It’s been a few months, but things have a different rhythm to them now.
I’ve officially moved from Thailand to Malaysia and have been here since the end of August.
While some part of me thinks it’s pretty wild that I no longer live in Thailand, there’s a large part of me that knows how ready I was to move and knows how grateful I am that this happened when it did.
But there have been a few major things to update y’all on.
Quarantine
One of the requirements of me moving to Malaysia was that I undergo a 2-week hotel quarantine of the government’s choosing. The hotels ranged from 3 stars to 5 stars depending on your flight and sheer luck. I stayed at the Hotel Royal located in downtown Kuala Lumpur.
Even though the flight from Thailand to Malaysia was only 90 minutes, my total journey took almost 8 hours. Through waiting in lines and getting tests and paperwork all sorted, the journey was brutal.
Once we managed to leave the airport and make it to the hotel, we had to endure another hour+ of waiting while we all unloaded our buses. Workers all wore hazmat suits and liberally sprayed our bags and feet with bleach.
Unfortunately, I was allotted a room with zero views and sunlight. My only reprieve was to look into the condo next to mine.
I wanted to get a lot of work done while I was in the hotel, but it became quickly apparent that my mental health was in survival mode and it was all I could do to not just want to sleep the whole day.
I’m not going to say that I felt like a prisoner, but after those two weeks, I definitely felt more empathy towards those living in confinement and angry towards the prison system in general.
I think I just seemed to have an unfortunate experience because after speaking with a few others, it seems that other people had views of the whole city which I would like to think would have had a profound impact on my overall stay.
My new job
Once I left quarantine I headed straight to my new apartment (!!!) to get settled in and then check out the school.
I was so overwhelmed.
But, I’ve grown to really like the life that I’m building here. Even it seems like it’s only half the life I signed up for since I’m currently confined to the city. But I’ll get to more of that later.
I’m teaching 3 preps: 7th, 9th, and 10th grades and y’all the amount of love that I have for these kids is insane. It’s partly because of how drawn I am to just watching students grow and how I love to have silly conversations with them, but also these kids at this school are special.
Even though it’s only been a few months it feels like it’s already been a lifetime. For the past 6 weeks, we have been teaching online. Luckily, we’re allowed to go to work and use our classroom if we want, but if not, we can stay at home.
And y’all I feel like I’m dying a little bit.
I need connection with the students. I need to see their poopy little faces and reactions, not just through a screen. I’m trying to prepare myself to stay online until the end of the school year but I’m really hoping that that’s being dramatic.
But that situation aside, every day I’m in Malaysia, I know I’ve made the right decision to move.
CMCO
Right now, Malaysia is under a semi lockdown.
It’s a semi lockdown because everything but churches, schools, and travel, is still open. They’ve also imposed a restriction on traveling between states without a letter of permission. Essentially, this means that I’m stuck in Kuala Lumpur for the unforeseeable future with no chance of exploring Malaysia in sight.
But the more I think about it, the more that I’m glad that I’m stuck in KL. I have access to wonderful and great food. Delivery of food and goods is easy and affordable. Quality of life is high and living expenses are proving to be quite cheap.
I’m hoping that over the winter break that I’ll be able to book a hotel or Airbnb somewhere. I just need to get out of my house. With this little change of scenery, I’m looking for anything to just shake things up.
Everything Else
I’d be lying my face off if I said that everything was going peachy. While I don’t feel like my sanity is being attacked on a daily basis, I do feel my mental health swirling around the drain. I don’t cry as much anymore, but that feeling has just been replaced with a dull ache of unfulfillment. I don’t bring it up to be a downer, but to be honest about what’s been going on.
It’s hard to build a support bubble during a pandemic when everyone is protecting themselves from this ongoing trauma.
I’ve taken a step back from social media to really evaluate what the heck I’m doing on these platforms. My Instagram account got banned for a week and once I got it back, I stopped posting.
It wasn’t intentional. I just stopped having the desire to do that stuff.
It also doesn’t help that most of the people I work with//are friends with don’t like social media. Not that I blame them. But I’ve definitely shifted my thinking a little bit in how I conduct myself around them.
In short, friends, I’m a mess.
But I’m okay with that. I’m okay with making and letting 2020 be my messiest year. I’m carefully prepping and planning for 2021, allowing for a boatload of flexibility and a better understanding of what things I actually can and cannot control.
So cheers to the things that we can control and the ability to let go of the things we cannot.
We have one more month of this year left. Let’s not let the shitshow of 2020 define what that looks like.
Until the 2020 recap.
Ily
-Ari
Here’s a short little photo dump:
