A Double Jointed Acrobatic Ninja Kind of Day

So today was a pretty busy and fulfilling day. I briefed the Inti marketing staff about the new MBT program and why it is going to be awesome. We ran through a bunch of information regarding how the program is different from MIS or MBIT programs. We talked about the power of modeling and why non-techies love it. And, I got to quote G.I. Joe and reference ninjas and monkeys, all while wearing a tie. All in all, it was amazing.

What was even cooler was having Kim in the audience. So, for those who are new to the show, Kim is Oma's assistant. Oma is the VP who is sponsoring the MBT program's creation. That makes Kim kinda like the Pepper Potts of Inti, at least I think so. Anyways, Kim was there to take minutes and report back any discussion or questions which Oma would need to be aware of.

This wasn't the first time that Kim has gotten to see me in action. I have taught a bunch of Sunday school classes and have spoken in Church on multiple occasions with her. However, I have to admit, having Kim in the room while I was tearing through a bunch of Power Point slides talking about Business Modeling was pretty freakin' sweet. Don't ask me why, but it was.

I have heard of people working with their spouses and having horror stories to tell, but I don't see that in the cards with Kim and me. She is doing a great job and I am loving having her around. What's more is that is that I am really enjoying this possibly once in a lifetime chance to share some of my working life with her. Time-wise, work is such a big part of my life, and in most cases she normally gets a glimpse of it through my boring, contextually lacking stories of co-workers and the day's events.

What's even more awesome is that we are making a great team, which is not surprising, to me at least. Kim and I don't have a perfect marriage, but it's pretty darn close. Two things that we are really good at is communicating and watching out for each other; or as I like to call it, "covering each others six." In business, just as in marriage, the ability to communicate effectively and cover each others blind spots is so critical. I think that is why we have been so effective these past few weeks.

Either way, this is an experience that may, unfortunately, be a one time thing. And, I plan on enjoying every minute of it.

Monkeys!

Wow, it has been awhile since we last wrote and there is so much to catch up on!  First of all, I started work on Tuesday, Sept. 15.  I am working as an assistant to Oma, the Senior Vice President of Employer Relations at INTI (the school Trip is working at).  It has been pretty fun so far, mostly because I get to work with Trip.  It definitely is keeping me busy too.  I am helping Oma get the new Master's program up and running as well as helping him with some other projects.  So far, I spend my time keeping Oma organized and making sure his secretary schedules meetings, etc. Trip says I'm like Pepper Potts in Iron Man.  (Haha, it's kind of true!)  I spend three days of the week at the campus Trip works at and two days of the week in the Corporate Offices, which is where Dad works.  Even though we are in different offices I still see Trip more now than before I started working and now I have a better idea of what the program is when he talks about it.


So, that is the reason it has taken me a bit to write this.  This last week was nice because we had Monday and Tuesday off for Hari Raya, which is the Muslim celebration of the end of Ramadan (the fasting period).  We didn't really find out about the four day weekend very far in advance so we didn't leave Kuala Lumpur to travel like most people did.  However, we did go up to Batu Caves, which is a short drive from where we are.  Batu Caves is actually a temple (Hindu, I think) that is built in some caves in the middle of a mountain.  You have to climb up 273 stairs, which wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, though I did feel it later.  I thought it was funny that they painted the numbers on the stairs so you can see just how far you still have to go.  I tried to take some pictures, but the lighting was a little tricky for my point and shoot camera.  I really need to get a better camera.  Anyway, here are some pictures of the caves... 

This is the statue at the bottom of the stairs.

 The 273 stairs we were about to climb.

 Here Trip is halfway up the stairs.

This is the actual cave at the top.

Here is one of the temples.  They are so ornate.

Of course the fact that there were a zillion monkeys at the top was totally worth it, especially for Trip!

 So, those are just some of the pictures from Batu Caves.  We have some videos of the monkeys too, but they were taking too long to upload.  I think the best part of the whole trip was when one monkey totally charged a kid and grabbed a sandwich straight out of his hands!  It was so funny.


