Budget deadline and weekend travel

Last May when I graduated I foolishly thought I was done with the hell of final's week, that special time in every college students life when they don't sleep, have daunting amounts of work and get really, really crabby.

While it's no longer called "final's week", that special time hasn't gone anywhere, it's just become more stressful and changed names to "the budget is due Wednesday by midnight." For those of you who don't have the whole background, for the past few months I've been writing the budget for the hospital that I work for... fortunately my lack of an MBA and anything resembling experience in the field of finance wasn't seen as a big obstacle by my bosses so here I am, with two days left to make cash flow statements, balance sheets and profit & loss statements (all terms I hadn't seen since sophomore year in Accounting 100) look good on paper.

And just like finals, it'll get done. Keeping with the analogy, I figured it was more than appropriate to reward myself with a "winter break" trip up north to Harbin to see the World's Largest Snow and Ice Festival. For my friends in Wisconsin and Minnesota, I'll be on a parallel with Russia, so no more complaining about the temperature.

On a sad note, I picked out my favorite 472 pictures from the last couple months and tried to start uploading them, only to discover that my Internet currently has a max upload speed of 8 kbs (not a typo, eight KILO-bytes per second) making it next to impossible to upload even one photo before my Internet times out. I'm packing it up and headed to Starbucks later this week to see if their free Internet has better upload speeds but I wouldn't hold your breath. As soon as I get something figured out I'll let you all know.

Time to play catch up...

Besides obviously being weeks behind in blog posts, as I sit at my computer at 6:00 am, praying that my frequent typing errors aren't too much for the spell checker to handle, I realize that I am also way behind in a few other key areas of my life.

A rough count last night revealed that I am over 1,100 pictures behind in uploading photos of my time here to http://sterny.smugmug.com. Additionally, the admirable frequency with which I was initially dragging myself to the gym two months ago has slowed to a not-so-enviable once a week. And after a few trips to the DVD store (with a few intoxicating beverages down the hatch) I am now the proud owner of 62 newly released movies and TV seasons which sit in a pile next to my TV approaching in magnitude the towering mountain of laundry at the foot of my bed.

So, long story slightly shorter, it's catch up time for Joel. Fortunately, things at work didn't fall apart completely in my absence and the super late nights at the office I had feared aren't in my immediate future.

The other great news I received recently is that Tufts University School of Medicine has revamped it's MD/MBA combined degree curriculum in response to students' suggestions for improving the flow of the program. What this means for me, is that my dream trip to India in April is now very close to a reality as one of the last major obstacles (not having enough time to move to Boston when I got back) has been removed thanks to the new, later, start date of my MD/MBA classes.

What remains is the not so simple task of getting pages added to my passport and getting a travel visa to India. Both are trips which must be done during work hours (the US Consulate requires that I show up between 2 and 4 pm on Tuesday, for instance) and the application forms are complicated enough to give an IRS auditor a headache. Wish me luck. I'll update again soon and get to work on the pictures this weekend.

Cambodia in three days

Turns out three days is more than enough time to see the famous temples of Cambodia, especially if you have the Asian Mario Andretti behind the wheel of your van like we did. Besides some very sore kidneys (calling the roads sub-par is generous) and a lingering sinus infection that has plagued me for the last week, the trip to see Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Ta Phrom (home of the "Tomb Raider" tree, as seen with Angelina Jolie in... "Tomb Raider"), etc. was really amazing.

The country itself has a truly ugly history of violence and corruption... the violence has mostly disappeared but the corruption is as bad as ever, if not worse now that there is an influx of foreign investment and tourism revenue. Long story short, go see the temples while they're still there.

I made it back to Shanghai safely this morning and my parents headed on to Chiang Mai in the mountains of northern Thailand. Unfortunately, I got some really bad news this morning when I got to work concerning my supposed upcoming trip to the states in February.

Happy New Year and We're All OK

Best wishes to everyone for a happy and safe 2007! Bangkok was pretty much what I expected (trashy) but the tourist sites were incredibly beautiful. The Grand Palace and Emerald Buddha were definitely the highlights and I'll put up pictures as soon as I'm back in Shanghai (on the 9th.)

My parents were safe in the hotel and I was nowhere near the bombs that went off around the city but our tour guide Patt suffered minor cuts from shrapnel and her friend, who was just a few feet closer, was hospitalized with serious injuries from the same blast.

We're out of the city now and in the southern town of Hua Hin, relaxing and doing a whole lot of nothing, with loose plans to head into town for dinner and to see the night market tonight. Off to Siem Reap, Cambodia on Saturday to see the famous temples at Angkor Wat and then it's back to work at the hospital for me, heading into the final weeks of budget prep, while my parents head to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

Again, Happy New Year and best wishes for 2007.