Overseas volunteering

Thinking I should do some volunteering overseas during my time off. Not too sure what organizations to look into though.

Most obvious one I suppose is habitat for humanity. But wow, I'm shocked, do you know how expensive it is? I knew you'd have to make your own way there, but somehow I thought that while volunteering with them, food and dorm would be provided or somehow discounted. But it turns out, besides making your way there, it usually costs around $2000 for 2 weeks of being there! Quite surprised, as finding your own hotel and food would come out much cheaper than that. Anyways, think I will have to look elsewhere.

Sarawak's delayed

by an estimated 10ish days. But, could be delayed longer. It was supposed to be beginning of december 2008, so who knows.

This is quite bad news for a number of reasons:
1) With the earlier time plan, I was hoping to go a week early and be in asia for lunar new year. Now, to be there for lunar new year would involve spending quite some time out there on my own penny, which may be possible (or may not) but not ideal.
2) If it gets delayed much, they might make me work in the office. If I work in canada before the end of february, I will lose some thousands of dollars in tax credits.
3) I probably won't be in town for someone's birthday.

Pandan I'm coming for you!

Just heard in the conference call, I should be heading back to Malaysia (this time Miri, Sarawak) at the end of january.

Pandan where are you?

T&T doesn't carry pandan leaves (fresh or frozen) or pandan powder or paste or anything. Quite disappointing.

Gas

Filled up with gas. Was honestly confused when the 'total price' showed a lower value than the 'litres' box, significantly lower actually, I started wondering what was going on. Was a solid reminder of how long I'd been away and how drastically the economy's been changing, the last time I filled up with gas the price was 60% higher.

Best couple days of the year

Of course, that's not that impressive of a claim since it's only day 5. But still.

Saturday was the "everything at once" day. Brother's last day in town, gathering of one group of friends I hadn't seen for ages, gathering of another group of friends I hadn't seen in ages.

So I stayed at the parents overnight and hung out with him in the morning, but he had packing and stuff to do that day anyways. Went home and cleaned myself up and went to the E-block group gathering. It was, ummm, different. Seems we were mostly just sitting around watching the babies that have appeared in the last year or two. Conversation and generally the fun "groupness" didn't seem to be around that much anymore. Maybe it's time to admit that group isn't really a group anymore. Still had a nice time with certain individuals. Also a little odd feeling to be around someone who used to be your best friend but now have drifted completely apart and barely know each other anymore.

Left to move on to the dance group gathering. Some new people too, and the type of people always with that group are people I immediately get along with and like to be with. So I really enjoyed it. Left at 11pm to meet and see my brother off at the airport. Even though several people were leaving the party by that time, I went back there after the airport. Figured this sort of thing happens so rarely it's worthwhile. Was surprised how many people were still around. Played a couple rounds of MJ then the rest were on their way out. But H's car wouldn't start! G couldn't boost it, so we tried my car since it's newer, but still no luck. So, tried AMA. Said there'd be 2hr wait, I didn't want to stay that late so we canceled the call. H wanted to take his battery home to charge, so while he was doing that, I got convinced to play some halo. When he finished, he got convinced to join in halo. After several "one more round"s, a few hours had passed! It was awesome, can't believe I stayed up that late. Feeling ill and almost zombie by that point, finally left, took H home and got to bed at 6:30.

Up again at 9 in order to go to the temple, hadn't been in so many weeks, and it's solar new year, so didn't want to miss it. Unfortunately, didn't find time to get a nap as I had to do a couple errands and get food going for the gathering I organized at my place. Dinner turned out pretty well. Then got into MJ. Shuffling was so noisy, I was worried about condo-neighbours. Finally time to end, as people had to work the next day. But once again, car troubles! This time, G&E, but the symptoms were different and it seemed it would need towing. Again call AMA, estimate 3 hour wait but this time have to do it or it'd be illegally parked in the morning. Passed some time at bubblemania, but eventually it was just G&I back waiting at my condo. Played Oware, Backgammon, and Big 2 (a nice global variety of games) until 4 am when AMA finally showed up (yeah like 70% longer than their estimate). Soo tired, but it was still a good time. (and AMA guy was able to temporarily fix things so no towing, yay!)

Next day, saw a few of them again for wings. May be last time with B&O for a long time, too bad :(. This time, ended with no car troubles! Back home, though I was super tired, still didn't feel like going to bed. Weird. But I guess it's time to return to normal for a while.

Bitching about cigarrettes

It's been awhile since I did this.

Since it's christmastime and my brother's in town, I've been spending more time at my parents place than normal. It's awful. Winter's always worse because the windows stay closed. Even in the car, do I open the window and freeze, or suffer the stink of cigarettes? At the house, I figure people might as well just pee on the carpet for all it's worth, not gonna make the place any worse. After spending more than a few hours there, I have the mild dull headache and general feeling of unpleasantness. When I leave, myself and all my clothes (and oddly, my laptop) smell of smoke and need to be washed right away (can't wash the laptop). Sometimes I prefer to leave my coat in my car instead of taking it inside their house, because it's hard to wash. At least if they ever try to sell the house, in that neighbourhood it would be to developers who would destroy it and build infills, noone would buy it to live in it, even most smokers these days don't smoke indoors and befoul their own habitat.

