breather.

The past month has been one stressful, hectic blur - hence the lack of updates. My last day at Bluinc saw me frantically tearing out my hair and trying my best to complete my job bags at 12am, while at the same time clearing out my desk (thanks to good ol' Yasir, this entailed stuffing whatever I had into paperbags in record time). Thank god I didn't have THAT much junk accumulated throughout the year I was at Bluinc. The defining moment was leaving behind my office tag (it doesn't help that the picture of me on my tag is probably the ONLY decent looking passport photo I've ever taken in my life) and taking one last look at my now-empty desk; the place I had spent endless hours typing away about home recipes for limp hair, whiter teeth, cellulite or "Lace For Day" and "Three Ways To Wear That T-shirt Dress!". It felt surreal that I was leaving that world, the glossy pages of a magazine, and stepping into an entirely different, 'closer to reality' job.

I'm entirely grateful that today is a Public Holiday - at least this gives me 3 days to recuperate. The other day, I had to sit in on some classes at the Language Centre and observe the teachers and the students, y'know, just to get a feel of it. I sat in on a kids class, and was overwhelmed by the boundless energy they had, the questions they would ask (which mostly had nothing to do with the lesson - they were reading a story about how a man who lives on an island needed to find ways to earn money because he owes the Electricity company 1,000 pounds - after reading, this 9-year-old boy in class asks, with a serious look on his face as if he was asking the president a crisis question, "Teacher, if he lives on an island, how does he go shopping?!") Ahhh, kids. And apparently one girl in that particular class cries every 15 minutes, but because I was there, she held back her tears, god bless her little soul.

Oh by the way, Selamat Hari Merdeka. We may not be feeling patriotic because we're nowhere near '1 Malaysia', but when you have grandparents who tell you about how they suffered during the Japanese occupation from having to run and hide, terrified of being found and tortured to death, or how they lost a brother who was shot dead defending the country, you do start to count your little blessings and appreciate those that have perished just so we could call this country our own.

sloppy kisses.