i'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack...

had the most fantastic week at Langkawi... with all the worries about wet weather and the flooding of some eastern states in Peninsular M'sia, we were informed by our tour-guide it hadn't rain at all in sunshiny Langkawi... perfect island weather! so perfect that my nose peeled despite all the sunscreen & moisturiser i put on! but d Langkawi experience was so so much more that I'd ever expected... did island-hopping & parasailing (woohoo! now i'm even more bent to try vertical bungee @ clarke quay even if no one else wanna try with me!)... minor trekking... le tour de langkawi (hehe... well... i'm just the navigator... thanks K for the experience, *winks & hugs*) and took a cable car to travel over a horizontal distance of almost 1km to go up the top of the 2km mountain! the view was... awe-inspiring... masyallah...

of course the company of my very bestest friend helped... though she wasnt in the bestest of health... i think something about the combination of the 2 of us always brought on some risk factor... he he he he... funnily enough to others it seemed 2b a damsel-in-distress thingy... got chatted up by the local guys left right and centre!of course it was good in some way that we learned quite a few stuff from them... the gals dun seem to be forthcoming with any information 9except for the lovely clerk from the concierge who was the one who suggested we drove instead of hiring a cab cause it's easy to find our way back in case we got on the wrong track)...

K & I got into some serious discussions too... matters of the heart... mind... and of course soul... hehe... being in Langkawi and all the plus and minuses of it's touristification brought me back to the Cultural Resource Management module I once took... a very challenging but highly intriguing part of Southeast Asian Studies... made me wistful... that was something I'm realli insterested in... but might not lead me anywhere but the academic path if i took it... got to talking how rather disappointed i felt after getting my degree... i mean... back when i was in sec sch... in jc... when getting a degree was the ultimate aim, i had certain expectations of life in general then... which of course didnt materialise now...

one kinda regret was how after all the things i learnt in uni... it was mostly immaterial... employers only needed to know whether i had one... in which discipline wsn't of particular matter... they only needed to know what sort of an experience I have outside of the academic world i was in... granted, i didnt go for a lot of interviews... one for translation (with the company i was freelancing with all through uni... i thought it was a done deal... but came out feeling rather deluded and only vaquely disappointed in my confidence that they would not give me the permanent post neither do i realli want it)... one as a liason officer for an MNC (one which at the interview i realised my thai lang skills leanrt in uni was inadequate, however much confidence my lecturer had that I could pull it off)... the other was the administrative post that i've been in for 2.5 years now...

i dun exactly loveeeee my job... but it's something much more than ok... especially with the change in management which made it a much nicer place to work in... but i attribute it much to my "partner" aka my other peer... his easy-going attitude helped bailed me out of certain mistakes.... made some things dun appear as terrible... and generally was a kor aka big-bro looking out for me... THANKS, CC! i'd dare say in our cluster, we have the best chemistry among other schs with similar arrangement...

so... switching on my pc (miss u lots my compaq evo!) with the intentions of posting all my langkawi pix to inflict envy in all of u... was shock when i came face-2-face with an unexpected invitation for an interview... it was mths ago... an advert for a lang executive from another ministry... and being in civil service, i'd only needed to click apply online to forward my interest... i was smtg i found rather interesting and well... was interested to know whether pple would be intersted in me for the post too... wasnt thinking too seriousy abt it... was feeling a bit bashful or smtg... didnt tell anyone abt it... until i confessed to H... weeks later when i didnt hear from anyone, i was feeling rather disappointed... but then put it out of my mind... until this letter saying i've been shortlisted for an interview and i needed to confirm my attendance... was mostly shocked and the rest parts alternatingly excited, scared, confused!

asked the opinion of some of my closest friends... who are all supportive... told bro & sis... who was just surprised and i think didnt think i'm realli considering it... dad though said something which was somewhat a downer and made me rather disappointed that he didn't give me his full support...

but then i'd guess it's something typical of him... and probably mum's POV too... H and I discussed before how our parent's generation think so highly of civil service and especially of teaching... and how badly they think of changing jobs... most of that generation probably held down only one job for the most of their life... interest in the job is not important... work is just work... your interests in itself is not important...

i know that whatever i do or decide i can always rely on dad's backing me... but still fell a twinge of regret and of course uncertainty... K told me to sleep over it... i did...

and most of me is saying as NZ did... not to miss the opportunity... i'd have to confess to P why i need to take leave, but i think (and hope) she'd be ok with it... i'm not telling anyone else... coz i think i would be rather disppointed if things dun wk out... i'd be sad if i have to leave too, but that is counting chickens... so insyallah i'm going for the interview, finding more about what the job entails... if it didnt work out at least i know i tried... if it did that's another blog-post altogether, insyallah... :]

i'm still feeling butterflies in my stomach... maybe i'm making this all too much bigger than it shld... but wish me luck pple... lots & lots of it...

PS: Happy 24th, K! Love u always, whatever it is! *hugz*