On Tuesday we went to the Aquarium which was actually pretty cool.  They had a really good underwater tunnel with HUGE sharks, stingrays, eels, and turtles.  It was pretty active too so they were all swimming right next to you.  We tried to get some pictures, but the lighting wasn't very good and we weren't allowed to use a flash so they are all blurry since the fish were moving.  Here is a somewhat decent one of a shark that was right over our heads and was on the larger side.

This was a random photo op in the aquarium.

So, that was our long weekend.  It was pretty fun!  We will post again soon.

And The Fun Just Keeps On Going

Well, the last couple of days have been pretty exciting.  First of all, I finally took some pictures.  Yay!  Since so many people have asked when I would get some up here, I figure that is the first thing I will do.

This is the view of the famous Patronus Towers from Dad's apartment.  I didn't have to zoom or anything.  

This is the rest of our view of downtown Kuala Lumpur.  You can see the mosque at the bottom of the picture and all the trees are part of the public park right next to our apartment.

We went to dinner last night and decided to try coconut juice.  To our surprise they pulled out a coconut, lopped the top off, and handed us straws.  Wow!


Now that I have fulfilled that obligation, I can fill you in on everything else.  So our first adventure this week occurred because we decided to try renting a car this month to help with the commute, and on the first day of having it, we got lost.  I'm not talking just kinda lost either.  I mean we got REALLY lost.  We were supposed to be going somewhere close and it was supposed to be easy.  Well, in fact it was not easy...somewhere along the way we took a wrong turn and after ending up merging onto three different freeways, paying three tolls, and losing sight of downtown completely, we had no idea where we were.  It didn't help that our cell phone died so we couldn't call anyone.  I definitely had a stomach full of butterflies (which was not helped by the way people drive here either).  Well, we finally found an exit that actually let us off the freeway instead of connecting to another one, and we figured we could at least ask for directions back home, when all of a sudden the street we were looking for was right in front of us.  It was like a scene right out of a movie.  Our mouths dropped open, we kind of looked at each other, gave a nervous laugh and went on our way.  And the good news is, we were only 15-20 minutes late for meeting with our Branch President.  Haha.  Let's just say we see a lot of value in investing in a GPS.


Well, the excitement didn't end there.  While meeting with our Branch President, who is awesome by the way, we were extended callings.  I think that's the fastest I have ever gotten one.  Ever.  Anyway, I will be the new Young Women's President, and Trip will be the new Young Men's President.  Holy crap!!  I am still somewhat overwhelmed when I think about it.  Oh well, it's just another adventure, right?  Needless to say, Trip and I will have plenty of things to do in our 'spare time'.
Side note:  There is a thunder storm going on right now and I am home alone since the men are still at work.  It's kind of creepy.


So, something that has really stood out to me is how many stray cats there are here.  It seems like you can't go anywhere without seeing one.  The worst part about it is the kittens.  I feel so horrible when I see these poor little things running around the streets.  We had one follow us home the other night.  We were walking down the street and I saw something move in my shadow and there is this little black kitten running beside us and mewing.  It took all my will power not to scoop it up and take it home with me!  I really wish I had my camera so I could have taken it's picture.  It's funny because shortly after that I thought I saw another kitten and it turned out to be a rat!  I have never seen such big rats in such interesting places.  The cats ignore the rats though.  They are probably afraid of them; I know I would be!



Anyway, we still really like Malaysia and there is a lot that we can learn from this culture.  It is amazing to see what a developing country is like and it definitely reinforces our appreciation for what we have in the U.S.  Oh, and if you get the chance, ask Trip how his first day of teaching went and what he has learned about the school systems here.  It is pretty interesting and surprising!

Can You Tell I'm Hungry?

Can I just say that I LOVE food?!  I get really excited at the thought of making something yummy and I am always thinking of ways to use whatever is in the fridge.  My only problem is that my excitement is often out weighed by my laziness, so I don't actually cook everyday and I don't go all out for every meal.  But every now and then my enthusiasm for finding new recipes bubbles over and the hunt begins.  During these searches for some mouthwatering dishes I have discovered a couple of websites that have yet to fail me.  I have posted the links under Recipes and Food because they are too good not to share.  Simply Recipes has more recipes than I could possibly use, but they are all good ones.  Some of my faves are the carrot cake, the sausage and spinach stuffed shells, and the ham, potato and leek soup.  Mmmm.  Vanilla Garlic is mostly desserts but he always has some snarky remark and his posts are hilarious.  I read it even if I'm not looking for recipes.



