O hi, Asia!

Flashback: February Before you read any further, check out my Week In The Life post at the Professional Hobo. It took a few months, but they finally posted it. I intentionally reserved plenty of good stuff specifically for that post, so regular ohiasia readers won’t notice much overlap. Also, check out my dawgs here on the toeblog.

No More Asia (for now) So I’ve decided to return to the US for several reasons. The short of it: I’m ready to exchange a little “challenging” for a little “familiarity”. For now, I’d like to return to the routine of a full-time job in a place where everyday things aren’t automatically an ordeal. In other words, this blog’s about to get bor-ring. This’ll be my second-to-last post for awhile. (I’ll post again once I’m parked.)

Antisocial Lately Until I have a job offer on the table, the whole topic of “So what are you going to do now?” is going to be an unpleasant one. And in the case of Seattle, just plain irritating. So I’ve been avoiding the subject by avoiding people. I’ll definitely post once I have something concrete.

The Case of Seattle I started talking to the Seattle ad agency months ago. Almost everything about it looked great: the timing, new city, some former coworkers (from SF), the vibe. After some engaging Skype interviews, they flew me out and put me in a really nice hotel, The Maxwell Hotel. Check out my room:

Maxwell Hotel, room 348

Maxwell Hotel, room 348

Maxwell Hotel, room 348

Great Interview (I thought) It was the best day of interviews I’d ever had, and I’ve interviewed at a lot of agencies over the past 7 years. At the end of the day, HR didn’t want to say too much, but intimated that “things look really good”. After such great interviews and positive feedback, I told a few friends that I may be moving to Seattle soon. Seriously, I was expecting a job offer by the end of that week. Instead, it’s been crickets.

The Question I don’t think about Seattle much until someone asks, “Heard from Seattle yet?” No, I haven’t. “Get that job in Seattle?” No, I haven’t heard a thing. It’s my own fault for getting ahead of myself and telling people about it. As the weeks go by, each inquiry about Seattle just serves as a reminder that, no. I never heard from them.

Let’s Go To Boston! Not wanting to wallow around waiting for a call that may never come, I decided to visit a friends in Boston, who I got to know in San Francisco. (We ad people tend to move a bit.) Nikki and Erik were married coworkers of mine in SF. Now Nikki stays home with two ankle-biters and Erik works at a large agency in Boston. Here I am with their eldest:

I used to dog sit for them in SF, back when doggie-made-3. Here’s me and the ol’ boy, Charlie, in 2008 (on the left) and just today (on the right):

There’s a Boston Sports Club around the corner where Nikki and I go to teach some treadmills and stairs-teppers who’s boss. (The machines are…the machines are boss.) When I’m not helping out around the house or playing with my canine friend, I’ve been meeting up with old pals and coworkers from when I lived here in ’06-’07. If I can’t land something in the next few weeks, I’ll move on to NYC. A friend is subleasing her nice 1-bedroom apartment on Roosevelt Island starting July 1. (Yet someone else I know from my job in SF.)

Interview Today If it’s still Monday as you’re reading this, I may very well be in an interview right now. Erik set some meetings for me at the agency where he works.

Bye-ohiasia? Thinking of discontinuing the blog. Obviously, I’ll keep everything up and live. Among others, my “Singapore Is Boring” post still gets several views per day. If I’m no longer a fish-out-of-water foreigner trying to navigate faraway places like Pulau Ubin, then what do I have to talk about? (I’ll just end up venting about work and we all know where that road leads.) I like passing along firsthand info and impressions of little-known places; and yes, for Americans HK, Singapore and Vietnam are little-known! But for now anyway, all that’s gone.

So what do you think: Seattle, Boston or NYC?