on the way home

just a very brief update...

i m pretty much on the way home. my sister is already back home. i m saying goodbye to more and more people everyday. tomorrow farewell party. in about 34 hours i will board my plane to malaysia and then its only 7 days till germany... so everyone on the way...watch out...

haha just kidding...

its been weird again saying goodbye to all this. and strangely the last couple of days have been harder than i thought, but not as hard as canada.

anyways..really just a brief update..will give you all the news once im in germany...

take care everyone

diet is over

This will be short. Just to let you know. Tomorrow my sis gets in. After she leaves it is only 3 days till I leave and then I ll be traveling for a week, so I might not see the internet too frequently the next 18 days, but I ll catch up after that.
So please don’t be mad if I don’t answer immediately, but I ll be trying to get online once in a while.

Also once my sis gets here, I will stop my diet, because I m sure she doesn’t want to diet the way I do, which consists of not eating until 5pm and then having dinner. By now I ve lost 14, which makes it 78kg. So I guess that’s enough.

Just to give you an overview, where I will be the next couple of weeks. At least that’s the plan for now ;)

May 19th - May 30th Padang, Indonesia
May 30th – June 2nd Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
June 2nd – June 5th Manila, Philippines
June 5th Singapore, Singapore
June 6th – early July – Frankfurt, Germany

To give you an update about what else was going on around the world this week:

- Korea, after 56 years, finally sends trains to the North and South respectively, which might not seem such a big deal, but it represents a lot of dreams for the two nations.
- Chrysler was sold to Cerberus
- Indonesian Islands are vanishing, because of the sea level rise
- Serbia´s Marija Serifovic wins song contest and leads to euphoria(?) for reinstallement of normal life in the whole country
- India hit by heat wave (40 degrees)
- Britain´s Lewis Hamilton becomes the youngest F1 Driver to lead the Standings
- Berlin talks on Europen Union constitution begin
- Oprah Winfrey last year gave 58.3 Million US$ to charity, ranking her #1 worldwide
- China´s economy is exploding reaching a April trade surplus of 16.9 Billion US$
- 10 of the 30 most polluting power plants in Europe are situated in Germany
- Indonesia replaced 5 of its ministers
- France elected its President Sarkozy, which led to large protests, because he is seen as a hardliner that’s against foreign workers and announced its Prime Minister Fillion.
- Tony Blair resigned and was replaced by Gordon Brown, who is seen as Anti-EU
- Sony´s PS3 has only been in 2nd place behind Nintendo´s Wii success

sis is on the road =)

Hey,
so whats new this week?

We had a press conference at our house with about 30 journalists, which was kind of funny, because it was just outside my room. Off course we changed the setup, but still kind of funny, that you have a press conference outside of your room. Haha.

My sister is finally on her way to Southeastasia…yihaaaaa =) She ll get to Singapore today. And then continue her trip to Padang on Saturday morning. Cant wait. Its strange. I ve never been as excited to see her as this time. I guess I really want to see someone familiar. Normally that’s not an issue at all for me, but I guess I have made some decisions in life and I ve made some major changes and I want to talk to her =)
So yes excited for her to come, I hope she will like it. Its just a week after all, but once she gets here, its almost time to leave for me. So I think then time will be running even faster.

Just on some other news, to let all of you know how much I m currently spending. I spent like like 1 euro per day. Crazy eh. I never thought that was possible, but it is. I hope I will not have to change any more money, which would mean I survived the 3 ½ months here including traveling for 300 Euros. Crazy….

I still havent booked any hotels for my trip yet and time is kind of running out. Its kind of difficult to do it when you re internet is not really working and you don’t really know where all the hotels are. But I might not even stay overnight in Singapore now, maybe just one day and then I m not sure bout Manila yet. Have to talk to a friend if she can suggest anything?

Also both conferences in Canada and Jakarta are over by now, all of my family is in Germany, well actually that was until my sister left again. Haha. If you think about it. August 20th was the last time all 4 of us stayed in the same country and we will probably not be in the same country until I return from Korea, which will be in September or October. Seems weird, but oh well, our family is all about the traveling ;P

Other than that I m still trying to get my papers done, just don’t feel the motivation, but I have to. At least I ve started and I really hope I can finish 3 of the 4 by Friday, which is definitely possible, if I try as Thursday and Friday are holiday and still have a couple of hours tonight.

