FEBRUARY 2014…a little late

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

10        Enough Said 

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 1^st.  We flew on March 9^th.  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!