Like irritating ants

It doesn't matter where you travel to, life has a habit of following you. You can escape momentarily, but sooner or later, it will find you...

Since I got back home two weeks ago, I have been catching up on life. What a multitude of jobs there are to be done, regardless of where I am. They itch and irritate like ants inside clothing- scratch as I might, they can never all be brushed away, and the multitude soon enough find me when I move.

There was a bit of a backlog because of the break, and it was also time to move on some house maintenance, on our rental house in Cairns and our own home in Smithfield. Then there were the usual bills, and messes that are the result of lost and late mail. There were insurance policies to renew and to change, and new ones to investigate. The bags full of goodies from Australia had to be emptied and sorted into their new homes. Rent spreadsheets had to be updated, body corporate matters voted on, and one tenancy wrapped up and a new one started. Some upcoming leisure moments had to be organised too, like our wedding anniversary weekend which we will spend at a lovely, quiet spa hotel in the mountains at Bukit Tinggi, and this Saturday, which we will spend with my parents who will be in Port Klang for the second stop of their round-the-world cruise on the Dawn Princess. The list I was using was on a piece of paper, because the app in my phone just wasn't allowing me to see the whole enormous picture. The list was terrifying, but I think at last it has been tamed. You know you've made progress on a list when it's time to transfer the unfinished jobs onto a fresh page and discard the tatty mess of crossed-out achievements. It feels good.

The last two weeks I have formulated a new life-timetable for myself, but I haven't as yet been very successful in sticking to it. This is mainly the fault of life as summarised above. Next week, however, I hope to have more success with my new life arrangement. I plan to go with The Inventor two days a week to work with him in the lab. My forte is not lab work or scientific knowledge, but hopefully I can free up more of his time to work on these, while I handle office and managerial tasks. I have also been toying with the idea of doing some further study, because there are some areas that I can see I would be able to help in managing the project but don't feel I have sufficient knowledge to do so adequately. Instead of formal study, however, I have decided on some self-led study, spending the time in advancing my knowledge in areas I feel would be useful. The first area I've started to explore is Project Management and Quantitative Business Analysis, and then I'd like to look at business finance and some economics. I know what you're thinking, and I, too, am wondering if I have just gone a little crazy. But I'm enjoying it, and I love the pursuit of knowledge.

So, that's all from me for now! Back to life!

On being Australian

You can take the woman out of Australia, but you can't take Australia out of the woman.

It's corny, but you know it's true. There is something about one's homeland that is etched into their identity, a part of their very being, the essence of self. I know this is the case for me, at least. I love my homeland, I'm proud to be Australian, proud that the people and nation I identify with are strong, tough, honest and friendly. Even though I no longer have a home here, Australia is my home.

We have a friend who escaped from Vietnam. He has never been back, and has no desire to. He wouldn't accompany his wife when she went there on a holiday, because he doesn't want to go. In a way, I find it strange that he doesn't want to “connect with his roots”, but in another way I understand. He is Australian. He might look and sound Vietnamese, but this is his homeland, the place he identifies with. I appreciate that.

We have been in Australia for nearly two weeks. But as with all breaks away, it doesn't feel like that long. The time has been a rushed and stressful scurry from place to place, crossing tasks off the long list as each was achieved.

Besides the 21^st birthday party for our son (the primary reason for this current pilgrimage to our homeland), we have visited family and friends in both Brisbane and Cairns, and made visits to banks, solicitors, accountants, tenants, stores and businesses to organise services and products that we can't access readily by phone or internet from home. In between, we have continued to manage the visa application process in Kuala Lumpur, and it seems that we have finally been approved for a working visa, though it has been a drawn-out and somewhat pointless bureaucratic exercise, and approval was not granted before we had already paid yet more money to Air Asia to extend the stay. Our bargain $500 tickets have ended up costing us twice that, as we also had to change the flight leaving Malaysia so we could leave two days earlier than originally booked. This was necessary because our most recent “visa trip” was not entirely successful. We had left Malaysia before the expiry of our visas with the plan of gaining a new three-month visa on our return, however the immigration official at the desk the inventor approached was reticent to allow him to return at all, and eventually only granted him 28 days. We have heard of many people who leave and return regularly on visitor passes, and believe our difficulty was the result of previously being granted a one-month extension on our visas at the immigration office in Ipoh.

So, we had an extra day at the start of our trip and a few extra days at the end. This has given the inventor time to see his electro-cardiologist and time to complete jobs that he hadn't managed to finish. He returns tomorrow, but I won't follow for another week, staying behind here to do more jobs and help the number one offspring to pull together the pieces of her life after a relationship break-up and a few months living with us in Malaysia.

It's lovely to be here with family and friends and Australia is so home-ey, but Malaysia is home for now. I miss my home and look forward to fiddling with the awkward padlock, entering the leather-scented lounge room, strggling up the narrow stairs, turning on the aircon and collapsing into our delightful six foot square bed. We have work to do, a life to get on with and great things to achieve. As we leave our daughter to start the next, exciting chapter of her life journey, we too must go and finish what we started.

Return of the prodigal blogger

I'm sorry. I have been away for a long time, but I have been pining for my blog like an absent friend, so I am back. Life has become more complicated than when we first arrived in Malaysia, and certainly more busy, so finding time to write has become somwhat of a challenge. Finding topics to write about is less of a challenge- life is so interesting, there is always something to be said, and for those who know me, if there is something to be said, I'll say it.

So, hello again- I hope we maintain our acquaintance this time!

Observation

Since moving to Malaysia, I have noticed that I have become a more observant driver. I spend more of my driving time looking out for other drivers and motorcyclists. I see things happening on side-streets and on the footpath, and am generally more ready for the numerous surprises that constitute the daily lottery that is driving in Malaysia.

Yesterday morning I drove from Brisbane to the Gold Coast, and I realised something. My aware and alert state of driving is not the result of extra effort or new skills attained since my feet hit Asian shores. Neither is it the result of being less occupied with other matters, which I had previously thought might be the case. Rather, it is the result of having available the majority of my “driving brain”, my conscious and unconscious mind that scans for possibilities, makes decisions and reacts accordingly while I manoeuvre one or two tonne of steel around obstacles on the road. In Australia, I don't have this luxury, and as a result, I don't see as much around me. Why is this? After driving to the Gold Coast yesterday (to take the inventor to a cardiologist appointment and then this morning to the airport), I realise that I spend a good deal of my attention on rules. Especially speed. Instead of scanning for cars changing lanes or vehicles stopping unexpectedly, I spend nearly half of my driving time glancing at my speedometer and scanning for speed limit signs. I'm also continually scanning the sides of the roads and bridges for police cars and cameras, because despite my attempts to follow the rules, I do make mistakes. In Malaysia, almost all of this energy and visual awareness is spent gauging the traffic conditions, predicting problems and making myself and other drivers safe on the road.

This isn't to say that it is safer driving in Malaysia- far from it. Each year, five times more people die on Malaysian roads than Australian roads, despite the populations being very similar (26 million in Malaysia, 23 million in Australia). The Malaysian people on the whole appreciate the lack of enforcement on the roads and while they begrudgingly pay the bribes to avoid fines, prefer this to following the normal course of the law. Many embrace the lawlessness on the roads, travelling at 160 on the expressways, weaving across roads without regard for other vehicles, and doing what they please. Malaysia is spiralling in peril with no law enforcement, while Australia has made and enforced rules to the extent of oppression. 

If only there was a happy medium.