I just got a Google+ account today and so far I am loving it.  I have never been a fan of Facebook, so I’m very happy to see Google roll out what appears to be a worthy competitor – plus an open competitor that doesn’t try to silo your data like Facebook does.  I can honestly see Google+ replacing not only Facebook – which I quit using some time ago – but also Twitter.  At the very least, I envision setting up Google+ so that the things I share in my Google+ stream are crossposted to my Twitter stream, but using Google+ as my main interface.

If anyone is looking for a Google+ invitation, hit me up at the email address on the Contact Info page above and I’ll try to send you an invitation.  Google turned off invitations at some point yesterday.

Anyway, they checked him out and gave him a syringe full of liquid baby Tylenol or something similar.  He hated that too and didn’t want to take it, but it’s kind of hard to refuse when a syringe is shoved down your throat.  More screaming and crying.  He calmed down shortly after that, but was still whimpering and just miserable.  Poor baby!  They kept us there to observe him for about an hour to make sure his fever was going down, which is was, so they let us go home with a supply of that baby Tylenol and a few syringes.

He slept pretty well last night but his fever was high again this morning and there was some more screaming and crying until we got another syringe of baby Tylenol into him.  Then he calmed down again.  I’ve been at work all day but Thao’s kept me posted and he seems to be okay.  Still a little fever but nothing like before.

I’m at work at 7:30pm because I had a telephone interview tonight and it just finished.  For the past couple of months we’ve been thinking about moving on from Vietnam, and I’ve been applying for teaching jobs in various countries around the world.  It looks like I’m getting an offer to teach law with a law school in Doha, Qatar.  They’ve sent me an email congratulating me and telling me they were offering me the position, and that the official offer letter would be coming soon.  I had already negotiated my salary, benefits, start date, etc., with the Dean of the law school, so as long as the offer letter accurately reflects our agreement, I’m going to accept it.  (The interview tonight was with a different school in a different country – I was going to cancel it but figured until I had signed the formal offer I might as well keep my options open.)

If the job in Qatar comes through it’s going to happen very quickly.  My last day at RMIT will be August 5th, and we’ll be moving to Doha around August 11th.  We’ll have a few weeks to get settled in before classes start in September.  My job will be a little different, as I’ll be teaching legal research and writing to real law students, not substantive law to undergraduate students as has been the case here.

We’re going to take Thao’s mom with us.  We’ve been told it won’t be difficult to get her a caregiver visa, and she wants to go with us, so there you go.  Poor thing had never been on a flight until we went to Phu Quoc a couple of weeks ago and now we’re going to move her to the middle east!  (There’s actually a direct flight from Saigon to Doha on Qatar Airlines (which is supposed to be very swank).  Seven-and-a-half hours.

The job seems pretty awesome in all respects – salary (helped by the fact that there is no income tax in Qatar), benefits, working hours, etc., all seem great.  The benefit I’m the most excited about is you get the full months of July and August off paid every year, plus free roundtrip tickets back to the U.S. (or whatever other country you choose) for the whole family.  That will be incredible!

Doha itself also looks really cool.  Free accommodation is part of the deal, and if you have a family the school puts you up in a villa.

So, wow!  Big change a comin’.  We’re all very excited – a world of new experiences awaits us!