pelf-ism is contagious

You know, I still haven’t blogged about the last 2 weeks of my trip to US/Canada. Ever since returning to KT, I have been picking up the bits and pieces where I left off before I went to US in April. Perhaps I am too excited and caught-up in the events that are happening NOW, at this very moment, that I am no longer excited about what happened 4 weeks ago.

• I am excited about being accepted into 9rules. How can I not be?!
• I am excited about the river terrapin tracking project that I would be working on in the coming weeks.
• I am excited about the up-coming Blog Action Day (to be held on October 15th) because I am (again) planning a month-long campaign that focuses on this year’s theme — POVERTY.

I know what you’re going to tell me — first things first, right?

OK, is anybody interested to participate in a blogging campaign on poverty? Let me know (in the comments), and I’ll shoot you an email

I went home to Melaka upon arriving in the afternoon of August 24th, exhausted and severely jet-lagged. I spent the next 3 days catching up with my sleep and allowing my body to re-adjust to the timezone that I grew up in. It was very frustrating to be tired and sleepy and lethargic when everybody else was wide awake and active.

I went back to Ipoh on August 28th because Grandma fell in the bathroom and was admitted into the hospital. Scans revealed blood clots in her head, and the clots had to be removed via endoscopy and the procedure had to be done as soon as possible, otherwise if she went into a coma *touch wood* surgery would be impossible. So everybody took turns accompanying Grandma in her ward, bringing her lunch and dinner everyday. I spent a night with Grandma at the hospital, in case she needed anything at night, and that was my first night in a hospital ward *touch wood* I have slept in a hospital bed once, when J had his appendix removed, but that was during daytime.

Mei Mei’s graduation was on August 30th, in KL. Seeing a bunch of kids graduating for the first time kind of reminded myself of those good ol’ days. Everybody was all smiles, flower bouquets as HUGE as umbrellas were everywhere, camera flashes were fired in all directions and hugs and kisses were given ever so freely.

But they probably haven’t realized that the graduation wasn’t the end, but instead the beginning of their journey into the big cruel world. Well, unless they’re smart enough to stay in school, like me

Another thing worth mentioning is that this blog has been accepted into 9rules! Awesomeness! 9rules has a reputation for being associated with quality blogs, and that was what drove my submission. It wasn’t the traffic that being a part of 9rules bring, nor the popularity that comes with it. It is truly an honour to be a part of something so prestigious

Thank you very much to The Triad @ 9rules for reviewing and accepting my blog, and congratulations to everybody else who made it

I am home! And it was quite an eventful journey!

First, the flight from Chicago to Hong Kong was delayed for 2 hours because the Captain did not receive any instructions to take off from the Control Tower. And then we were told that they had to add more fuel into the plane because there was a typhoon in Hong Kong, and when we arrive, we might not be able to land immediately (we might have to circle around until it was our turn to land).

And when we finally landed in Hong Kong, we were told that the connecting flight to Singapore (at 8pm) was delayed to 7am the next morning. We were offered a place to spend the night, and some of us were taken to hotel in Hong Kong. I did not take up the offer because I did not quite like the idea of clearing immigration twice (the queue was very long and we have an early flight the next morning) in 6 hours. Anyway, I later found out that there were 21 passengers but only 9 hotel rooms, and the shuttle driver had to drive the remaining passengers around to look for a hotel, and some of them only got to a hotel at 3am!

The 7am flight from Hong Kong to Singapore went on smoothly, but not before the United officers were bombarded with a lot of questions and complaints from grumpy passengers. Many passengers were requesting for an upgrade, some were inquiring about their missed flight as a result of the delayed Hong Kong-Singapore flight (me included), and many were just being themselves — passengers.

Upon arrival in Singapore, I went straight to the Check in/Transfer counter and requested to be put on the next available flight back to Kuala Lumpur, which was easy because I later learned that the flight wasn’t even half full.

Anyway, I arrived in KLIA 3 days ago, after 38 hours on 4 flights in 3 countries.

It felt GREAT to be able to walk past the immigration counter without being harrassed and asked 1,001 questions that revolved around “Why Malaysia?”

Ahh.. Home sweet home

P/S: Though I’m home, I’m still not done with my journey to the United States and Canada (I think I have at least 3 more posts to go).