HAPPY NEW YEAR!
As you can imagine, I had a lot of fun being in 2012 before many of my readers were. Time is a weird thing. I was in 2012 before you because the Earth is round and rotates and revolves around the sun. The Earth! This planet we live on. We live! We are humans! It's all so remarkable it makes my brain hurt.
I had a wonderful and relaxing 'winter' break at my auntie's village with her big and beautiful family. There's (nearly) nowhere in the world I would have rather been for those 6 days. On New Year's Eve we went to her brother's house and had a barbeque. I think we started eating said barbeque around 9pm. The evening was so new and different for me, I guess you could say it was a little bit of culture shock. It didn't feel like the last night of the year and there was no one I could talk to about my excitement for the new year! I wanted to jump around and dance and say 'good bye' to 2011. That's how I personally celebrate the new year but it just wasn't appropriate this time. Haha. We went home around 11pm and I sat outside to look at the amaaaaazing stars there (I guess KK has too much pollution, both light and fumes) and listen to the sounds of the night. It was perfect. I didn't have to look at my cheap phone that always forgets what time it is when I drop it and the battery falls out of it (did I say cheap?) to know it was 2012. It seemed like every driveway in the neighborhood was lighting off fireworks (except for the one I was standing on) as soon as it was midnight! That was so cool! And LOUD! I like how I can greet anyone and everyone with "Selamat Tahun Baru!" [happy new year!] if it's the first time I've seen them since 2011. If I greet a person (or a person greets me) with that then the first words spoken to each other of 2012 are sincere and positive. It almost makes certain that the relationship will be fantastic for the rest of the year, even if that's a bit superstitious, I still like it.
Being back at work/school has been nice. One student that I hadn't seen since early November was back and I had really missed her and it's nice to see her again and smile at her. Makes my heart happy! This week I helped in arts and crafts as they have some orders coming up for Chinese New Year. Seri Mengasih is going through some changes everywhere so I just watch and listen to see how things are going. Teachers have moved, students have transitioned, even classrooms have been reassigned, all major changes. I'll be spending the next 10 days with Peter because he's visiting me (yaaaaaayyyyy!!!!!) so it will be awhile before I see what the new year means for me work-wise with scheduling. I very look forward to showing him how much Seri Mengasih and Kota Kinabalu and Sabah mean to me. It is important for me to share my experiences and my life with someone (who is also important to me). For some reason I think it will make it all real. I'll be forced to explain and host and guide. It'll be a bit of a test of what I know and what I still need to learn about life here. There is still plenty to learn, I guarantee that.
These are a few photos from the first Tanjung Aru sunset of 2012. If I squint and turn on the air conditioning, I can imagine it's January 1st and a little cold because of all the blues and whites (before the orange/pinks glow from the sun...)
The toddlers at my auntie's village. She is also their auntie. She's a lot of kids's auntie actually. We went to a place where we could feed the koi crackers :) majestic creatures..
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