Guess that's all for now.

General summary

So here's a general summary of my couple months in SE asia.

The flight over was super tiring, but I did meet someone from HK and we're still in touch by email (considered extending my HK transit to meet up again, but it would have been hard to change flights at christmas). Arrived in KL for a night to drop off my work-stuff and was off to saigon early the next morning. There, I met with my friend's "niece" (though same age as us) and hung out a couple days. She didn't really speak english, so sometimes it was a bit boring or frustrating, but overall was nice to have someone around. Met up with my tour group and headed off towards Cambodia.

The first tour, Saigon to Bangkok through Cambodia, was quite good. I connected with the other people pretty well, the guide was great, there were lots of activities and things to see and do. I was kindof surprised how developed yet 'calm' Cambodia was compared to Vietnam. I expected it to be in rougher shape, given its history. Lots of cool temples, most famously Angkor Wat of course. Got to see some things I'd seen a couple weeks earlier on 'amazing race'. Unfortunately, it has reached the super-touristy point, and there are people (esp kids) everywhere chasing you and bothering you nonstop to buy things. Saw a 'US Election / Obama' party, seems the whole world was celebrating. Saw some dragonboat practices and talked to some people, but never had an opportunity to actually join a practice or see the races.

In Thailand the first tour ended and second tour began. I hung out with the first tour people as long as possible, as I'd have another couple weeks with the new people but was saying goodbye to the old people. Thailand was very westernized, in some ways that's good but in some ways bad. The best part of the second tour was near the beginning in Thailand, we were in Chiang Mai for "Loy Katrong / Yi Peng". There were thousands of people out and about, fire crackers going off underfoot and overhead, and hundreds of hot air balloon lanterns floating up into and across the sky, it was crazy and really beautiful.

There was nothing particularly bad about the second group, just didn't connect as well. The guide wasn't nearly as good as the previous one, and the tour through Laos included very few activities. As a result there was lots of free time, but often you couldn't make great use of the free time. For example, Laos was very scenic, quite forested and mountainous, there must have been some great hikes but I didn't get to do any. Without doing too many activities, it was more "relaxing" but therefore a bit boring. At least in Laos, maybe because I wasn't so into my tourmates, I met more locals. Not many, but a couple people at least. Most don't really speak english unfortunately.

I was glad to have done the first tour with the tour group, but I think the second one would have been better alone. In Cambodia, the tour included things I wanted to do, and things seemed like they might be a bit of a hassle to organize on my own, and I was with people I liked. But for Laos, I don't feel the tour really gained me much. More flexible timing would have meant doing some more interesting things, like hiking. And it seemed easy enough to get around.

At the end of the tour I stayed an extra day in Hanoi and did a day trip to Halong bay. I'd been there before, but it was nice to go again. After some initial anger and frustration about the trip out there, things became great as I met a wonderful girl. And even better, she was just there for work, and lived in KL so I would see her again a week later.

Back in KL, work started off messy, the person I was replacing was fired and left the morning before I arrived so we didn't have a handover, and there had been problems with the system. Luckily there was someone else around who'd been there a few days and was familiar with it. In general, things varied back and forth between busy and not too busy. Only made it out of the hotel vicinity two times in the month there. And the hotel vicinity wasn't particularly nice or scenic. The field crew wasn't particularly social. So overall it wasn't a particularly fun rotation. I met a couple more random people just by asking to join them at lunch or whatever. (A 'friend' was noting that I seem to be doing pretty well at meeting people. But then she pointed out something else which although not intended as such, was really depressing, so I won't bother talking about it here.) I also got together with the girl I met in Vietnam as well as someone I know from 1997 Montreal (and saw again in 2001 KL). So actually at the end of the trip, I was strongly considering requesting to change my flight and stay there working longer. If it wasn't right before Christmas, and having been away for Christmas last year too, I would have.

So that's things in 'brief'.

Generic post

to say "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year".

Job situation

So most of you already know, but I'll blog it anyways.

Global economic crap has us drastically reducing acquisition. In the field we have pilots, mechanics, field managers, surveyors, and sensor support. There have been majoy layoffs of pilots, mechanics, field managers, and surveyors, but none in sensor support. So, I really don't know what's up. We obviously have more staff than is needed now. And back when we heard that layoffs were coming, I was offered a layoff package but encouraged not to take it.

I'd like to ask, but maybe it's better to keep quiet, stay under the radar, like maybe they'll keep paying me but forget to have me work. I still haven't seen my name on any upcoming schedule.

Regarding Olivia

Heh, it feels a bit weird to write something in a blog about someone who may be reading it. So that's it for this post. :)

G&E Place

Saw their place the other day, it's nice. Like, really nice. How come my place isn't that nice! Location, all about location, that's why. It's too bad as soon as I took possession of my place, the location factor lost a lot of its personal value. But it's still nice in some ways, and who knows, it could easily change again.

My brother's friend was looking around kensington the other day for an apartment. Maybe I should again consider renting out the "tripod room". Hmmm.