Last day

Today is my last official day as an employee of the university

Health Insurance

Well, after all the fretting and anxiety about insurance, when it happened and I had to go out and get it on my own it was a relatively painless process, although the pain part probably won't come unless I need to use it. Then I am responsible for up to $5,000. But we will take it one step at a time. I had no choice really. The Cobra coverage frrom Weber was not only outrageously expenisive but also only allowed me access to doctors in Utah. The insurance agent I talked to on the phone was extremely helpful, even if he did mess up my application. Here is what I ended up with for $230.oo a month

What's the coverage for preventive and other office visits?
Plan pays 100 percent of covered expenses after your $35 copayment for office visits to your in-network primary care doctor. Copayments for in-network specialist and urgent care visits are $60.
What's the coverage for lab and x-rays?
Plan pays the first $500 at 100 percent per person per calendar year for certain covered preventive and diagnostic lab, and x-ray services. After this, you'll pay 20 percent of covered expenses once you meet your deductible.
What's the coinsurance percentage for hospital services?
For both in-network inpatient and outpatient services, once you meet your annual deductible, this plan pays 80 percent coinsurance for most covered medical expenses from in-network providers – which means you pay 20 percent of covered expenses until you reach your coinsurance out-of-pocket maximum.
What's the coverage for emergency room services?
You pay a $100 access fee per visit; then your plan pays 80 percent of covered expenses for an in-network emergency room once you meet your deductible. The access fee is waived if you're admitted to the hospital.
What's the coinsurance out-of pocket maximum?
Your in-network coinsurance out-of-pocket maximum for this plan is $2,500. Deductibles, copayments, and access fees do not apply to the coinsurance out-of-pocket maximum. Once you meet your deductible and coinsurance out-of-pocket maximum, the plan pays 100 percent for most covered in-network services.
Does the plan include prescription drug coverage?
This plan includes the Rx4 prescription drug benefit, which classifies drugs in one of four levels. Level 1 has a $15 copayment for a 30-day supply and includes many generic drugs. For drugs in other levels, you need to pay a separate $500 prescription deductible and then pay the specified copayments. Copayments are $35 for Level 2, $60 for Level 3, and 35 percent of the drug's cost for Level 4 (for a 30-day supply).
These amounts are for covered drugs from in-network pharmacies only. Use our Drug Coverage Search tool to look up which prescription drugs are covered. To locate an in-network pharmacy near you, use our Pharmacy Locator tool.
You'll have the opportunity to lower your Rx deductible for an additional cost by selecting the $150 deductible Rx optional benefit. You can add this benefit on the next page

Mini-retirment

Came across an article in US News and World Report that I found somewhat uplifting, or at least it didn't depress the hell out of me. Titled "5 Alternatives to Traditional Retirement" it outlined other ways of viewing one's work life besides the retire at 65 scenario. Which is good, because I need som way to reframe things. The five are: sabbaticals, mini-retirmements, focused career breaks, second careers and entrepreneurship. They are fairly self-descriptive, although some of the time frames involved seem laughable. One software engineer is credited with taking two "mini-retirements" of 3 months in India. Gee, back in academia we called those summer vacations. I guess if I had to classify what I am doing I would put it as a sort of mini-retirment to ultimately be combined with a second career, although right now it looks a lot like floundering. But how you frame things is important, and the article in fact gave me a psychological boost because it did allow me to begin to reframe things, altough I don't know if that will help how I view this wasted past year. One thing at a time I guess.

Health Insurance

Well, today continues the exciting search for health insurance. My Weber health insurance runs out in a week. There is the possibility of COBRA. But not only is Weber switching providers after 20 years, which really messes things up. But as well all of the providers will be in Utah. What if something happens here. So I am thinking I am going to have to go into the private market--but have not gotten the sticker shock of what that entails. I am hoping to limit the damage to $300 a month. Will see what I can get for that price

I wish'd I'd thought of that (oh wait, I did)

Just read reviews of a couple of books about folks who lost their job and wrote about what happened it the aftermath. Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put On My Pajamas & Found Happiness and Unfinished Business: One Man's Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things portray a year in the life of two journalists who lost their jobs. I don't know, reading the summaries sound sort of underwhleming. The titles pretty much say all you need to know. The first book is about someone who retreats from the world, makes the grat sacrifice of sellng her suburban home and moving to the coast of Rhode Island and then stays home most of the time. The second book is about a guy who makes amends to people he's hurt and various tasks. In truth, neither sounds very interesting. Of course, compared to what I have done in the past year, they are positively scintillating. But it is all about having a plan, and I have none. Each, though, seems to have this artificial deadline: a year of doing 'x' and then it is back to work--which is where both find themselves. No major transformation. My idea was to shift into a radically different mode of being. This is something I've yet to accomplish, or even figure out how to go about.

