No Rest for the Wicked

After shamefully neglecting my blog for months and months and months… I thought I’d update it with a few pictures of things that have been keeping me out of trouble for the past few months.

 

 

Brussels Turns HIP

Awesome, awesome concert! Check out the pix! Here’s Gordie!

Fellow cool, Canadian, chick Mel, and me

Even more cool chicks Buddies Brit and Sarah

Back to the band…

Funniest story of the night…

I’m standing in the crowd, only a few meters away from the boyz, when I turn to the couple next to me (who looked Canadian) and ask them where they’re from. They reply “Regina.” At which point I ask them if they know anyone who lives in Malaysia. I figured Regina’s a small town and there were a bunch of Regina-ers (?) working at my school in KL so it might be possible we know some of the same people.  Turns out… dude plays hockey with my former director’s son. How crazy is that?!

And then…  I point to the greasy haired lead guitarist pictured below (don’t know his name) and ask the girl “who’d shag that guy?” She replies “um, probably me.” I laugh and say “yah, forgot, you’re from Regina, you people will shag anything.” She totally laughed, but then spent the rest of the concert with her camcorder locked on long haired, greasy dude.  Ew!

Brides, Butterflies and Belgium

I leave for the airport in about 3 hours. I’m not packed, not showered, haven’t even had breakfast yet. Am too excited-nervous-happy-sad…. everything that comes with leaving home again, but even more so this time because Belgium is brand new!

 My next couple of weeks will no doubt be crazy busy with finding a place to live, figuring out the rules and routines of my new school, hanging out with Amie (1st buddy to come visit shows up less than a week after I get there – awesome!) and trying to remember my 4 years of French immersion. So I thought I’d post a couple pictures from the wedding now before things get really busy.

 Here is a picture of the bridesmaids: Alex, me and Erin.

 

And one of Jake and Beckett. The wedding was amazing! I’ll write more later…

Here Comes the Bride

3 days until the big event and “Runaway Bride” Beckett is holding steady ; )

 Here are some pix from one of her showers a couple weeks ago. Maybe I’ll throw in a couple from her stagette later… umm, maybe not… ; )

This is the bouquet that I got to make from all the bows and ribbons from ALL of her gifts. I loved it! It was the best shower I’ve been to, mostly because I had a task with which to occupy myself ; ) Man, did she get a lot of loot! Has me seriously rethinking the whole elopement plan should I ever decide to tie the knot!

Here’s the “before” picture of the bridal party… “after” picture to come after Friday.

Hmm, is Beckett really sure about who she wants to marry?

 

Hmmm…..?

30 days.

In exactly one month today I’ll be getting on a plane and saying good-bye to the city and to the country that has been my home for the past three years. I love the excitement that comes with living overseas and completely turning my life upside down every few years so that I can run off to some new place and begin a new adventure. This August I’ll begin expat life number three in Belgium (expat life #1 being Colombia, and #2 being Malaysia) and I can’t wait. To say I am excited is an enormous understatement. Europe! Seasons! French! Belgian chocolates! Belgian beer! you get the picture.

But before I get to begin that life, I have to first say good-bye to this life here in Malaysia. In a lot of ways it just doesn’t feel right at all that I am leaving Malaysia so soon. I have a great life here. I have a job that I love, for the most part. I get to travel to some amazing places that I would never have the opportunity to visit had I stayed in Canada. But most of all, I’ve met some incredible people who have become family to me.

I can’t wrap my head around the thought of not seeing Ann everyday, or not being at her house every week for Tikka Tuesday with her family. I won’t have Bridget graciously allowing me to invite myself over for dinners and I won’t get to see her Aidan continue to grow from the teeny-tiny, odd-looking baby he was when she first adopted him and I was there, into the cutest baby in the world that he has become. Kim and I won’t be taking anymore classes together, where we get to drive across town in the little Proton Tiara that could, simultaneously ranting and giggling at the plethora of ”Twilight Zone-ish” situations we find ourselves wrapped up in. I won’t have Renee’s palm trees to lay under by the pool, that I have discovered far too late in my time in KL is the social hub of KL, every weekend. What will I do without Mairin’s wisdom helping me to decipher messages and actions from dudes in order to determine who might be worthy and who might just be a “jackass”? How much will I miss Lynnie’s texts inviting me to a Sunday roast dinner at Flagz or more likely twisting my rubber arm to join her for a quick drink regardless of the time of day, or night? And I’ll totally miss Miriam’s kindness, quirky stories and I will forever laugh when recalling our dive trip capers, which have included epic seasickness in Tioman, classic follies in Mataking such as Miriam dangling off the side of the boat because she was halfway through a backroll entry when she realized her regulator was not in her mouth, and best of all the all-dude full monty show from the bachelor party boat in the Andaman Sea in Thailand!  Classic!

