One thing I consider complicated is how to end a relationship, with this regard I mean a professional one. What makes you want to separate from an amazing team and a great boss? What drives you to get out off the comfort zone?

Notice if you're ending a relationship, you start to heed the bad things that were going on in it no matter how small it were. Guess it's the defensive mechanism kicks in to secure the decision. A psychological boost that tells you you're doing the right thing by putting an end to those bad things happened to you.

That's why the best way to do it is to do it quick. You should consider and think about the decision slowly, evaluate all ups and downs, and take all the time you need. But once you decide to take the decision, do it right away and 'get out of there'. Why? Because like I said before, the defensive mechanism will start kicking in, giving you funny ideas, and consumes the nice memories you have. Lucky for me (again), this place gave me much more good memories than the bad ones. Thanks to the great team I worked with.

Well then.. Talk about the passion which dragged me out of the zone. I'm wishing this isn't just a false alarm. It has been with me for a long time, been through some changes in love-hate relationship with it myself. But I realize that the times I loved it were when I had the chance to do it, and the times I hated it were when I didn't. And one more fact to identify your passion is that you're doing it gladly.

So.. I'm hoping for the best that it will turn out well this time, and someday I might say to Steve Jobs: "Thanks Steve, I also found what I love!"

Took me nearly 8 months to grasp what's been happening in my life after we left Myanmar. I barely remember the details, only some 'old' memories flashing inside my head and what's left written on my wife's blog. It's like a sudden flash, it's all happening too fast for me...

To make peace with my mind, I'm trying to trace the events one by one starting from last December 2005 when we were packing for our holiday. Don't know whether it's a hunch or else, but somehow I knew we're not going to come back ever again. Or was that maybe, unconsciously I was trying to assure myself not to come back? I just knew 125% that my wife felt the same, but we never discuss it. We just packed as much as we can as if we're already talked and agreed not to go back once we're out of there.

Ok, not want to leave a bad impression to Myanmar, it's really a nice and beautiful place, but just not for us. We actually know some of our dearest friends who enjoy living there. But again, it's not for us..

So the exodus trip began by first stopping at Bangkok. There was an olympic-like sport week run by the company each year for its employees. Short story, I played as one of the contingents from Myanmar and we as a team managed to get second prize in volleyball and first at tennis. But again frankly, time passed at Bangkok were not as enjoyable as we had before, especially because for the first time after we got married I had to leave my wife on her own. I had to go for a training and left the excessive baggage along with her on her trip to Jakarta.

As if I saw it coming, I wasn't very surprise when she called from the airport saying there were problems with the baggage. After an exhaustive-frustrated day and got bumped to the next morning's flight, she needed to stay for another night at the hotel, alone!. At that time I was thinking of cancelling my training and go with her back to Jakarta. But knowing she had more experience handling these kind of things than me I knew she can cope with it and handle it well enough. So there I left her alone and went for my training. Swadikha..

Mumbai and I, we kinda got on the wrong foot. First impression? Very bad. Got off from the plane to face a very long line of migration. Passed that and went to exit gateway only again to be faced with 'millions' of people. They were each holding a sign and shouting for the taxi, the hotels' names and other words I couldn't understand. I almost gave up looking for my hotel's sign when I saw a person coming out from the customs. I instantly knew he's from the same company as mine. Don't ask me how, I just knew and approached him right away. Turned out I was right and eventually I tagged along with him to the hotel

After a long and winding road and a close encounter with an elephant, I finally arrived at the hotel. First impression? Very bad (again?). Wanting to take a bath to washed away my tiredness I found only hot water available (no cold or warm one) and a toilet that can't be flushed! Yuck, how gross was that? Nothing more to tell about this hotel. It's simply not lived to its expectation. Found out on the next morning that I wasn't the only one who had complaints, funny there was a guy who complained he had only cold water! I told him we should combine our bath to have the warm one! At the end of the day the company decided to relocate us to another hotel.

The training went very well and I got to meet interesting people, they were great and if given more time, I'm sure I could learn a lot from them. Most of them already with the company for a minimum of 10 years! One guy even on his 17th year! Imagine that! Compare to me who's just on the end of my 4th year, I was like a toddler to him.

So the training days finally ended. Some of us stayed for another one or two days to cruise around the beautiful Mumbai. Me? I had enough. I passed seeing more elephant and tuk-tuk on the same road! Maybe some other time, when my mind stays put on my head. All I can think of was going back to Jakarta, trying to catch up the New Year's eve with my family!

To be continued...

Funny if you think where life will lead you to. Although I'm not myself a 'life-planner' -you might say-, but I try my best to have a plan or two to reach my milestones. As like every mortal in this earth, all I can really do is plan, try my best effort to stick with it, and then pray.. I could never know the outcome until it's in front of me.

This time last year, I didn't even know whether I was still going to have my job or not. But in fact, two months after that I was sent to Myanmar and given the chance to start a new life. The next 241 days or so, at the end of the project contract, I left Myanmar to take the very first training my company ever funded me, and there was the very same thought played in my mind again: 'am I still going to keep this job?'. Even after I got back to my beloved country, the vagueness was still there. Nobody was sure what would happen to my job, or even my career.