I See Dead People

What was the name of that movie with Bruce Willis where the dead person the kid saw was Bruce Willis himself. Anyway, I sort of felt not like the kid but like Bruce Willis at this conference--a walking ghost. I went to this conference to publicize the book. I thought I might find some people who might write blurbs, some people who might look at review copies, or at least learn something. Well, I did learn something that will actually cause me to rewrite the last chapter (not sure if that's cool with the publisher). But it was of course just like any other academic conference and there is a reason I left this behind. These things bore the shit out of me! Academics talking to each other. Which is o.k., I guess, because someone has to talk to them But all that time and energy writing papers no one but a handful of people will ever look at. I mean, more power to them in some sense. Because there need to be some careful thinkers out there. It is just not a world for me. I want to go onto other things. So it was a real throwback and I truly felt I did not belong here, like Iwas observing the ghost of academics past. I realize there is a sense that this is not work I can really do well, although I do it alright, nor is work I particularly care to do. Maybe it is just that I am too lazy, I am willing to admit that. But maybe it is just that there are other things I want to do with my energy. I am not even sure at the end of the day they are more worthwhile, for example, the blog about Chinese women. But at least there I am not anayzing what some thinker said about some other thinker, which is too often the basis for an academic article. So perhaps it was a fitting farewell to academica and perhaps that was why I went

Deck Chairs

I am going to try to keep track of the time and see where the hell it all goes and why I get so little done. For instance, we can start today with 5:30-6:30 Meditate/walk. The next entry (of which this is a part) is diddle around on line. Yes, I know it's a big waste of time. Since the only two things I do are work on the article and study Chinese, I need to break these down further into what exactly I do to carry out these goals. I need to get more speific...Still, time management in this situation is like shuffling around deck chairs on the Titanic. I mean I think if I could truly debauch and waste away, that would at least be interesting. And a nice break. Right now, I still put tremendous pressure on myself to accomplish things, to have a sense that something constructive is being done. Would be nice to give that up for a while. 6:45. Fifteen minutes sitting here staring at computer screen is definitely not a good use of time.

china?

if i am going to get back to china in the fall, i am going to have to start making some moves in that direction. need to decide whether it will be work or study. i would prefer not to teach english. there is first the teaching job in beijing to apply for, and i should probably go ahead and do that. then there is the assistant job at the china institute. and i should apply to study somewhere in chengdu and perhaps elsewere. there are many advantages to being in chengdu. i already know people there and know my way around. it would be very comfortable and an excellent place to do research for the book. on the other hand, a different place, beijing for example, might be more interesting and at least different. but there is also a part of me that really does not want to go there, that has a preference for clean air and potable water and is also simply tired of travelling. but i really can't stay here for much longer but will have to move my life along at some point in some direction, even if it is just directionless wandering.

The Choice

I thought today of two people I encountered on my trip. Bot had made mid-career (actually abut 3/4 career) changes. One had more or less continued on the same path--moved from being a professor in Canada to a professor in China--while the other had gone in a radically different direction--changed from being a public servant in England to a diving instructor in Thailand. This is a choice I am going to have to make--whether to follow more or less the same route or to move in a radically different direction. I think of this as I contemplate applying for a position to teach at a university in China. It's obvious which way this would take me--but is it really where I want to go?

DON'T PANIC!

DON'T PANIC!

