from inception to departure - Part 1

(disclaimer: this story is only a re-telling of a fragment of my life, no form of defamation was intended)

2008

our final semester was over by April 2008, we were graduating in August, so in those 4 months i went to a total of 3 interviews. I was not looking for an immediate job, I wanted to start work after graduating (malas mode). I was already working part time at a consultancy.


Job interview No. 1- this interview wasn't even planned for, my bff Haida called me & asked me to go & try out for this interview she found in the paper, it was looking for Quantity Surveyors to work in Qatar. Mula2 memang malass sangat sebab rase belum ready, but lepas dipujuk Haida, ktorg pegi. oh still have a copy of the add:

haida siap highlight lagi tuk aku, thats how efficient she is :) so we went, we were interviewed seperately, by two Japanese guys, they were really nice & polite & even showed me a whole slideshow of activities in Qatar & their project. I was starting to get interested but didn't get my hopes up. Jauh kot Qatar! working 6 days a week ;p


a week after that i got a call from their headquaters in Qatar, they said i had succeeded the interview & they wanted to offer me a position straight away. I was unsure, but i just told them that i might be willing to accept & start only after i had graduated by end of August, they agreed & in the offer letter they emailed me, the starting date 1st September 2008.

Haida didn't get the offer, neither did our other classmate, so I was a bit skeptical about going by myself. So eventho I had already signed the offer letter (as they had to prepare a work visa for me), I started doing my research. I contacted my 2 seniors that were working & living  in the Middle East, Abg Farid & Abg Faizal (no not my faizal).I chatted with them through ym a lot & asked them every single thing i could think of. they were supportive, but a bit worried for me coz i was a girl & they were willing to help get me contacts if i decided to go :)


I was feeling prepared & ok with going there, 5 years contract. masa tu, sayang was already working in Sabah, I consulted him a bit, but me being the egoistic aween, if he said he supported me in anything i wanted to do, just that he was sad & worried about me, I really just thought he was jealous of me going elsewhere & trying to control me. betul, I really under-appreciated him then :(


In the mean time I was still in contact with the reps from Qatar, I asked them when I could sign the work contract to confirm. they told me the offer letter was it. okay, a one paged letter je? then after i kept on pressing them to sign a contract, they replied I only had to sign the actual contract when I reached Qatar. now that struck a suspicious cord.


I was unsure again & started asking Hunny (who was working in Dubai at the time) what I should do. She asked me the salary they were offering & told me it was way to low for me to save & survive, she said counter-offer the company, if not it wasn't worth it. after that I just felt like maybe I shouldn't go, takut!


sooooo, after thinking it through, i just decided to see how it went. if the company at the last minute offered to sign the contract in KL, i would at least consider, but they didn't. they kept calling & emailing me to remind me of my departure date & sent me the flite tickets & working visa. but in the end. i didn't go.


i decided to wait till my convocation was over before i started job-hunting, i sent out emails to a few companies on 31st August & waited to be called for interviews.

end of part 1

First month in Kota Kinabalu

Week 1

our flite to KK was on saturday, 16th July, my parents & lil' bros sent us to lcct (tickets were bought 5 days before-cekik darah!)

this was our first time going back to KK in the same flite, and 2nd time flying together, the first time was for our honeymoon ;p

hubby currently is addicted to angry birds- no comment

I was hungry as hell so I ordered the cheese pizza, my first try at it, it was ok, cheesy!

we reached our rented apartment (that we have already painted & bought basic furniture-sneak peak) & started unwrapping everything. it was exhilarating! & we slept at 3am that nite! haha. we also went to Sen Heng & bought essential electrical items

that evening we caught a glimpse of a rainbow in front of our new home :) the rest of the week hubby went back to work as usual & I stayed at home cleaning up & organizing everything. my car also arrived in KK 6 days after we did :) happyyyy (got the shipping contact from my high school friend Meera, whos moved to Kuching with her hubby)
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on 21st July, we got an sms early in the morning, our beloved aunt, Hajjah Sukiah, had passed away after an operation. i was shocked & sad coz i didn't get to see her at the hospital, when we had already planned to go visit her later that day ;'(

arwah aunt sukiah was the one who put the 

ring on my finger at our engagement ;'(

so for the following 7 days there were kenduri tahlils at their house.

