Thoughts on the trip

Time I suppose to sort out how I'm feeling about the trip, now that it's going to happen at last. Like I said, up til I got the final "go" I didn't think it was going to happen, so it was more an academic exercise than anything else, to see how far I could push with it. Now tho, it's on and I'm committed!

One of the things I don't like about it is the "gentleman's agreement" to stay on in Sun until the end of the year. When Damo went to Prague for 6 months, he had to commit to stay with the company for at least 6 months after he came back, and on this one Im supposed to stay 10 months for the sake of 2 abroad! Well, it gives me time I suppose to get my MCSE's and the Sun Certified Sysadmin qualification - all that crap that employers never put on their job ads: "Oh yeah, I know the job ad said unix systems admin, but we really want someone with windows admin experience as well, so sorry". At one stage I was tempted to change my CV header to "Curriculum Vitae - and no I don't do windows admin"! Besides, if something big and good does fall my way, like the MS job I nearly had last year, they can't really stop me going......

Other big things on my mind about this trip I guess are the facts that this will be the longest I've ever been out of the country, and it's going to be so different from anything I've done before. I've always been a bit envious of all them ppl I know who've upped stakes and moved to other countries, and was never sure whether or not I'd actually have the cojones to do it myself when it came down to it. I don't have the most positive outlook & confidence in my own abilities, as ppl keep telling me: I always have the sneaking suspicion that I'm better than I think I am, but I can never really convince myself to fully believe it (does that make sense?). Anyway, this is the test I guess. It's going to be a total culture shock, I know that. I mean, I've been to Hong Kong before, but that was as a tourist staying in a hotel, with some friends, and as HK was a UK colony all the road signs etc were in english as well and most ppl spoke some bit of english so the language barrier wasn't too high. It's the same on any of the other hols I've been on, and even on the 6-week US trip I spoke the language (sort of) and wasn't over on my own. Now tho, I'm heading over to a place where I'm going to be living for a while, where the language or culture is totally alien to me, and the only ppl I'll know over there are maybe two engineers who I met one time before, on my turf!

Heh, I can already hear one or two folks I know reading this thinking "Oh, for god sake, stop being so negative! You'll have a great time! This is the opportunity of a lifetime, make the most out of it!". Yes, I probably will have a ball, and I'll squeeeze the most out of it that I can, but this is my blog, and my first big trip, so I'm allowed my odd bit of worrying!