2 More Sleeps!

Right now I’m sitting under the air conditioner in my livingroom on a tiny red stool using an empty moving box for a desk. I’m surrounded by boxes which are packed with all my worldly possessions (well, those that aren’t in storage at Mom and Dad’s anyway). There are six men in my house, who arrived about 3 hours ago and are still packing up my things. Fingers crossed they’ll be done soon, my landlord arrives in just over an hour for my final clear out.

I love my house here in KL and it fit in very well with my Princess Rugby (as one former dude nicknamed me) theme. The outside facade is three stories high, made of red brick, has a pointed rooftop, and the best part is where the wall curves. It’s beautiful. Looks like a fairy tale castle tower… well, not really, but kinda ; ) I even had my princess car outside, my little, somewhat reliable, purple, Proton Tiara. I’m not kidding. It really was called a “Tiara.” The car model is really an old Citroen from about 1982 (mine was a 96) that have a terrible tendency to explode, as in cracked engine blocks and blown head gaskets. I killed mine last June and had a second hand engine put in which thankfully lasted this school year. As of a week ago today the car became someone else’s worry. I am so happy that I won’t need a car in Belgium!

Inside, my house has the same curved walls on the facade wall, parkay wood flooring, a brilliantly designed kitchen table that sits in a vertical semi-circle that has been cut out of the wall between my kitchen and livingroom, and so the big wooden table is actually a part of the wall and is half in the kitchen, half in the living/dining room. (I’ll have to take a picture, it’s really cool). Upstairs I have an enormous bedroom, complete with a very decent sized dressing room, and another bedroom that is never used, mostly because it doesn’t have a/c, but also because I just don’t have THAT much stuff.

Update: Yesterday, I met my landlord at the house and gave him back the keys. I now officially have no keys. None. No car. No classroom. No house. It’s so weird. Last night Anni and I were sitting in her computer room checking out new apartment possibilities for me in Brussels on www.immoweb.be Sadly, I don’t see very many “princess rugby” type places in my rental budget. And without the Tiara, perhaps it’s time for a new theme. It’d be like Wonderwoman without her invisible plane and groovy accessories. Yeah, just like that ; )

5 Days in Paradise

Yesterday I got back to KL after spending five days in my favourite place on the planet… Kapalai-Sipadan. Pulau Sipadan is one of the world’s foremost dive sites, and it’s right here in Malaysia!

My first trip there was in November 2005 and when I thought about where I should go for my last vacation in Malaysia (for a while anyway) I just had to go back to Kapalai. My words can’t begin to describe how fabulous the resort is, so check it out at http://sipadan-kapalai.com/

I stayed at the resort, which is a entirely wooden stilt-house village built on a shallow reef, and was joined by my favourite divemaster buddy, Yanni.

Here’s where I spent my time when I wasn’t swimming in the ocean with turtles, sharks, schools of hundreds of barracudas, and so many of the most beautiful fish in the world! It truly felt like I was diving in a giant aquarium. Just amazing!

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!

Kota Kinabalu Climb

Next week! Details coming soon.

 (image:http://www.nemotravel.com.sg/nemotravel/FreeEasy/mount_kota_kinabalu.jpg)

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!”

Hot stone… hot damn!

I am in love. Her name is Eka. (It’s not what you think). She’s a hot stone masseuse. And right now in my post-massage state of euphoria I’m trying to figure out how I can bring her to Belgium with me. Anyway…

If you’ve never had a hot stone massage, you HAVE to fix that. And the sooner the better. It’s like a regular massage except that, well, there are hot stones involved. The stones are mostly flat, round stones that are about the size of your palm, and would be perfect for skipping on a smooth lake somewhere.  They are heated up in a crock pot type appliance, then they’re lubed up and rubbed all over your body. I love it so much more than a regular massage because in a hot stone massage you never feel like the masseuse is pulling apart your muscles by digging their fingers into you like they sometimes do in a regular massage. Instead you get this warm, flat, slippery stone pressed against you. It’s perfect. My favourite part is when they take the tiny hot stones and put them between your toes while they are working on the rest of your body. So good! I’ll have to make this a regular habit before I leave KL.

Saying Good-bye… #1

Within the next 6 months I’ll be saying good-bye to the city that has been my home away from home for the past three years. I hate good-byes and I don’t want to dwell on the leaving… but the prospect of going has me thinking about all the things that I will miss here.  And so these entries will be a sort of tribute to KL, a collection of random memories I want to take with me…

Tonight I was driving home after dinner at a friend’s house in my crappy purple Proton Tiara with the even crappier radio blaring and all the windows down. It was after 10pm as I passed yet another enormous southeast asian mall, the temperature on the sign read 26 degrees celcius… did I mention it’s after 10pm on a February night?

I continue driving along one of KL’s many ribbon highways and go through the Bukit Kiara Tunnel. As I emerge from the tunnel I’m at the top of a rather small hill, but the view in front of me (past the toll booth) is remarkable. There’s a huge, orange full moon low in the sky, just above and to the left of the tips of the Petronas Towers. The taller KL Tower was also in sight. Just beautiful… this is why I live overseas…

As I leave that view behind, I turn the corner to head home and am engulfed by the nasty, nasty smell of durian coming from the durian stand, which is actually just the dump of some dude’s truck. Barf, it’s durian season again.

Then I get home and head up to my bedroom, on the third floor of my house. As I’m walking along I notice a huge cockroach, easily the size of my pinky finger in the middle of my floor. I instantly freeze, move backwards slowly, get my toilet plunger, and very steathily trap the cockroach underneath. I know it’s a horrible thing to do, but I just can’t squash them, they are like small animals. Ick! But then I go into my bathroom to find another cockroach roaming around in there! Big problem as I only have one plunger.

Okay, so there are a few things I won’t miss…      

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! 

Life is Good

Things are finally looking up….

Top ten things in Tamland:

1- went to the ultra-posh KL sports medicine clinic yesterday and YA-FRIGGIN-HOOO!!!! I don’t need another surgery on my 98 year old knee… yay!!!! but do need heaps of rather expensive physio that is unlikely to be covered by my crap health insurance (heaps to be said for Canada’s universal healthcare policy)

2- after procrastination of epic proportion… I have finally finished my report card comments

3- just got back from a much needed beach holiday, nothing beats sitting next to the ocean thinking about nothing and everything all at once (see above pics of Tam with cutest baby in the world Aidan and super surfer girl Devon)

4- going on a Hallowe’en Hash Harrier Run tonight with Lynn and Hot Scott, finally the gross KL haze seems to be going…. but now it’s raining again… jungle run will be slippery and muddy

5- break up diet in combination with ongoing mild stomach bug ( I know sort of icky… but whatever) kicks ass over South Beach, have now lost all the weight I gained post first knee surgery and can once again fit in to fabulous suits I had tailor-made in Colombia, just in time for recruiting season

6- have decided for certain I am NOT going to a recruiting fair but have decided to activate my file with a recruiting agency… just to see who bites

7- have booked my flight home for xmas… and special bonus, I’ll then have enough miles to fly home for free in the summer

8- heard from both a former principal and former headmaster who have agreed to be referees for my CV and various school applications… phew!

9- finally not feeling freaked out or overwhelmed by plethora of “world is my oyster” options for where I’ll land next year… am confident it’ll all be good… even if (maybe especially if) I end up landing in my “dungeon” at home 

10- I bought my own copies of season 1 and 2 of Grey’s Anatomy…. my new fav show