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in this week we also went to Aizat's Borneo concert :) it was fun! & i bought his new cd & a badge (which i dont remember where i put, err)

besides Aizat, there was also Fuzz, Altimet, Amir Jauhari, and Jimmy Palikat (local sabahan singer)

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Week 2

Week 2 was spent mostly prepping up the house to receive our first guests, my parents! huhu. Also Astro, telephone line & streamyx (most important life line) all came in this week too. On the weekends we went back to Papar to fetch hubby's youngest brother to treat him to the movies (Captain America) & dinner coz he just bagged the 'Best Sportsman' Award from his high school, MRSM Kota Kinabalu. bangga la jugak :)

i did catch a few weird moments in this movie (when he was skinny), his head didnt exactly match his body, apparently the director said all of it was acted by chris evans, just that they shrunk his face n body. overall effects were ok
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on Sunday morning (31st July), the last day before Ramadhan, we were driving to Labuan to fetch my parents & bro. the journey from KK took about 2 1/2 hours. We parked my car at the Menumbok Jetty, the locals there rented out their front lawns for parking, so for an overnight fee we payed just RM10.

me & mama in Labuan

we were actually in Labuan coz my bro got an offer to further his studies at Institut Latihan Perindustrian while he was at his PLKN so we accepted the offer & bought the flite tickets to Labuan right away, the next 3 weeks he gets an offer from Institut Kemahiran Belia Negara Kinarut (which is just 10-15 minutes from my house), so we decided to accept that instead.

So, tickets were already bought, we planned for an overnite trip to Labuan, grab lotss of chocolates and go back to KK the next day. We had our first sahur this year at the foodcourt behind Grand Dorsett Hotel. hehe

one of the many duty free shops there

to & from the jetty we hopped on the small speedboats, took around 20-30 minutes

next day (1st Ramadhan, we left Labuan & drove back to KK)

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Week 3

This week was spent mostly with my family, shopping stuff for my bro, and registering him, mama went back to KL first, then by the end of the week abah flew back to KL, my bro comes back to my house when hes allowed to sleep out of campus, so ade jugakla muka familiar kat sini.

bajet muke comel?

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Week 4

well its bulan puasa, and so far I haven't had any off days yet! by a miracle i hope i get to fast for the whole month! amin aminnn. Iftar so far, there has been quite a few days we've eaten out, ermm, fast food sume covered, McD, KFC, Pizza Hut, Secret Recipe, & a few restaurants like Thien Thien (our favourite), Kenny Rogers & buffet outlets (rugi pasal aku makan sikit je) , and I have been (slowly) learning to cook, heheh, so hubby s now my guinea pig of food tasting :) , ok semalam dah cuba buat kuih raya first (simple je tuk org yang xde oven cam aku) choco cornflakes & sayur kailan goreng! kagum dgn diri sendiri :D haha

before the sprinkles (giant ran out of stock, grrr)

p/s: next week we're flying to KL for rayaaaa. balik kotaaa, oh oh oh, balik kotaaaa. hehe

The Tale of 3 Cities

London - Kuala Lumpur - Kota Kinabalu

LONDON

I was born in Westminster, the heart of London in 1985. Thus for the following almost 11 years of my childhood, I was a Malaysian kid growing up in the UK. With all my childhood days getting happier day by day, dad informed us that we were going to Malaysia for good. for a kid to leave her school, her beloved bestfriends, all the familiar places she knew from growing up. Well, it was hard. Very hard!

The last day at Heathrow airport was really sad for me, the day before my bestfriend dannielle had dropped by our house to say goodbye. We promised to be friends forever, and over the years, from air mail to fb, we still are :)

me & dannielle at our sports day

KUALA LUMPUR

We arrived in KL somewhere in March 1995. I was adapting. Adapting to being made fun of by my cousins (still had the difficulty of pronouncing malay words perfectly), adapting to having tanned skin (heheh, we couldnt stay away from the beach & the outdoors!) and most of all, adapting to not having my bestfriends around anymore.

Eventho we had come back in March, I only starting going to school in August '95. Why so late? reason being that my mum insisted I go to Convent Bukit Nanas (advised by our relavites -also former CBNers) and it was so hard to get into. So i had lots of time to learn Bahasa Malaysia in my own free time. I cried every single time I missed my old home/school/friends and this was the start of my life phase where i learnt to grow up, to mature, to learn.

While growing up in KL, I made new friends, some that I shall treasure for a lifetime, some just turned out to be my lost siblings :) and it was in Uni years that I met my soulmate. KL holds so many of our love stories, KL is also where we later got engaged and married..which brings us to our next city:-

KOTA KINABALU

After 16 years of school/uni/work life in KL, as of July 16th, 2011, I have moved to Kota Kinabalu, the Land below the wind to start my new life with my not-so-new hubby :) and to put things short, it hasn't been that hard to adapt.

from KL to KK



I guess its because I've been flying over to KK over the past 2 years for both work & personal reasons, but KK is still a city (eventhough not as full of skyscrapers in KL), and I am such a City girl.

starting a new life in a new city

Well this is just the beginning of something new, new environment, new family members, new friends and learning to be independant now that my mum & my lil sis are more than 1000km away from me (T_T). Life will stand still & be boring if we didn't take that big leap.

p/s: can't help gazing at the beautiful sea everyday. it still mesmerizes me. kengkadang bahaya pasal tngah driving pun tngok laut. erk