One hell of a sabbatical!

'It’s been ages' sounds like a bit of an understatement seeing as I practically dropped off the radar since last February. And I kept telling myself I must get back to writing more meaningless crap about myself so perfect strangers can read about it. A strange feeling of loss came over me over this period because I just didn't feel motivated enough to get back to blogging and like an ever-increasing pile of dirty dishes it only got worse as time went on. I sure as hell know I wouldn't be the first or last blogger to feel this way and eventually be banished to the wastebasket of the Internet!

Well this feeling made me even more determined to revive this little niche I etched out for myself on the net. I realize I never quite finished my temporary travelogue that I sort of maintained when I was in South-East Asia so I'll do my best to help bring everyone up to speed on that and everything that followed as briefly and concisely as possible.

I travelled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from Singapore and also to the Island of Penang just off the West coast of the Malaysian peninsula and I loved every single moment of it because it was just me and the road most of the time and didn't have to stick to other people's timetables although strictly speaking I did have to get back to Bangladesh to join my parents before our flight back to London. I'm tempted to post more pictures but that'll mean I'll have to give context to them all and I did say I'm keeping this short, besides I can’t bothered!

After getting back to London, we came home only to find out the hot water and heating system had completely broken down, it looked like our gas boiler had blown up whilst we were away and this was in the middle of a freezing February. So 2 weeks a small space heater and a £2000 heating system overhaul later we were nice and toasty. I started working part-time and began studying again for my final year retake which would start in October but I didn't want to leave anything to chance.

On the 14th of May my sister had her first baby and I became an uncle for the first time and I couldn't wait to see the little 'critter' so I started making loose plans on going to visit her in Connecticut in the summer.

From April onwards I helped out with two of my cousins' weddings and for the remainder of my summer I volunteered to work as a freelance reporter for my local newspaper for work experience as a career in journalism is where I see my life going and it being the raison d'être for this blog - another great motivator for getting back to blogging! I also managed to finally steal myself away from all this for 10 days and visit my sister and brother-in-law and the new 'addition'.

After quite a productive summer I was back at Uni and between then and now quite a few things have changed in this world, but I won’t bore you by back-paddling through all that because I’m sure all my esteemed readers don’t want to be reading stale news from an armchair warrior, there’s enough time for that later!