One Month To Go

And thus begins the final month countdown to take-off day. Just another one of those days, when, after some rest and respite in No.795, I take that 45 minute drive to KLIA, check in, pop my bags on the carousel, and say my goodbyes all over again. After 7 years of living away, each one with at least one or two of those days, it's gonna be an over-familiar feeling, tinged with a hint of alien-ness, and a different flavour of trepidation this time around.

It will be a little strange, this imminent journey. I've flown off so many times in that north-east direction, bisecting the globe diagonally through the Andaman spice route, over India's booming cities of Hyderabad and Ahmadabad, across the tumultuous Middle-Eastern lands of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, onto the blooming cultures of Europe, and then finally landing on that vaguely triangular-shaped island. The place that started it all, a land of bangers and mash, custard and crumble, the rhubarb and Yorkshire puddings that saw me through my formative years on a smug, rotund belly.

It's been rather nostalgic recently, picturing myself again in Manchester, perhaps braving the unusually biting winter cold with an army of jumpers, fleeces and my dad's infamous sheepskin underwear. (No, not literally!) Malaysia's monsoon this year has been on the chilly side, albeit nothing like South/North-East England this year. In that sense, I am looking forward to spending the last part of this winter in a different country, a different place. They say that Shanghai's winter isn't rationally that cold, but the omnipresent chilling wetness that spreads to your bones makes it as formidable a winter city as any.

Despite feeling relatively gung-ho about the impending winter, I'll easily admit that I'm a little scared of this new adventure I'm plunging head-first into. Just a little. Because for me, that small sink-hole of fear and foreboding in the pit of your stomach that materialises with the looming take-off, could be, more often than not, attributed to a guilty lack of preparations for forthcoming exams. This time, essays and exams are (for now) a distant thing of the past, but venturing into the unknown future alone is still somewhat daunting.

Suddenly, it's like I'm going away to boarding school again for the first time, just that I don't have my parents beside me, don't know anyone there, coming to grips with an unfamiliar language, and the school of 600 is now a swirling, pulsing city 10 times the size and density of KL. I'm buoyed up with the same irrepressible confidence that my 14-year-old self had, that by hook or by crook, I will get through it all, and have a jolly good time to boot. Coming along in the luggage are the same niggling doubts from 7-plus years ago: what if I don't fit in, what if I can't cope, what if I've pushed my extraordinary luck too far and something really bad happens this time around...?

During countless occasions when that sickening, sinking feeling of nerves made a timely appearance for my entrance on-stage, I'd stride out on the high of the adrenalin rush and the audience's adulation, and deliver one heck of a performance. It's like swinging your way across mountain tops, suspended 100 feet off the ground with no visible means of support. High time to reclaim my place out there. Stay tuned for one helluva ride.


p.s. How d'ya like the new bloggy template for the new year?