Tom Pepinsky

Author: tompepinsky

  • My First Presentation

    Today I (jm) went back to the British school I visited last week with my boss to give a presentation about going to college in the US.  It was fine, but I think the only person who was really interested was the guidance counselor.  I did get the usual few questions about scholarships, which was to be expected, but I never know what to say when people ask about sports scholarships.  I assume that they’re pretty hard to get in the States, and that it would be even more difficult if you were halfway around the world where various coaches couldn’t come watch you play.  I also made a very silly mistake- I handed out this glossy magazine/brochure thingy to the kids before I started talking.  Not good.  That meant that there were lots of whooshing sounds while I was trying to talk as everyone browsed through it instead of listening.  But they were still much better behaved than all the kids I taught last year in New Haven.

    I think the most fun part of the day was the trip.  First off, I got picked up at home by the driver our office uses (yes, that probably will be the only time in my life that I get to write that I got picked up by a driver), and we didn’t even hit traffic.  The school is in a really pretty area with lots of foliage around, so it was neat driving out there in the early morning when all the mist was still hanging around.  It reminded me of when we went to Borobodur, except that my glasses didn’t fog up when I got out of the car (it was slightly less humid).   Last week we took a detour on the way to the school to drop off the boss of the office, so I got to see a different route this time. (As an aside, it’s very funny here how all the Malays at the office call him "boss". Not "the boss", or his name, just "boss".  I like when I overhear conversations that go something like this: "Where’s boss?"  "I don’t know. Has anyone seen boss?"  "Oh yeah, boss is at a meeting.")  On the way back, I saw a very interesting cemetary.  We were going by it pretty fast, but I think I saw some Chinese characters on some of the tombs.  It occured to me that I’ve never seen a foreign cemetary (except in Europe, which doesn’t count).  It was one of the most colorful places I’ve ever seen, with monuments painted green, blue, orange, and red.  It was much more attractive that the usual lines of drab, grey stones in the US.  We also passed a Land Rover dealer on one of the main streets, not noteworthy in itself, but they did have this crazy, nearly vertical concrete ramp which almost looked like it was meant for rock climbers.  They must drive the cars up so that they can show off how "rugged" they are.  Great, so you can buy it and drive it off the lot onto the major highway around the corner.

  • Sabah Sabah Sabah Sabah, Oi Oi Oi

    One of the perks of JM’s job is that they travel all over Malaysia to do presentations about going to college in the US.  Not just travel, but travel for free.  So we have figured out a way to take a subsidized quick vacation in Borneo next weekend.  As long as our plans do not fall through, we will be travelling together to the East Malaysian state of Sabah for four days of jungle adventure.  After I (TP) leave, JM’s coworkers will show up and they will do their thing in the capital city of Kota Kinabalu, and then travel to the other East Malaysian state of Sarawak to do it all over again.

    East Malaysia (map), as you may have figured out, is the part of Malaysia on the island of Borneo.  The rest of Borneo is taken up by four Indonesian provinces (Kalimantan) and the little sultanate of Brunei Darussalam.  Although we would like to spend time in Sarawak together, we figure that we’ll be able to go back some other time, as it’s closer to KL than Sabah is.  (Also, there’s the capital city of Sarawak is Kuching, which literally translates as "cat," and we need to leave extra time to visit it.  There is a cat museum there and everything.)

    Our plan for Sabah is pretty straightforward.  We’ll fly into KK and look around on Saturday…it’s a two and a half hour flight from KL.  Then on Sunday we will take a short flight to the town of Sandakan which houses an orangutan preserve and rehabilitation center.  There are also probiscus monkeys there, so we hear.  Sandakan also has a reputation for beautiful beaches.  On Monday evening we’ll fly back, and then use the beginning of Tuesday to see if we can get to the big mountain near by, Mount Kinabalu.  It’s the highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea.  As mentioned above, I will leave on Tuesday evening, and then Julie does work from Wednesday to Friday in KK and Kuching.  KK is an oil town, so the city itself might not be the nicest thing ever to see, but there is apparently a lot of good food and significant influence from the southern Philippines.

    (For those of you wondering about the title: the band Mephiskapheles has a song called "Saba" which goes something like that.  It doesn’t have anything to do with Sabah the Malaysian province, but we’ve been waiting to use that one for awhile now.)