I got this text from my sister this morning-
"You should start blogging again. I feel so disconnected from you life."
So Lyd, this is for you.
I must confess that writing is not my favorite thing to do, nor my second favorite, and if we're being honest it's not even my 100th favorite, but I'll try to be more consistent.
About this time last year I wrote a post about our boss coming back from holiday and surprising everyone with the announcement that she had gotten married to a teacher at school no one knew she was dating. Well, it's kind of happened again.
Picture with me a girl who is engaged to be married and has a wedding date set and in the works. She is also looking for a new job. In the US, it would play out something like this...
The girl goes in for a job interview. One of the first things she says is, "I'm getting married on such-and-such day and I'll need this much time off." If they don't agree she'll probably keep looking for a job elsewhere. If they do, she'll start her new job with her wedding vacation already scheduled, and in the months leading up to her wedding a lot of the talk with her co-workers will revolve around her big day. They may throw her an office shower. She will probably invite some of them to her wedding. She will probably have asked off for a few days before the wedding and a whole week after for the honeymoon, of course. Before she takes her leave of absence everyone will be wishing her well. When she gets back, everyone will want to see pictures and hear every detail of how everything went. She will probably be on a "just married" high for a few weeks.
And here's how it goes in China...
The girl goes in for a job interview. She says nothing about her wedding and she is hired. The job is high stress with lots of expectations and demands, and because she is new she decides to keep the wedding a secret so no one will think her wedding is affecting her job performance. A few weeks before the wedding she tells one foreign teacher of her secret plans. The Friday of her rehearsal, she has a meeting that lasts until 5:30 pm. Her rehearsal starts at 8 across town. She leaves work, goes to rehearsal, gets married the next morning, spends one and a half days as a married woman, then comes back to work on Monday morning like nothing happened. She announces her marriage to her co-workers by giving them candy. No one really talks about it, and life goes on as normal. There is no honeymoon.
This happened with my new co-teacher last weekend. I don't know if it's good or bad, probably a little of both, but it's definitely different. It didn't seem to phase her, or anyone else in the office, and with all the surprise weddings going around I don't suppose it should.
So that's my story for today. Thanks for reading!
