Month of Holidays

A bonus of working for a two-country collaboration: we celebrate both governments’ days off. That has meant several long weekends for me, beginning with Veterans’ Day, followed by Thanksgiving (but not the day after), last Monday’s national birthday party for the king, and finally the Thai Constitution Day on December 12. Nice duty!

World AIDS Day was a work day, naturally. Despite the breaks, I’ve been busier at the office lately than I was during the first month. Most people know me now and know why I’m there. My steep learning curve has begun to flatten out—initially I had lots to learn about the disease, public health procedures, and spending the taxpayers’ money—so now I actually put my experience into practice.

The annual report and a renewal of the collaboration’s first five-year agreement will both keep me scribbling away over the next few weeks. My business card says “writer/editor,” but mostly what I do is look around for what others have already written, synthesize it, and then spread the word. So it’s part librarian, part grammarian, part knowledge manager, and part public relations guy.

Things never seem to get too heavy—hey, this is Thailand—even when deadlines come around or big meetings are on the schedule. Last Friday everyone called it quits early and went outside for the first installment of the six-week-long interoffice sports competition. With a schedule like this, who needs Christmas?