TGIF

It's 18:35 Friday, I'm home, sitting outside with gin and tonic in hand. Ian is in the pool. First time all week we've been home before 7:00 and it feels good. Big weekend ahead.  Off to elephant sanctuary tomorrow morning to spend day feeding and splashing about in the river with baby elephants.  I'm excited, Ian is really excited.  Birthday celebrations to commence on Sunday, think we'll spoil ourselves with steaks and red wine.

Have officially survived week two of the new job.  Phew.  Not only have I learned a lot about Malaysian work culture, but the commute is teaching me many lessons as well.  I thought I had the rules (or lack thereof) of the road pretty figured out, but highway driving is it's whole own thing.  Apparently, and infuriatingly the middle lane is the slow lane - so there is no elegant way to change lanes, you just gun it or slam on the breaks about 3 times in 15 seconds, awesome.

Now I generally do not support the bashing of women drivers, we all know men get in more wrecks and far more devastating ones.  But the women here, particularly the Malay women, are shockingly bad and I've figured out why - it's because they can't bloody see.  Very few women here wear full burkahs, but a great deal of them do wear headscarves.

And as you can see, they don't have any peripheral vision! It's like driving with the hood of a parka pulled over your head. It's entirely hopeless, not to mention that nine times out of ten they've got a baby on their lap or a 3 year old bouncing all over car - or both!

Needless to say, every trip to and from work is indeed an adventure.