Final Preparations

High time I wrote something again. Don’t want to see my blog turn into a fossilized artifact.

In less than a week, Powerman Malaysia will take place. For the past week or so, I have been tapering and religiously following my coach’s schedule. My hamstring is fine and I’m obviously pleased about that. Thank goodness I let common sense prevail and handled the situation well. Ego sometimes needs to take a backseat if you want to move forward or achieve your goals. There’s just no point in continuing when one is down, but it doesn’t mean it should have negative effects. Cross training rocks!

Thanks to Emma, I’m able to get a ride to the race site in Lumut. Although I’m very much looking forward to the race itself and the accompanying challenge, I know I’m not particularly welcome at the race site. To simplify matters, let’s keep it at “politics”. Mentally, it’s not ideal. Hopefully by catching up with my Malaysian friends, I’ll be able to distract myself from the negative vibes.

Over the next few weeks, I will have to make some major decisions. As it turns out, there are some issues with my work permit in Vietnam. Even though, I turned in my original Flemish documents and English translations, the Vietnamese government needs to have the paperwork in Vietnamese. The only way for me to do this officially is by once again validating my degree at my university, go to the ministry of foreign affairs, then go to the Vietnamese Embassy in Brussels and finally to the Belgian Embassy in Hanoi. To me, that just sounds like an administrative headache, not to mention the financial implications.

My company has suggested that I could stay on until the end of my contract, change my visa status to a student visa from January to March while I study my course, but it would mean (unless I get the documents), I can’t resign a new contract. The main question though is why should I do all this administrative mumbo-jumbo? I have no ambition to stay in Vietnam. Both in Thailand and Malaysia, the documents I already have were more than adequate.

It’s far from ideal to prepare for my June 2009 exam, but I might have to move earlier than anticipated. Oddly enough, I could stay in Vietnam if I decided to work for a Vietnamese owned school, but I will happily pass on that possibility. Furthermore, I feel it is time to go and perhaps leave South East Asia. I’ve enjoyed the past 6 years, but the newness or the challenge has slowly disappeared.

Next Monday, I am going to meet my former boss from CfBT in Kuala Lumpur. I might as well kill two birds with one stone: race and apply for a new job. CfBT has various projects running in the Middle East, more specifically Oman and the UAE. Some of them involve teacher training and ultimately those are the kind of projects I’m interested in the most.

Financially, the Middle East is an attractive option and the region around Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Muscat is getting good reviews. There’s a whole load going on out there, and I wouldn’t be me before having done some research. Muscat has a running and triathlon club. Sounds like my kind of place. I like the geographic diversity of Oman’s landscape as it is not only Desert. Its political policies are quite progressive for the Middle East and most of all, it’s politically stable. Who knows, I might be in the land of the flying carpets and genie bottles in the not so distant future.