February 2014
Well we are nearly through March at this point, but
regardless here is a little February update.
After the Air Asia- Philippines debacle Mark and I returned from Krabi,
Thailand ready and rested for a 5 week stint until our next vacation. I know we lead a very difficult life, as I am
constantly reminded of by my family and friends J 5 weeks of solid work time is pretty rare
here in Malaysia as they have a ridiculous amount of holidays. This is mainly because of the many
religions/cultures that the population is composed of; but over this span of
time, nothing! Oh well, Mark and I have the Maldives to look forward to in the
second week in March.
Valentine’s Day….always an exciting time of year….well I
never used to think that, but Mark has helped increase my
interest/participation in this day. For
this day Mark worked until 6:30pm which meant lots of relax/WAITING time for me
(who finished work at noon). The night
was a special one with Mark successfully cooking Chicken Pad Thai, a specialty
of his. He had cooked it twice before
V-day, one successfully, and one horribly unsuccessful. Thankfully on this night it was a successful
dish. So we enjoyed some tasty food,
polished off a bottle of wine, and spent a nice relaxing night together.
I have included a picture of my students who were asked
to dress up in pink, red, hearts etc. If
all students in my class dressed up, we would receive ‘class points.’ All but one student dressed up….he came in to
class wearing his normal clothes and we as a class decided that we would make
him something to attach to his shirt (hearts, paper cut-outs, etc.) to get us
those bonus points. After we made a big
fuss he quietly said, “I have a shirt, my mom made it for me, it’s too
embarrassing to wear.” Of course through
peer pressure (compleeeeeeety from my students—not me attttt all), he went to
the washroom, head hanging down to change into his Valentine’s outfit. He is the one to the right of the picture in
this shot. His mom had stitched 3 big,
pink hearts of a white shirt which he was so ashamed to wear. Of course we told him he looked awesome and
he should be proud, so he wore it for the rest of the day with his head held
high (one of my favourite students by the way).
Aside from mid- month Valentine’s Day night we have been
watching a lot of ‘Oscar nominated films’ for 2013. I have included my top 10 below.
2013 BEST
1 Dallas
Buyers Club
2 Nebraska
3 American
Hustle
4 Cutie and
the Boxer
5 Blackfish
6 The Wolf of
Wall Street
7 Blue Jasmine
8 12 Years a
Slave
9 Out of the
Furnace
We actually went to an Oscar Trivia night (Mark, Frank,
Ash, Suz, Max and myself) and won the trivia night. There were 50 questions about past Oscar
films, Oscar parties, etc, and we took the competition (mainly with the help of
Mark and Frank—the movie buffs of the crew—most likely they could have won
without us, but we were there for moral support—and to eat delicious
burgers/bar food of course). Our
winnings were amazing, here’s what we won (which we divided up amongst us): 10
Blu-Ray movies, 200RM+ in food vouchers, 10 or so free movie passes, a massive
Oscar Book, Moleskin journals for all, and I think that’s it). A pretty sweet haul for a few hours of trivia
fun.
Well one last story for the month of February. Before leaving for our ‘never to happen’
Philippines trip we decided to book our hotel in the Maldives so we would have
peace of mind, and hopefully grab our hotel before it became far too
expensive. So with this booked, the trip
was just a few weeks away and our excitement level was increasing, especially
with the mix up on our last trip. Well,
let’s just say that this didn’t flow quite as smoothly as we had hoped. Here’s the story.
I arrived to work Monday morning. Brendan and Jamie saw me and asked if I had
heard that ALL flights to the Maldives with Air Asia had been cancelled. They informed me that no they were not
teasing me (as they normally do), but they were really sorry to hear the news,
and that I should check our flight details.
I immediately called Mark (the booking was under his name), had him
check his email, our flight confirmation etc, and NOTHING. All was good.
Huh, weird I thought. Maybe they
were mistaken. Well, they weren’t. Through some research I found out through
various Malaysian newspapers that YES, all flights to the Maldives were
cancelled as of March 1st. We
flew on March 9th.
FANTASTIC. Well over the next few
weeks Mark received confirmation from Air Asia verifying our flight, allowing
us to do a web check-in, etc. Air Asia
had yet to contact us before Mark tried to contact them. He was given a 10 minute web-chat where he
had to fit in his questions before being automatically booted of the system
(because in 10 minutes all problems should be fixed, right). Well they confirmed that our flight was
cancelled, and that we had 4 options…..1. Full refund, 2. A credit to rebook,
3. Rebook a flight to another destination, or 4. Have them rebook us through
another company. In the 10 minutes that
Mark had to chat he received that info, and then he was cut off with no
questions answered about option 4….the option we were keen to take.
Again, more time went by and nothing. It wasn’t until the Friday night before our
Sunday morning flight that we received confirmation that our flights were
arranged and that YES, we would actually make it to The Maldives. What a stressful time knowing that we
couldn’t get a hotel refund, we had spent a pretty penny on a much nicer place
than we tend to stay in this part of the world.
BUT PHEW, we were going to make it there!
Until my next post….March, where I’ll fill
you in on birthdays, The Maldives, and more.
Cheers!
