one is just a flash card learning system.

But for my office job, not this, I was involved in marketing… and then after a few suggestions by myself and a colleague, that system got temporarily closed down… so I have moved on to Customer Service, and trying to increase customer service… which is good for me to be honest.

Basically we have the contract with a large online mega store which is doing cross-border e-commerce which ships goods directly from America to China, so we have a lot of customers simply asking ‘where is my package?’

Easy enough to deal with, but as the same questions crop up, it’s my job to smooth out the whole process, create ‘how-to-guides’, FAQs, common questions and quick answers for our customer service team to use,

In reality I am in charge of keeping the foreigner customers happy, which is pretty ok, because in reality they don’t trust Chinese people… (I wonder why), and as soon as they hear a foreigner.. they are that much more relaxed

This week coming up i will be making a video, for how to upload information, which should keep our foreign users happy for a while.

and then I will move back onto marketing with my colleague

basically I have one colleague, whose English is pretty decent, not amazing, but decent, and when i speak Chinese,…it’s decent but not 100% clear, so together…things get understood.   So i constantly work with him.

I have been to Tianjin a couple of times (a coastal city- where our warehouse is) to work with the customer service team face to face, which is good, but the city is amazingly boring. It doesn’t help that our office is right next to the old airport and there is nothing around.  I can imagine this is what it’s like to live and work on the mines… you get this overwhelming lonely feeling

Anyway, I’m going to go, I’ve got some Chinese learning to do, and a lesson in 15 minutes time, where I will learn how to buy things online, and write formal emails to colleagues and what not.

hope everything is fine with the family back home