Thursday, November 25, 2010

とても感謝しています

I just remembered it's Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I thought I really should take stock of the year that has been for me thus far. It's quite appropriate timing though, especially now that I've worked for exactly a year already!

As much as I don't appreciate what's going on in the country and its resident clowns, I'm really grateful that I have a job that I enjoy doing, with fun colleagues & teammates in a working environment which is relatively high on work-life balance. I have my stress days (like currently, but that's another story) but I'm not being pressured to stay back all the time. So far the rapport with client has been almost excellent and though with their politics and imperfections, it's the best I have so far.

Although I haven't gotten the opportunity to go for a well-deserved break (weekend trips doesn't exactly count!), I've played host to many overseas friends. There were Japanese Yuri & American Geoff end of last year, with whom I was practicing being tour guide since I don't know KL as much as I know Tokyo! I feel quite bad that they visited me when I was feeling all down about coming back to Malaysia and was getting a hang of adapting back.

On the IUJ alumni side, Thai Rach was here on a company trip, the Laotian-Vietnamese couple of Bic-Minh whom I brought for street food at SS2, newly-wed Bangladeshi Tanvir and his wife who surprised me by choosing Malaysia as their honeymoon destination, Filipino Joy who couldn't stop gushing about how good it was to meet up again, and most recently the MBA duo of Swiss Andreas and Filipino Angel over the previous weekend.

There were other friends I've made in Japan whom I thought I'd never see again. You know how you always tell each other that you'd keep in touch, and deep down you wonder if realities of life will make it hard to keep that promise.

Indonesian Didi also came for his business trip, and even though it wasn't a proper meet up, we managed to catch up while walking around Gardens when everything started to close. Nath brought his family on transit from Australia; we were quickly catching up at KL Sentral because they had to rush for their flight back to Cambodia that afternoon.

So ya, even if I didn't get to see the world this year, the world came to me. At least I got to visit a new country, even if it's not exactly an eye-opening experience, and if all goes well, I hope to visit a new one, or maybe two, next year.

There are countless things that I could be grumbling about, but I kinda decided since I have no control over them, and neither am I verbose enough to vent those frustrations, I would rather focus my energies and time on things that matter more. At this point of time with what I have, I'm glad to be back home, with family, friends and many familiar things and for these I'm most thankful for.

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