A week from now, I will be back home in Hong Kong for a month already. It seem like it has been just a blink of an eye, feels totally weird, but at the same times, it's kind of like things around me becoming more "real". You know, at first it's kind of dreamy, am I really here? Not exactly sure what I should be doing everyday. I couldn't even get my shower pattern back on track. Sometimes I shower in the morning, sometimes afternoon, sometimes at night. There is no regularity. Be honest, I am still trying to get that fixed. I mean, I am not exactly retired and the last thing I want is allowing myself to become lazier and lazier. So a daily schedule will do me good.
Time does really fly though, I admit. It's Xmas in a week. Looks like we gonna have a cooler X'mas, "cooler" as in HK standard, which is around 50-60F. Be honest, when you don't have heater or central heating to maintain the temperature, it can be chilly. Some of my friends do use those portable heaters, but my family don't. I don't know if I really need it, I should just put on a long pant, my mom would say.
By the way, all my shipped stuffs arrived and delivered. I have found my Hong Kong identification card back. Apparently, before I went to South America, I decided that I should not be carrying so many cards and junks in my wallet, so I took everything out, including my HK ID, for whatever reasons. I wasn't really thinking straight, I suppose. Anyway, I am glad that I have found it back, and do not spend more money to have it replaced. All my CD/DVDs, books, clothes, shoes are found their home in my tiny room. You will be amazed how those 7 boxes of stuffs be putted away inside my room, and I still have a bed to sleep, a table to work and some rooms to move around in this no bigger than 7x7 sq ft room.
Yesterday, I had my first job interview. It was actually for the first application I sent out two weeks ago. They asked to fill a form and answer a few exam type kind of question (to see if I can really do statistics), and then they wanted to meet me. It was a western woman whom I met, she was extremely friendly. We actually spent the first 5 mins talking about traveling. She loves traveling too and have been to some of the places I have visited in South America. So, that was a good start. It's a really small company, only 6 persons, one of them is even located in the UK. They don't have an office, and if they will hire me. I'll be doing the work at home. That's completely new to me and I am not sure if that's good or not yet really, for a person who just says he wants some regularity. The title is business analyst / biostatistician, doing healthcare-related forecast, analysis, building models..etc. My role will mainly focus on epidemiology at the beginning. In US and Europe, there are already well-established companies doing these stuffs and have well-maintain databases built. But in the emerging countries, this area is still very much underdeveloped. So, on the surface, I really think it could be a really good direction for me to go and get myself into. But at the same time, I have no background in healthcare or even biostatistics at all. It will be a tough job to do, especially since the company is so small and have no office, you are pretty much on your own right off the back. That's my concern whether I can really meet their expectation. I mean, not trying to beat up myself, in Statistics field, I am a "fresh" graduate without any previous relevant experience. Anyway, a friend is saying I am thinking too much (do you just know me? of course I am), I should just see if they'd hire me, and then I think about I'd take or not. I guess. The woman at the interview seemed to be really happy with my academic background and previous employment references. That might be a good sign. And we talked for 90 mins! That ought to be the longest job interview I have ever had in HK.
One of my biggest problem right now is that I am not sure at all how much I should ask for. Unlike the US, it's easy to find a list of median wages or a rough guide for pretty much for all positions. Here there are some, but not a lot. Positions, confusing like "business analyst", it can be anything from an insurance salesman to an analyst in a financial institute. I don't want to be asking too high, nor do I want to get an office assistant salary and doing statistical analysis. I am not a greedy person, I just want a fair salary, whatever this position should be worth in this market then I just take it, although a capitalist society never works that way, does it? I guess I'll find out how much I am worth when I will finally find a job.
Just for the record, my last job interview in Hong Kong before this one was actually a decade ago, in 1999. I think I did ok with the interview really, partly because she was an western woman instead of a chinese woman. I am afraid of chinese female interviewers, they should be featuring in the Simpson's horrortree's episodes.
Finally, I must announce that this will be the last newsletter from my travel blog. I will set up a new blog very very soon, I am debating on the name right now, it will be about my daily life in Hong Kong, I suppose. If you are interested to still hear from this little pal of yours, please let me know. So, I'd add you on the distribution list. I will probably connect with some of you on Facebook too. For those who lives in Hong Kong, I probably won't be sending you the blog anymore. You'll probably have enough seeing me all the times anyway.
Last but not least, thank you so much for being a friend and I am glad that I have shared my South America to you all, I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I did. Wherever you are, keep in touch. Good luck to you all!
Photos here: Hong Kong (Misc Photos)
