Assalamualaikum,
Hello again, dear blog. Sorry for taking so long to write here. It’s been quite a busy month for me, both in my personal and professional life. But that’s no excuse though – I should (and actually did) have enough time to whip something up for the blog. Then, procrastination won (again), so that’s the ‘break’ I guess.
Anyhow… I’m officially back home for good (at least, for now)! Aiman & I reached home in mid-January and have been settling well back in Malaysia. Once we got back, the next few weeks have been a little hectic, as I had errands to run and things to settle before the start of February.
Why the start of February? Well, February 3rd was another big milestone in my professional life. It was my first day at my new job!
Back to the working life.
Alhamdulillah, I’m in my fourth week as a Higher Education Support at Alice Smith School in Equine Park, Seri Kembangan. It’s definitely a huge change, from working in universities to working in a school. But it’s a much-appreciated change, and helps me to see things differently.
My job revolves around helping the A-Levels students in their Higher Education pathways – from planning career & HE interviews to processing documents (transcripts, references, supporting letters, etc) for university admissions. I’m also involved with a lot of planning surrounding university visits and tours, especially when we have admissions representatives and counselors coming to visit Malaysia.
It’s been almost a month, but Alhamdulillah, so far things have been good. I work with around 180 students in the Sixth Form – a nice change from the hundreds of students back in Monash. The population of students is different as well, as I now work with slightly younger students and from mixed nationalities (average about 40% Malaysians?).
The biggest change of all was getting used to going to work early in the morning (7:30 am), and finishing work early (4:00 pm). Sure, it’s nice to not be stuck in traffic during peak hours. But leaving Shah Alam at 6:30 am and driving to work in the early morning is not fun. Whatmore – I’m not a morning person. It has definitely taken some time to get used to. The upside of this is that I finish work earlier, and can reach home by 5 pm every day!
More (personal) life changes.
Things would be changing a little in the next week though, as Aiman and I have made the next big decision to move out and live on our own. I’ve been contemplating moving out and renting a place together anyway, and this just makes sense considering how early and far I have to drive to work.
We’ll be moving into our first (rented) apartment soon, and I can’t wait! I say it’s our first because our shared studio apartment in the UK didn’t count (not in my books, at least!). That was a student accommodation, so it didn’t really feel like we made the decision to rent out together.
But this… this is a step forward for us. After almost two years of being married, we are finally moving into a place of our own. It might be financially hard as we now have to account for rent and other utilities payments (as opposed to staying at my parents’ or his parents’ houses). However, it would definitely be a good step forward as we learn to be more independent.
Other life updates, for now.
Hmm, what else can I say? I’m currently working on a major writing project with a friend. That one is ongoing and would probably only be completed in the second half of the year. But so far, I think things are going alright. We shall see how it turns out to be later in the year, so keeps your eyes out!
One of my 2020’s goals was to write on a more consistent basis. Sadly, this hasn’t gone off to a good start. But, the year’s still young (despite all that has happened in the first two months). Hopefully, I can get better at managing my time in the next coming months. These past two months have been a little hectic with re-training my body to be used to waking up early and going to work and all, so it has taken a while to get back on track.
I also missed sending out my bi-weekly Say What? newsletter issue this past weekend, as there were some issues with renewing my subscription and all. But that’s sorted out already and, hopefully, I can get back on track! While you’re at it, do subscribe to the newsletter! It’s free and you’ll get a dose of self-development thoughts and suggestions every other Sunday. Help me reach 200 subscribers by the end of the year!
Hire me!
As you might know, I’ve written quite a few Fresh Grad 101 posts here on the blog. I’ve also had my fair share of helping juniors and friends with their job search as a side hobby. After spending a few months thinking about it, I’ve decided to make it a proper service.
So, here it is!
This career and/or resume review service is mainly catered towards university students and/or fresh graduates. You can find more information about it on my Twitter thread here. I will also (soon!) get a landing page done to make it easier to find.
So far, Alhamdulillah, I’m happy with the support and encouragement that I’ve received for this. I’ve had a number of people reaching out to me to learn more about the service, and a couple of people who have actually engaged with me for the service. As this is just a small thing that I’m doing on the side, I’m actually pretty happy with how it turned out so far.
Feel free to share it with your friends and family who might benefit from it!
Signing off for now.
That’s all the updates I have for now. I’ll see you again with more (consistent) posts from this day onwards, insyaAllah.
Until next time, connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Subscribe to my newsletter. Stay awesome, take care, and don’t panic too much with what’s going on in the political world. :p
Hello from Malaysia too!