Quick, can you teach me Chinese?

I love my job. I really do. Really......... However, sometimes, when people make decisions that affect me, I just cringe. Sometimes I get that deer in the headlights look, or the who? me? look.

I am supposed to go to China and Taiwan in the next couple of months. I am looking forward to the experience. I have always loved to travel, although when I travel for work, I tend to just work, work, work, sleep, work some more and then go home. The good thing about these trips was the fact that I was taking a colleague of Chinese descent. I was very happy that she was going so she could give me the ins and outs of communicating and maybe show me a few interesting spots, not to mention, I don't speak Chinese......at all.....ever......never.

I found out today that she will probably not be allowed to go due to the fact that it may not be critical for her to go and budgets are tight (not unusual in these fuel expensive days). It was said that I knew my job quite well and there was every confidence that I would do just fine by myself.

Am I being a baby, or is it OK for me to feel like.... BY MYSELF!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING!!!???? NOOOOOOO!!!

Here I am, this giant Caucasian woman going where I can't read the road signs. Who knows where I could end up? No one will be there to tell me what to eat.....or, more importantly, what not to eat. No one to tell me "Please shut-up you have offended everyone in the entire room." and then apologize for my ignorance. No one to take pictures with me in them. (I went to Paris and only got a couple of pictures with me in them, I found an American couple to help me out.) And how do I figure the money? Will I pay $3,000 for a taxi on my American Express and not know until I come home? I don't think the company will reimburse for stupidity.

The biggest problem here is that my company has confidence in me.........ME.........I have faked everybody out. I just know all of the abilities they think I have are really non-existent. I am a phoney, a fake, a fraud!! They are going to ask that 15 years of salary be returned due to my total lack of knowledge. I don't have it.

I guess I will have to have my affairs in order before I go........I may disappear and never resurface......Maybe Chad Lewis is free??? (If I have to explain that one, never mind)