so i'm no longer in malaysia. and in a little less than 2 weeks, i will no longer be in sydney either. in the end, my holiday in malaysia felt nothing more than an incredible whirlwind of taste, scenes, sounds and smells, all at once so comforting and familiar yet so alien and exciting and new. i had a lot of fun catching up with my old friends, and my old haunts, and my old life. and i had a lot of fun gathering new experiences too. visiting laos turned out to be a blast and i feel all the better for it. it will definitely be a destination on my radar for a long long time, and i just hope that it won't be too long before i step foot on luang prabang soil again.

so anyway, after all my umm-ing and aah-ing, i have finally decided to take the leap and move to melbourne. yup, towards the very end, i was still a little apprehensive and would've probably backed out if i were given a strong and concrete-enough reason not to do so, but now i am 100% sure.

of course, with any big decisions like this, there's bound to be some cold-feet feelings involved. sometimes i worry that i am making the wrong decision. i am sure a lot of people can't understand why i would want to do what i'm doing now. sometimes, even i myself don't understand why i'm doing this. why would i want to uproot myself from my comfort zone, from a comfortable job in the university whose halls i have stalked for a long time, from my family and friends, and from the familiarity of the city i have spent nearly a decade in?

i don't have answers for any of those questions, and to be honest, i don't really care. all i know is that i am turning 27 soon and i haven't been properly challenged or put out of my comfort zone before, and neither have i ever held down a 'proper' job with 'proper' 9-to-5 working hours, receiving a 'proper' pay. at times i suppose that moving to melbourne is my version of trying to tell myself to grow up, but who am i kidding? it probably isn't something as noble as that; most likely than not, it is because of my love for the city and the need to finally scrap the 'long-distance' part out of my relationship. i would say that, at this point in time, i don't really have much of a direction in my life except going South, towards melbourne.

am i going to regret this decision? maybe...but then again, maybe not. i've never had to apply for jobs; i've always had jobs handed to me. so this whole experience of writing cover letters and answering key selection criterias, and talking myself up so that potential employers will think that i am hire-able, and then having to deal with that deflating sense of being rejected and told that i didn't make the final selection - all that is very new to me. sometimes i hate it, but then again, i don't mind it. i feel like i'm finally going through what all my peers have been doing. i'm trying very hard to change my nomadic lifestyle, and after spending the majority of my last 3 years in Antarctica, i feel like i need this. some sort of stability, any sort of stability. i don't want change anymore, even though, ironically, i'll have to go through yet another big change in my life.

all this should be a good thing, right? me, trying to be more responsible and to be a useful contributor to society. i hope someone hires me soon!