The day after
The meeting with the producer went well I think. He asked some background info on me, I got a bunch on the show, and we talked shop in general. He visibly loosened up in during the second half of the pseudo interview which I think is a positive sign. Essentially, the only negatives were that I can not read an Arabic newspaper yet and they want someone to peruse the Arabic press (I assured him I'd be able to do this in early spring, lying is good :) ), and that my experience in business news is not extensive. That being said, he still seemed very interested. So, the next step is for him to take a look at my resume tape which I will drop off for him tomorrow. And then, if all continues to go swimmingly, I would volunteer for a couple of weeks after they move offices...which it seems now will be around the turn of the new year. If the trial period has not hitches, they get approval from London for me sign on in a more permanent role. One might assume this would include pay, but I will make no such rash assumption. However, he did explicitly say that I would get to travel out in the field with them. I don't know if this would include travelling to other countries, but if so, that'd be badass (we cover the entire Middle East). Anyway, at least not bad news, but I'm still aways away off from a permanent gig.
I am rather pissed off because there was a party last night for the volunteers of the Dubai International Film Festival at this great club called Trilogy ( which, as I figured out, means it has three sections with different themes. also fucking expensive, a bottle of red label will run you around $120 USD, but I digress). I found about said party via email about 2.5 hours after it had started and I had procrastinated on Arabic and couldn't justify going. Because I'd end up drunk, undoubtedly, and that would mean that working up early and doing Arabic homework might be intolerable. Plus Dubai has a 0.000 legal limit on alcohol, and I think this winter I might actually heed this. Last winter I was silly, but these trouble causing friends are mostly not coming back. I'm a peer pressure whore. The point of all this is that I didn't go and am pissed at myself because it was a great way to meet people. And maybe meet up and redeem myself with that hot Lebanese chick. Damn it.
It's fascinating how much I'm going off on tangents in this post, I wonder why that is.
I've gotten back into the gym the last two days and am feeling much better. Pushed myself real hard and think I'll go again tomorrow. I'm going to go on a three days in a row on, one day off schedule, with different muscle groups on consecutive days obviously. Oh, the interest.
Peace