Selemat Merdecka!

Or rather, Happy Indpendence Day from Malaysia. The 31st of August is a public holiday all across this country. Well, it is for the Malay, those of us that are IM-ers are still required to attend work. However, I did not mind as I have many things to do! Last night at midnight they shot off fireworks, which I was told is pretty cool to see. I almost went but then I considered the glorious and marvelous sleep that I could be taking advantage of (since I don’t get the day off). It was an obvious win.


I considered asking if my boss cared if I came in today, but as he wasn’t at work yesterday for some reason (also, no phone answering or text response which is doubly odd for him), I just asked Ruby (an admin) and she explained that, nope, the bus would still come to pick me up in the morning. This is actually probably a good thing. If I stayed at home today I would probably end up eating all of those chocolate pastry things (like..the stick things you dip in coffee or cocoa) and go into a small diabetic coma while watching E! Hollywood Stories, or something like that.

For the record E! True Hollywood stories are strangely addictive. If y’all ever have any questions about Princess Di, Oprah, or Tyra Banks, please feel free to pick at my incredible amount of knowledge.

Today I brought with me the new hire that arrived yesterday. Catherine Chang, is from Indonesia, and just graduated from college as well. She is extremely nice and friendly. Also nervous; however I remember how nervous I was (and am) about many things so I try to be helpful. I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy being the next-to-least knowledgeable person in D&M right now, instead of the bottom of the knowledge pool in our location.

Also, at about noon today we also got ANOTHER new hire. Her name is (and I will mess up the spelling this first time) Wang Gu Gu. I think she said her “English name” is Cherry, so I will call her that instead. Or Sheri…Like I said, accent is a bit rough. She is nice too. A little more nervous than Catherine, but everyone handles stress differently. We will see what she is like as time goes on!

It is interesting to me what we initially are worried about when we get to a country. I was desperate for internet, and they are obsessed with sim cards. A sim card, for all of you in America, is something we do not have. Here, all of the cell phones in Asia and the Middle East can work in each other’s countries. No need to switch providers or anything like that. Instead, they just buy a sim card in the country they go to and use that country’s network. It is very confusing to me. However, as I did just get paid, I guess I will be joining the realm of sim card users soon enough!

We do have a housing problem, however. Catherine stayed at Lazenda 3 with Syafyka and I last night and tonight. However, we did not really have room for another person when the other new girl got here. There is a new staff house that will be available for moving into on Sept. 1st, however, that still leaves this evening (August 31st) to take care of. I am all for just letting her have my bed, I will take the uber comfy couch, and that is the end of it. Sadly, all of our admins keep on saying, “are you sure that would be ok??? Are you sure you could handle that.” I wanna be like, “Ladies, just because I require internet at whatever house I happen to be occupying, does not mean I cannot handle couch sleeping.” Americans are tough…we run long distance races, go camping while 8 months pregnant, and walk multiple miles a day in 50 C temperatures. I think I can handle one night on a couch. However, they decided to put her in a Completions (another slb segment) house until tomorrow. Then, both Catherine and Sheri will be put in the new D&M house somewhere else on Labuan.

Life in Labuan is better. I feel a little more comfortable here. Come on tomorrow!

Love you all,

Becca