I've been very quiet over the last few weeks. It's mostly been because I've been trying to finish my thesis
while packing and coordinating my move to Malaysia. It 's hard to believe my time here is up. After three and a half years in Christchurch, I'm finally moving back to KK!! Between the move, thesis-writing and the chaos at home, I haven't had
any time for blogging
or bloghopping. Believe me, I've been meaning to read the updates in my reading folder but circumstances just don't permit it.
For this post, let me just tell you what I've been up to the past few weeks, okay?
Packing
As I've said earlier, we're moving home very very soon. We’ve been packing like mad over the past few weeks and cleaning the house for our landlord’s final inspection. Inspection day was Sunday and boy, was I relieved when we finally handed over the house keys to Mr. Butcher.
To me, there's nothing fun about packing. The whole process was so stressful, I almost had a meltdown. I felt like crap packing tons of stuff because my ribcage was sore the whole time (will tell you more about this). Second, we had way too many things to get rid of. Deciding what to ship home, donate and sell was physically and mentally draining. I didn’t think we own so many things, but when we started packing, I realised just how much junk we've accumulated over years. Third, when I'm busy packing, I become very moody and I look frumpy. I go into a don’t-come-and-see me mode which is really ugly.
But that's all over now and I am so relieved to have the packing behind me!
Trading
Apart from packing, I was also busy selling all our stuff on Trade Me. Trade Me is something like Mudah.com. I find it exciting selling stuff online especially when the bid exceeds my reserve price. These are some of the things I've sold on Trade Me.
I sold these and tons of other stuff like my shoes, handbags, bean bags, TV Cabinet, dining table, trampoline, toaster, rice cooker, printer, vacuum cleaner, broom, laundry basket, study desk, wall clock, and matress. Semua licin!
A Tragic Fall
This event is related to the ribcage pain I mentioned earlier.
Have I told you that I am a total klutz? If I haven’t, well, it’s time I come clean. I have this habit of falling down and hurting myself on a regular basis. Hubby and my sister are constantly surprised that I can fall down while doing something so simple like walking. I think it’s in my DNA.
Last year my great fall happened at the college cafe. Remember this
post? I lost my footing while walking into the café and landed flat on my butt. Humiliating, yes.
An incident at the uni 2 weeks ago beats last year’s hands down. On a fine Wednesday morning, while I was working at the office, I got a text message from a guy who saw my Car-For-Sale ad. Overwhelmed by excitement, I got totally disoriented. All I knew was I needed to get home ASAP. So I quickly got out of the office and sprinted toward my car. Instead of walking over this chain barrier thingy in front of the parking lot, I jumped over it. BIG mistake. Instead of jumping successfully, I ended up getting my right foot caught in the chains.
I fell down hard flat on the ground. Face Down.
The worst thing was a few people and a nenek who was brisk-walking witnessed the entire scene. So there I was lying down on the pavement, with the sun on my face and this elderly woman beside me. I cursed myself for attempting the impossible jump. The nenek said "You had a fright but you’ll be okay”. I thanked her and slowly limped my way to the car. End of story.
The moral of the story? If you're a klutz, avoid crossing/ jumping/ walking over barriers of any sort.
 |
| The barriers |
Selling my Camry
Another big decision I made last month was to sell my car. I bought it in 2010 with the intention of shipping it to KK. I was keen on doing that because according to Kastam di Raja Malaysia (KDRM), overseas students who intend to import cars to the country get student AP. Plus, a majority of my seniors have imported their cars without much hassle. This means the cars arrived promptly and the payable tax was reasonable. For instance, my colleague JD, who went back to Malaysia last year was charged RM18K in tax for his 2001 Honda Stream. Reasonable, don't you think?
So. What made me change my mind? Well, when I asked for a quotation from KDRM in Port Klang, I was told that I needed to pay about RM31K for my Camry. Fine. I then called KDRM in Kota Kinabalu to ascertain the figure. Guess what? The KK custom official had a different quotation. It was RM62K! DOUBLE the amount given by Port Klang custom. Crazy right? Shouldn't the formula for import tax be standard across the country? To make the story short, I decided to sell my baby and avoid paying a fortune in tax. I was sore about it but didn't have a choice.
So there you have it. My excuses for not being able to blog. I have a few more days to spend in Christchurch and I'm starting to feel a bit emotional about leaving. I guess that's the reason why I'm writing this entry - to remind myself what life is like right now.