So, 30 days but a “to do”list that is as long as my arm. The plan is to keep the sadness at bay by being incredibly busy up to the moment I walk onto that plane in late June. Mission accomplished as I have trips to the Philippines, Port Dickson, Melaka, and Sipadan all planned before then. I also have report cards to write and a school year to wind up. I have one last course for my leadership program to start and finish, and I have a house to get packed up and shipped off to Europe. Not to mention clearing my Malaysian taxes and pension before I leave! Phew!

I’m exhausted already, completely stressed, and not thinking at all about how hard it will be to say good-bye to my loved ones here. Good plan, Tam!

the dresses are in the building!

The emails were flying in over the past couple days announcing the arrival of the long awaited dresses for the wedding event of the year! Beckett and Jake’s big day, of course!  

To see what I’ll look like this summer as a bridesmaid at Beckett’s wedding… look at the picture above, tilt your head a bit, squeeze your eyes really tight, but don’t close them, and picture my head on this body. Presto! Did it work?

I have yet to see the dress in living colour, but I’m sure it will be perfect! Wow, just over three months to go! Beckett, getting nervous yet? ; )  You should be… I’m going to be home to help plan the hen night, and I can’t wait!  

 Speaking of…. if anyone has some great games and truly embarrassing tasks to assist us in giving our beloved ”bride-to-be” an unforgetable send off from singlehood… they’d be enormously appreciated! Not to worry Beckett, I don’t foresee you wearing Dolly Parton style, inflatable boobs… we’ll be a tad classier than that!  ; )

Yeehah! Road Rally 2007

Thought I’d include a couple of pictures from my school’s road rally from a couple of weeks ago. This year’s theme was “rodeo rally” and had us charging all over town in our best cowgirl outfits deciphering clues, searching for horseshoes, line dancing, singing cowboy tunes… and just mainly causing mayhem wherever we went. It was a great night! Big, big thanks to Ann, Brian, Rene and Lucas for being such amazing organizers! Yeehah!

 Here’s me with Steph in our matching cowgirl outfits that were originally worn at our rugby tournie in Thailand last year. But of course what goes on the road stays on the road… ; )

And here’s Lucas and me straight out of the “Wild West!”

Ringing in the New Year – 007 Style

New Year’s Eve this year was spent in Canada surrounded by some of my oldest friends at a Casino Royale themed bash. Seriously, at times it felt as though this party was the high school grad reunion that I missed a couple of years back. A feeling that was a bit strange at first, especially because I have known many of these people since I was 11 years old, and hadn’t seen many of them since shortly after leaving highschool…. but then the G & Ts kicked in ; )

 

Clearly, you have to get older, but no one says you have to get wiser.

Engagement Ceremonies – Malaysian Style

Last weekend I was asked to participate in my friend’s engagement ceremony down in Melaka. Omar is a colleague who arrived in Malaysia in June of my first year here. Since I had not yet left for the summer holiday (actually couldn’t due to Malaysian tax requirements) I decided to “pay forward” the warm welcome I received when I first arrived in KL, and so the first first days of Omar’s Malaysian life involved tooling around KL in the little purple Tiara with me.  

Fast forward a year and a half later, and Omar discovers he needs family members to participate in his Muslim Malay engagement ceremony to Azura, his future bride. Like all of us, whose family members are on the other side of the planet, he turned to his KL “family.” So when Omar came into my classroom asking me to be a part of his ceremony, since I was his first friend in KL, I readily agreed.  

But little did I know then how hot the clothes would be! Both in fashion sense and temperature ; ) Everyday I thank my lucky stars I was born a Canadian girl. You’d think that in a county where it’s a million degrees everyday and many women choose to be covered head to toe they’d wear a fabric that’s somewhat more suitable than synthetic rayon!

