shimweasel

I have emerged, blinking and squinting, from 4 of the weirdest months of my life. The ceremony is over, obviously, and suddenly I have time to stop and take stock.

The event itself went ahead in total chaos. The weather on the night was the worst that I’ve seen it here: torrential rain, howling wind, and lightning.
Large parts of the show were cut, especially flying sequences: if you were watching the storm sequence and wondering why not much was going on, there ought to have been about 8 boats descending from the heavens and disgorging pearl divers. It looked terrific in rehearsal, and I’m desperately sad that it didn’t go out, but in the show, all we had was the Seeker trying to look fascinated for five minutes.

Done and dusted now, of course. I made an entirely unnecessary visa run to Bahrain yesterday - apparently my work visa is still good, and they wouldn’t give me a tourist visa, so there’s a day wasted in airports. Still, I made friends with the barman, had a bacon sandwich, and chatted to the stiltwalker who’s been circling the flask for the last three or four weeks. (I wasn’t sure it was her - people look quite different in gold lycra and silly hats.)

Taking stock of it all:

1. It’s dumb to take a job where the contract states they can work you as hard as they like without overtime. I won’t work 16 hour days again except for my own company or for overtime rates.
2. Embedded programming is fun and different and not nearly as difficult as I expected.
3. Being part of the show crew was fun, but endless rehearsals and hours of standby are not for me. I’m running away from the circus to join an IT support unit.

I have an interview for Georgetown on Monday. If that goes well, I may be in Doha for a bit longer.