Need to sit

I think I need a long period/just to sit somewhere/reflect/take it all in/Just to be quiet for God's sake/Still the mind/Gather strength/I know that Jung somewhere talked about such a process/I am somehow going to have to find the energy/for a second act/or not

The fallback plan

The fallback plan at this point is to spend next year in China either teaching or studying (given my financial situation, it looks like teaching) while I am researching the next China book and then, if nothing else develops, go to school the following fall, probably in Arizona, for the MSW. I have to say, it doesn't exactly thrill me. But I need to have something I can tell myself. (These days I more and more tell myself I should have taken the option which had me going to grad school while working. Oh well.)

Dawn is when I am awake

Well, about the only way I can justify this inactivity, or this unproductiveness, is to refer o the fact that I have been going forever without taking a break: from college to grad school, from grad school to job. Non-stop. Really should have taken some time off at some point, and I didn't. So this, is my time off. And I should give myself permission to drift for a few years. Even if given my age this seems inapprorpriate, as Thoreau said, "Dawn is when I am." By which I take it he means that we have to judge our lives by its own standards and accept its own pacing.

Joined a gym

Joined the gym for two months, so I guess I'm commited to being here for two months. I mena, who wouldn't want to be in Southern Arizona during the summer. But I think I need to first get myself in good physical condition and to stay in one place and get strong. That's the first priority. I will have to figure out my next move, but giving myself two months here at least calms my nerves for the short term. Now, I just have to get more productive while I am here, because I am sitting around all day supposedly writing a couple of articles and studying Chinese, but I get so little accomplished over the course of the day it is truly depressing

Joun Waters on Fresh Air

A great interview with John Waters on June 3rd Fresh Air. Refreshing thoughts on living and dying alone, which he realizes he will probably do. Also interesting to hear his thoughts on sex: that he doesn't want to confuse sex with companionship. Sex should be hot and steamy, companionship a steady and constant thing that lasts through the years. Also Terry asked him if he has gotten less sexual as he has gotten older (he is 64). No, he quickly replied. That would be giving up, like no longer going out. You always got to have hope.

Sunday, the first hour and seventeen minutes

Sunday, the first hour and seventeen minutes

So, this morning, after a late night up at ten and grab some coffee
and immediately turn on the computer and finish up my nepal online journal,
at least through the pass,which is all i will probably do,
then find a China story to post on Facebook,
this one from James Fallows blog invovling the Chinese version of Twitter,
and go to Chinese Pod and look at an elemntary lesson about a security check,
and look at the resume I finished last night as well as the letter for the job at the Beijing Center and now after two cups of coffee going to sit outside
even though it is hot
because it is even worse sitting in this room
and no idea what to do for the rest of the day
although when I got up I was seriously considerring the notion of having a true sabbath
and not doing anything but by this point that seems out the door

Further thought on trip

ADDENDUM
So I wrote earlier
about how I thought if the last three weeks of the trip had been different
--if I'd gone to the spa to cleanse and then came back to the States and started running,
instead of wasting the time in Chiang Mai and Kawagoe--
well things would have been alright.
Of course, I realize it's a bit like saying
that if the pipe would have been properly cut on the last effort to stop the oil spill,
they could have captured 50 percent instead of 25 percent of the oil.
It would make so little difference in the scheme of things
that it is not worth getting worked up over.
The fact is that in both cases,
we are still dealing with a disaster.

Thought for the day

"I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea. We live in a literate time, and our children are writing up a storm, often combining letters and numerals (U R 2 1 derful)...The futuree of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75

Lost May

I tell myself that if I had just done what I had planned to do after the Annapurna Circuit, which is fly to Thailand, go to Ko Samui and detox for a week and then come back, well, then the trip might actually have made some sense. For some reason, the three month stretch of time that would have entailed simply made no sense. I could have been back my early May, and in reasonable physical condition and been in pretty good shape by now. Instead, I wasted May in Thailand and Japan and really tapped myself out of cash and physically spend myself as well. Not sure why I am fixating on this now. But I can't seem to get my mind off of the fact tht this is what I wanted to do and should have done and that the trip might actually have made some sense if it had been pulled off in this way. Better that the trip had been planned in advance, had been undertaken with some itinerary, budget and purpose in mind. It's not like I can say that I will learn from my mistake and do it better next time. For one, this was about as senseless and expensive wandering as the trip last year and two, I simply wo't have the money for a trip in the conceivable future. So, good or bad, it was the note I went out on.