Right now my baseball team is playing and I really hope they win again, it would be so awesome if they could go up one league.

Anyways, don’t want to bore you. So right now I ll get off here and try to get some papers going!

Take care and enjoy!

21/98

Hey everyone,

time to send an update, as it is only 3 weeks till i leave padang. Sis coming in 10 days. 1 more immigration extension, 15 days of work left, so everything is running down.

Have to figure out a hotel for KL soon, but hope that will be fine.

I ve cooked or to better say I ve tried to cook mexican this past week, but as there were not all ingredients there it might not have been mexican…haha, but it was still good and I think I m getting around to getting over the same food as I ve tried to mix it up as much as possible and the last couple of days I got around eating rice and chicken pretty good, so now I think I actually want to eat rice and chicken again…haha.

Anyways, my baseball team busted the other teams and is currently leading the standings with a 6-0 record. Man I m so proud and it one side makes it easier for me not to be playing, because they get everything right anyways, but on the other side it is also hard to not share it with them, because they tell me how much fun it is and all that. Oh well. I hope I ll get to play the game against Frankfurt when I m back home as they are our main rival this year.

There are two AIESEC conferences going on right now. One in Toronto, where my dad was during the same time and I would have been as well had I not been in Indonesia. Felt kind of strange, because I missed out on meeting all the people =(.
And also there is a conference in Jakarta now, where a lot of people from Padang are right now. Strange…yes I guess AIESEC is addictive. LOL.

Anyways..other than that again not much going on. I ve been pretty lazy these past days, watching some movies, but also finally correcting all the homework, so that’s off the table for a week. So far so good =)

Ok that’s it for now!

Everyone take care =)

no worries...sorry if i did you make worry

Hey everyone,

just to clarify some things. My last blog must have sounded really depressing. I m really good. I m having a good time here. It is just some of the things that affected us trainees. Some of things didn’t affect me at all and I guess because I had studied about Indonesia before I knew a lot of the things coming towards me. So no worries there.
The only things really bothering me is the lack of sleep, haha…well I guess I will never in my life get rid of that. Remember me saying I have nothing to do ;P I think I actually havent had a day here, which I spent only with things that I wanted to do.
But oh well, after all I guess I like that. All of you know I cant live without.

The only other thing that really bothers me is the food. I think actually the first thing I will do when I go to Kuala Lumpur is go to Mcdonalds and in Germany get a Donair. LOL….Seems so weird, but I really need some meat and maybe pork, because here most of the nutrition comes from the rice I guess. Haha.

Anyways…I was offered several jobs here. So funny, for a moment I was really thinking about staying, because how often in my life will I get another opportunity to be a DJ or a Barkeeper in a hotel. I was also offered to teach English at another institution for elementary school, which would be way easier to teach than what I teach now.
Also AIESEC offered me to be a CEEDer here and if I did that I could probably also join the OC for National Conference, but oh well, I guess its time to move on and Korea is waiting, although traveling seems really tiring for me now. But I m still young, when I have a job it will be way harder + I ll have an appartment in korea and I have family. I hope I ll be able to catch up with some of them.

The thing bothering me most of all right now is probably university. I m so close to being done, no more classes (at least I hope), then again still so much work to do and those who know me how much I think of university. Who is gonna read all the papers I have to finish..oh well.. it’s the system so I ll have to take it. I really hope everything pans out and I can finally finish in April next year. Unfortunately right now there is a lot …..really a lot of ifs…. But I hope everything works out!

Anyways I ve been thinkin more and more about other things I want to do and I really want to be a Volunteer again for a huge sports event. Olympic Games, World Cup etc… I looked through the application for bejing, but unfortunately you need to have basic chinese skills. Maybe I could learn that until next summer. I want to anyways, but oh well. Argh…

Everything right now really is connected to my stupid unfinished university…sorry ……
Its really bothering me…haha… but no worries I m good…

Oh yes… some good news….
The dance with Ivette is really going great and I think its gonna be awesome. It will be about a 10 minute dance and I hope someone will be able to teach us some indonesian to put in as well.

Oh on other news, there is rumours in the newspaper that the rektor might become the new agriculture minister during next week, so that leaves me kind of out in the dark whats happening the rest of the month. But oh well, its all good.

Anyways that’s all for today =)
May you all have a great time, especially those people going to conference ;P

Take care,
Rich