It’s been almost three years and three months (blimey!) since my last Sad Panda post, which isn’t bad considering. But I was strongly reminded of that time while flying back to Manila last week.
The situations are similar in some ways, both times I’d just left my ‘normal’ life to spend three weeks out having fun with a great bunch of people and both times I was travelling to find myself alone in a foreign city slightly at a loss as to what to do. The difference this time is that Manila is my normal life, or at least it’s supposed to be.
So on the plane I contemplated what moving to Manila means and, for the first time, I wondered if I’ve done the right thing. It’s easy to see what’s brought this on, one aspect is that previously I was only ever here for a few months at most. It was easy to view it as a series of jaunts rather than really moving, but now I’m here for a lot longer before I get back to Scotland. It’s finally sinking in that I definitely live here now. At least for the next year and a half.
The other thing is that I had a great holiday, not only did I not have to do any work but I got to hang around with a bunch of great people — and one special person. I pretty much managed to catch up with everyone I know, although I didn’t get to spend as much time with any of them as I would have liked.
So I find myself back in Manila, and somewhat adrift. But it’s been a few days since I started writing this post, and I’ve already settled back a bit. The last few days have flown by, and I can see me being stuck in a storm of work, sleep and entertaining the parade of visitors that seem to find excuses to visit the office from far flung places. It helps that I really like this job, there’s no way I’d have found a job like it in Edinburgh. I know that, at least until 2011, that this was the right move for me, after that I’ll just have to see where I am.
I can already see that once I get through January I’m going to be kept pretty busy with travelling (work and holidays), which means that the next few months are probably going to be a blur.
I must make an effort to get out of Manila at the weekends, even if I just end up sitting on a beach somewhere — plus I’m going to need to do something interesting if I’m going to manage to post another 51 entries this year.