Where'd he go?

Some people have been wondering where and what I am up to these days. Since my last update I finished a degree in Ecotourism and Outdoor Leadership at Mt. Royal College in Calgary AB. Lived in France for 6 months, drove from Morocco to France, hung out in and finished backpacking across SE Asia (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Tokyo Japan). I did have the best intentions of updating my blog while I was going to school but you know how it goes… I once read that only like 20-30% of people who start a blog continue to use it after three months. Well I guess I am now transcending the boundaries of this statistic. Where is the number of people who actually pick it back once they are doing something interesting again. I kinda doubt you wants to hear about the papers I wrote for school, or the new shoes I just bought.

So now that I is a graduate, What’s next? My friend Paul told me that there is usually a time of doubt and uncertainty and “What the 'F' am I going to do with my life” (sorry for using harsh letters), between graduating and getting that first real job. I pretty much wrote my last final exam and came home to find the job offer in my email inbox. Now I am the Outdoor Operations Coordinator for Nomad Adventure (for webpage click the preceding text) in Malaysia.

It may sound pretty serious and it kind of is. Mostly though, I just go rafting, kayaking, caving, and rockclimbing. We also do corporate teambuilding and high ropes courses. Our clients are mostly from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

I have adjusted to life as a Mat Saleh (malay for foreigner, or white dude) now that my Impression of Austin Powers’ Goldmember is finished “that’s a keeper.” The Peeling and collection of my own skin is no longer a passtime. Back to Sudoku for me. I am starting to learn a bit of Bahasa. (the local language) “Saya chakap Bahasa Malayu sikit-sikit” (I speak a little Malaysian). It’s not really that hard since there are no real verb conjugations to speak of. Heavily influenced by Portuguese, English, Arabic and Dutch. Bahasa is similar language to that of Indonesia and a bit like Tagalog from the Philippines. The fact that it isn’t tonal is a relief after trying to learn some Thai last year. There is also a healthy mix of Chinese, Hindi, and Tamil spoken here. Many speak a pigeon of English which is pretty cool. A language into its self. ‘Hey Boss, boleh?” May I. Speaking even just a little bit of Bahasa gets you a lot of respect here.

This is a picture of me and my Kiwi Kolleague tandemning it down the Sungkai River in Gopeng.

I have been doing a bit of raft guiding and some Kayaking too. I had a really cool day a couple weeks ago.

There were some “Orang Asli” (Original People) kids from a local village swimming the rapids or just sitting on the rocks while we kayaked down the river. It was so priceless. They were watching us surf in the final hole on the river and just jumped into our boats while we were having lunch and started to surf it on their own. They were naturals and did it with “minimal” gear too. They knew exactly how to paddle and exactly where to sit in the boat to surf. Incidentally this is my most viewed picture on my flickr site. I called it “full frontal”
I don't understand it. Hundreds of people have viewed it already and probably hundreds more will.