Back from China

After a long, grueling flight, we are back in San Francisco, being happily abused by the cats (who apparently missed us as much as we missed them).  I won’t go too much into the last part of the trip right now because I still intend to catch up on the travel blog, perhaps in a day or so once I get over the jet lag and this miserable cold that Mike and I both seem to have brought back with us.

It was a fun trip, although I don’t think I’ll do a group tour again.  It was tremendously stressful having to travel on someone else’s schedule, and to spend 12+ hours/day touring around.  I like to travel at a slower pace, and by the end of the two week tour, was definitely feeling a bit strung out.  Fortunately, being currently unemployed, I can take a vacation from my vacation before setting back out full tilt.

I am considering what goals I want to set for the period of my unemployment.  I figure that being unemployed gives me an extra 50 or so hours a week, between commute time, lunchtime, etc.  Figure a month of unemployment, that’s about 200 hours.  If you had 200 hours of free time suddenly available, how would you invest it?

I figure I can learn more about software development, study weaving, study dyeing, play with chocolate mold-making (I bought two jade seals carved with my name in Chinese that would be fun to cast in chocolate), work on getting back into shape for cycling, and/or study patternmaking and make some AIDS Lifecycle costumes.  200 hours sounds like a lot, until I start thinking of all the things that interest me.  Life is too short.
Off to dinner, and then to bed.  Hopefully I can sleep off this cold and the jet lag simultaneously.