Anyway, time to move on before I make myself hungry.  Trip already posted something today but I have two interesting facts I just can't resist sharing.  


Interesting fact #1:  In America we are always looking for ways to get tan.  We have sunless tanning lotion, tanning salons and all that jazz.  Well, here where people actually have some natural color instead of being pasty white (like me) they advertise skin whitening lotions.  Even whitening body wash.  Interesting how we all want what we don't have. 


Interesting fact #2:  I just had to teach my sweet husband how to change the font on the blog.  Apparently Computer Science degrees don't guarantee that you will remember to highlight the text before trying to change the font.  That makes me feel smart and it makes me smile.  Silly boys.

Oh The Freshness

First I want to thank Kim for getting this set-up. As she said this is something that has been on our minds for a while and she got it done without her geek husband. So much for my expensive Computer Science degree, right?

Today is my second day actually working (HR stuff was basically the entire last week) and I have been slowly grabbing hold of more and more responsibility. It is quite a difference from my past US based jobs, which seem to enjoy attempting to drown me in stuff to do before the ink on the HR paperwork has even dried. Thankfully, I have prior entrepreneurial experience and they started a new class on IT Entrepreneurship, the instructor for which is in uncharted waters. So, I get to help chart the waters. I actually just finished up crafting the term long group project. Exciting!

My coworkers have been really nice and I seem to go out to lunch with a new group everyday. I was talking about my academic experience today to a group of instructors and they about feinted when I told them how many hours a week I was in class at Neumont. From what the other instructors were telling me, the students here whine a lot if you give them too much homework, or if they feel it is too hard. I told them that if I get to be a full blown lecturer (not just an assistant) that my students are probably going to hate me, because I won't be as sympathetic. Thankfully for the Inti students, I am not sure that being a full fledged lecturer is in the cards for me any time soon. Oh well...

Brand Spanking New!

Well, there is a lot of newness going on in our lives right now.  We are in a new country, Trip is starting a new job and going to a new school, Kathy has a new puppy (he is sooo cute), and we have a new blog!  It's all so exciting.  So, we are now in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and it is so interesting!  When we were driving to the apartment from the airport I couldn't help but think that it feels like a combination of Japan and India.  There are buildings that are Asian looking with the tiled and ornate roofs that make you stop and think "I'm in Asia"; and then there are beautiful Mosques that catch your eye and you start to wonder if you ended up in the Middle East.  


The people here are very diverse.  There are Indian Malaysians, Chinese Malaysians, Pakistani Malaysians, Indonesian Malaysians, and native Malaysians.  This also means that there is such a variety of food.  We have already tried some local food which is delicious.  Malaysian food is spicy and they love to cook with coconut milk.  As you can imagine, we don't mind at all!  The only thing I was not a huge fan of was ABC ice (that is the short version of a name I can't pronounce let alone spell).  It was coconut flavored shaved ice (that part was good) topped with, creamed corn, red sweet beans, honey dew flavored jello balls, and some other jelly things that looked like seaweed to me, but I have no idea what they are called.  The jelly/jello stuff wasn't bad, but I'm not a huge fan of sweet beans to begin with and the corn was a little weird.


Everything here is green and beautiful and I have never seen so many palm trees in one place before.  Since Malaysia is made up of mostly rain forests it tends to rain quite a bit here.  It hasn't rained everyday, but in the last week it has rained at least four days.  It's not too bad though because the rain doesn't usually last all day.  Even though it is 50% humidity or higher the climate hasn't been too uncomfortable.  Of course, I think the luxury of air conditioning has helped with that.


So far our experience has been quite enjoyable and the people have been very friendly.  I think it will only get better as we start to figure things out and explore the area.  We haven't taken any pictures yet, but I will be changing that very soon!  Until next time.