At one Wednesday morning, almost two months without clarity and spending the 'vacation days' being a driver for my nieces, I got a phone call from my Boss. He said I will continue my work at Myanmar and need to go there as soon as possible. Overjoyed with the news, I almost take for granted the call I got 10 minutes later, which later on will be the next milestones in my life.

They say 'life is full of choices'. You can find it written on a corny T-shirt. But in fact most things about life are corny, or trivia to say the least. What you thought a simple thing can quite overwhelming when really faced with it. What you hope and expect to happen, can catch you off guard when it really happens. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

As for me, I wish for this thing to happen as long as I can remember. Let's see, I've been wishing for this for almost like 42 months of my 3.75 (three point seven-five) of my working years. Then when it happened, it really caught me off guard. Shortly, after a lot of considerations and future plans, we (I must say it's We rather than I) decided to end our 8 months extended-honeymoon and face the real life!

I just hope that this is the right decision for us. Once in a lifetime, it doesn't hurt to change your 'color'.

Do you believe that every single breath you took was already been written in a book somewhere someplace, even before you were born?

Do you believe that every single thought you had was already been setup to pass your mind with an exact successions - in that book even before you were born?

Do you believe that every single road you took today was already been chosen for you – in that book even before you were born?

Do you believe that the person you will be in your forty was already been made – in that book even before you were born?

Do you believe that the menu for your last breakfast was already been prepared – in that book even before you were born?

Do you believe that the people you will see everyday when you wake up was already been introduced to you – in that book even before you were born?

Do you believe that the Death already made an appointment to you – in that book even before you were born?

So… Do you believe in freewill…? Who chooses the way you think?

So many things in my mind right now, pending projects, project plans for next year, year-end projection budget (which I just found out that there’s a huge miss in it! Gosh!), and many other job-related things you can think of. Not that I’m an important person or what, but plainly because I’m so lazy this week. Or in my defense, I feel so weak in this last two weeks. I even skip one day for work last week because of a sudden headache followed with minor diarrhea (Did I already make it sound like a complicated disease?). Thanks to my wife I got through all of that in no time. We spent a whole day in our room by playing Burnout3 on XBOX and watching Friends together that day! What an enjoyable sick-day ever! :)

Right now, I should really attend to my tasks again but instead I’m writing this blog! So here I am surfing the internet, wasting the ‘service’ time intended for the client. Well… a bit of break won’t hurt I think. Kinda need it, though. After a late night work I did yesterday for a project that should be done last year! Yes, the ‘legacy’ works, that’s what we call them. Some projects or plans that should be done years ago but for some reasons got delayed, forgotten, and suddenly they start coming back now one by one. Guess I’m the lucky one here.

So I decided to ease my mind a bit. Ask one of my colleagues to play a song. And somehow I already knew he was going to play oldies! Hahaha! Not that I have something against it, I do love old songs. But I don’t think my mood suits it right now. I’m looking for a more instrumental play. I think more like a piano, violin, or even sax tune would be nice. And I know one place to find it quick! My friend’s blog! So I pick a piece from “Spirited Away” and keep it playing again and again and again and again until it stops by itself.

Funny thing with music is that it can change your mood instantly. Do you know that people have tried to combine music with medicine? And there have been researches of ‘music medicine’ to make effective use of music to reduce fear and anxiety in surgical and pain patients. Experiments show that hearing music affects the biochemistry of the blood, which in turn may cause effective changes.

Talking about music, my late grandfather was once a viola player -it’s like a violin but slightly bigger-, and although I have his blood in me and spent almost 7 years in my childhood learning to play violin, I still couldn’t make a  decent tune out of it. Silly me!

Have you ever thought about death? Why are we afraid to talk about death? Isn’t it one of the most sure things will happen to anyone of us? If you see it on the news nowadays, almost every month, if not week, there’s a disaster involving so many people. From drought into flood, from tsunami into storms named after women -how silly is that? I mean, common! Why didn’t they name it like: bloodlust or hellhound, or anything creepy instead of a woman’s name? Were they kidding themselves? Did they think naming a force of nature to a beautiful woman will make them loved by the storm? And don’t you think naming the storm to creepy ones instead will make them psychologically more ready to face them? I don’t know. I’m not a shrink and Thank God I’m not the one who named the storms.-

And if you think of it again, that’s ‘just’ the forces of nature. The one thing you cannot control no matter how advance your technology is. And there are still some other sources of death like human-error, machine failure, or even terrorist attacks! You can think of other billions silly ways the death will get you. Gosh… just to think of it already gives me shivers.

And why did I even think of writing about this in the first place?? I guess because lately I saw too many news about disasters and mass destruction. And if you want to be fair, actually it’s good to remember that one day we’re all going to die. If you believe in the Afterlife, it makes you want to be better prepared and look at yourself on what were the things you have done in your life. Was it mostly good or bad?

Pardon my English, but there’s an old saying that goes like this: “Work for your world like you’re going to live a thousand years, and work for your afterlife as if you’re going to die tomorrow.”

Then again, that’s of course if you believe in the life after.