Today I was asked to join the Editing staff at Xinhua PR Newswire here in Beijing. I’ll be the assigned English editor on the overnight staff, which means that I’ll be working for mostly US- and European-based clients. My shift? 10:00pm-6:00am local time. I start on October 6.
This schedule will make it tough to host CouchSurfers, but I will have my weekends free so it will not be impossible. As for the hours, well, as any of my friends would tell you, I am a natural night person. In fact, as soon as the Olympics were over and I had no more reasons to get up at 9:00am to meet people or go to events, I was going to bed around 6:00am-7:00am and sleeping until 1:00pm-2:00pm. Even when I was working the 9-5 shift back home, there would still be a time each night where if I wasn’t in bed already, something would click in my body and I would get a burst of energy. Basically, I’d be up until 4-5 in the morning.
Getting to bed at night has always been a struggle, so this shift wont be a problem for me. What’s more, it will actually make it easier for me to keep in touch with friends in the US and watch the baseball playoffs, football and basketball at the 24-hour bars. (Though I’m not sure of I *want* to watch many Pats games after last weekend’s debacle.)
The only problem? The job starts on October 6, which is the date that my current stay on my Tourist visa runs out and the company can’t actually get me my work/resident visa until I start. To stay legal (and avoid possible jail time and a 500 Yuan/day fine), I either have to get permission from the government to extend the validity for a couple of weeks, or I have to leave the country and re-enter to get another 60-day stay.
I’m not sure what I’ll have to do right now. I’ll know in the next 2-3 days and I’ll keep you updated. Stay tuned!
September 27th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Congratulations on the job!!