Thread: Four Weeks and Three Weekends

It’s here – finally. Less than a calendar month to go and exactly four weeks in terms of school; the end of this weekend only gives me three more weekends here in Sumbawa before I head back to Bali for the visa run and the start of some new adventure. As I said last week – not that I’m counting or anything.

It’s a lot now about keeping up and trying to prioritize what to do. Did I already say that? There just is so much to do that I get this recurring feeling of being overwhelmed. I do have this thing called a job that I’m trying to wrap up with my usual semi-efficiency.

Iowa Tests of Basic Skills have been sent out for grading; the school yearbook is done and off to the printers in Jakarta; I’ve started with my school reports; I’m just about done with the inventory and recommendations for the computer moves when the school does the amalgamation thing in another month; we’ve sold a hectare of land and are in the process of picking up all the land certificates; I’ve put out a notice in townsite about selling or renting the big house; I’m doing another notice for the bungalow and land by the river this weekend; my youngest son has finished his national exams; I have a ticket for Singapore next month for my visa run; I’ve turned my passport over to Expat Affairs here to get my EPO so I can leave the country; I’ve checked with the school AA about my moving allowance; we talked to a business acquaintance about renting his truck for the move back to Bali; I’ve pretty much finalized arrangements for my ex-wife’s visit to Bali in July to meet the family; I’m keeping in touch daily with my eldest daughter to make sure that she is ok and everything is going along smoothly there for her last month of living on her own; I’m keeping in touch with my closest friend in Bali who is actually being supportive about the move (ok, that’s a joke); I print out the photos of my granddaughter that my son sends so the kids can put them up in their rooms; we hired a new gardener after the old one quit without notice; I’ve been downloading updates on the Mac OS that are too large for me to download from Bali with the slow internet connection that we have at home; I’m working on the Bali book and trying to get it ready for August 1; I keep teaching and having fun with my tiny homeroom class; we keep looking for homes for the seven puppies; I try to stay on top of everyone’s feelings here about the move to Bali and make sure that I don’t get so self-involved with my impending retirement that I forget that they are all going through a major move themselves; I’m downloading CSS tutorials so that I can do a big revision on the look of the cyberbali.com site because I’ve forgotten most of the CSS code that I taught once a few years ago; I worry a lot about money and if a freelance career is going to be a possibility; I try to keep up with all the blogs, websites and podcasts but am realizing that they may just have to be put on hold until the move is done; I’ve packed all the books and cds except for the ones that I need to use until the move.; I’ve started working on a promo for the eBook on Bali; I keep running mathematical models of how much I should charge for the eBook and wonder if the 25 people who have already ordered it will actually buy it once I finish it and put it up for sale; I daydream a lot about a life not bound by doing the same thing everyday; I try to remember to remind myself everyday how lucky I am to have the life that I have and to give something back everyday to someone somewhere.

Whew!