The outfit I’m wearing is called a baju korong. It is the everyday dress for millions of Muslim Malay women who want to be fully covered as part of their religious practice. The baju korong consists of a a long blouse that goes down to one’s knees, over a super long skirt that should reach one’s ankles, and there’s also a todong, which is the scarf which covers the woman’s head. Fortunately, I didn’t have to cover my head, and more fortunate for Malay women very few Muslim women in Malaysia feel they need to completely cover their faces, as women in parts of the Middle East do. (again, so grateful I get to be an opinionated Canadian girl)

 Many baju korongs are beautiful… I borrowed the one I’m wearing from a friend, she called it hideous, I’m not sure I’d go that far but…  And as far as I can tell they are all made of synthetic fabric. Not fun when you’re spending the day in temperatures over 30 celcius and humidity levels are so high it feels like you’ve been wrapped up in a hot, wet blanket. Notice the clothes the men are wearing? Hmm…

Anyway, I should get down off my soapbox before I am late for my appointment at the spa! Hmm, perhaps we Canadian girls aren’t as “free” as we’d like to think?

Comas, Cars, Contracts, and Competitions

What a crazy and exhausting week this has been!

 First up, last Saturday the other two touch rugby coaches and I took our girls’ teams over to the other international school in town for a touch rugby tournie. Things were going well until one girl complained of a headache. Keeping in mind it’s always a million degrees in KL and she’d played three games so far that day, I assumed heat stroke and told her to make sure she was drinking enough fluids, and made sure to keep an eye on her. Long story short, things quickly got worse and we took her to the nurse’s station where the nurse decided it likely wasn’t heat stroke, possibly was food poisoning. At any rate the girl was getting worse. The parents come and take her home, but then I get a phone call at 4:30 Sunday morning from a very worried mother telling me that the doctors need to know if there is any chance E has a head injury from the tournie. There wasn’t. So at 5 in the morning I’m at the hospital with the two most worried parents I have ever seen, while the doctors try to determine what is wrong with their beautiful 13 year old daughter. They know her brain is swelling but they don’t know why. For the next 2 days E is in a drug-induced coma to try to reduce the swelling in her brain. Two of the scariest days I’ve had in a long, long time. Thankfully her swelling reduces, the doctors wake her up, E slowly returns to normal and 6 days after the ordeal began, she is sent home. The doctors still have no idea what happened other than E developed some sort of brain infection, that just went away.  Thank heaven she’s okay.

Second, and far less worrisome, my car started smoking again. This past June, I literally killed my piece o’ shit car. I cracked the engine block, blew the head gasket, did something or other to the radiator… and numerous other terrible things. Mr. Won, my mechanic, kept my car all summer while I was home, so that it… and a great, big repair bill, would be ready for me when I returned here in August. So for three months and a bit… the car has been running more or less okay. That was until Thursday when steam was rising from it again. YIKES! Fortunately, I was 1o seconds from his shop and so I drove straight there. Whereupon I’m greeted by Mr. Won who says to me (in his Chinese accent) “whoo-ahh, you very thin now!” Umm, thanks. Knowing that had I gained weight instead of lost it, he’d be just as quick to point that out! So the next day I pick up my car, get a lecture and a lesson about making sure there is water in it, (oops) and am told there’s no charge. Rock on, two for two, Mr. Won is officially my favourite dude of the week!  

Number three, met with the big kahuna at work this week (so not my favourite dude right about now) about my future… am still undecided about where I’ll land next school year. Deadline for telling him I want this job again next year is in 10 days. Hmm…. things are about to get interesting.  

And last but not least… yesterday I played in my buddy’s annual “6 Nations Touch Rugby Tournament.” Countries represented included: Sweden, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and a team from the other international school in town. It’s a great day of mixed team touch rugby. Here’s team Sweden scoring a try.

 

First I was drafted by the Japanese team when they thought they wouldn’t have enough women, but then I got traded to the UK for a couple plates of sashimi ; ) Kidding, the Japanese team had heaps of women and the UK’s captain clearly saw that I was oozing with talent

 

Whatever it was I jumped on board Team Mother England (with good buddy and actual Brit, Hannah) and wound up even scoring a try against the mighty All-Blacks! Wooo-hooo! Now my leg is all scraped up from my slide into the end zone…. but whatever… I scored!!! Unfortunately, there was a rain delay

 

and I had to leave before play resumed to get ready for my big night out with Renee and friends at our buddy’s field hockey team’s fundraiser.

An awesome day in Tamland!