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06/11/09 - After 13 months at Tesco, I'm now under a permanent contract with my store; I haven't had a real permanent contract since working for Sainsburys four years ago. We had a group class on self service training this past week, mainly focused around customer service. Is what quite a fun lecture to attend, especially as we got paid standard salary for attending too. Things have been a little quiet in store towards the end of the week though, mainly due to a new Waitrose in Ashford opening, plus the fact we didn't have any standard carrier bags at the checkouts for two days.

I also attended a volunteers class this past week, though I'm not quite sure what the aim of the class was. I could only attend one class, as I had the self service training for the second day, but there seemed to be a lot of focus around how to develop your own volunteer agency, where our group attempted to come up with some over optimistic ideas for a made up transportation company, without planning how we'd fund the probable tens of thousands we'd need it to work. There were some pretty interesting characters there, but though I couldn't attend the second day, I'm not sure if the course was for me.

13/11/09 - I took the High Speed service from Ashford International to St Pancras for the first time on Sunday, mainly due to the standard line having a poor service that day. It was nice having a change of scenery, and St Pancras has a very airport like feeling to it, which got me quite excited as I will literally be in an airport in just over a week from now. Even the announcement chime is the same of that on the KLIA Express train, so Sunday was very Malaysia-like.

But despite how good the High Speed service is, there wasn't much chance for my usually long naps on my train journeys to church, and I seemed to feel the affects of it early in the week. I felt bad Monday evening and worse Tuesday morning, and decided to take my morning shift off for some recovery time, but ended up going straight back to work to cover the evening shift I also had scheduled for that day. And to top it off, I even volunteered to do extra hours for today and tomorrow. So much for recovery time.

And lastly, am I the only nerd who hasn't known or cared about this hype for Call Of Duty 2? I guess I wouldn't, not having any game consoles, but I honestly had no clue about it, and I had customers asking if I had got it yet myself. Can't say I do, though I finally got GTA IV for the PC a couple of weeks ago! I'm so out of touch...

20/11/09 - I haven't been feeling so great this pass week, not because of illness like last week, but mainly an anxiety problem. I think the last moments of my countdown to Malaysia has got me feeling tense, and I've been anxiously waiting for the week to pass. I feel maybe God has been punishing me for the sins I've committed. Honestly, I never feel much of God's presence in the UK, so hopefully Malaysia will be a chance for cleansing, to recharge myself spiritually, and a chance to move on from this anxiety I've been feeling lately...

Having arrogant and obnoxious customers hasn't helped the week pass nicely, especially one faggot who felt like causing a scene at the checkout, and ended up upsetting one of my female supervisors, after shouting a lot at her. The idiot even did it in his work uniform, so he obviously doesn't have much of a brain; one character reference would kill his chance at a career; but having heard this guy's actually 38 (he looked much younger) and has had previous incidents of verbal abuse in our store, I don't think it needs telling that he'll never get far in life.

Besides that, something tells me that I'm going to Malaysia at the wrong time, to be away from the UK atleast. We've got 20% staff discount coupons to use from Monday, though fortunately last till the end of the year, plus there's a Produce Team Leader vacancy, which I've quickly got my application in for. Also, there's a Robot Wars show in Maidstone tomorrow night, and considering how much I've just spent on Robot Wars merchandise the past month on ebay, it would have been a nice compliment to it all if I could have attended.

I had to perform a 'pitstop check' on one of the remote controlled robots I bought, as one of the wheels wasn't moving, so I took the cover off and noticed one of the gears was loose; I'm a clever engineer. I'm not sure what brought on this Robot Wars spending frenzy, I guess I needed something to fill my anxieties, and that little fulfilment of having these items, back when Robot Wars was big when I was a teenager. So much for trying to sell and get rid of things...

27/11/09 - I have arrived in Asia once again, for the sixth time. It's been so great to be back; I went straight to Taman Wahyu church from the airport, and within hours of arriving I was bombarded by the kids, who were all pleased to see me again. I was shocked to find that Ranjita's grandmother, from the father's side in Metro Prima, had passed away just a week before I arrived. She seemed quite fit and healthy when I saw her six months ago, and now Hema has been put into care with Ranjita, arranged by their school. Hopefully I'll get to see them next weekend at the grandmother's memorial.

I took my first proper trip to Sri Lanka this week, spending three days in the country; I had previously visited for a few hours whilst on transit to India. I met with my Aunty and Uncle, who I had arranged to meet as they were in Asia at the same time as me. They stayed at the Club Hotel Dolphin, whilst I stayed in a more budget hotel in a touristy area of Negombo. My first day was slow and tiring, and I slept most the day due to still being jetlagged. I had forgotten holidays were supposed to be a time of rest, but I haven't had a 'holiday' since I went to Laos eighteen months ago.

I received a phone call from Adult Education whilst trying to find some accomodation in Negombo. They called to arrange an interview for me, for the volunteer teaching assistant position I applied for many months ago, but as they called my UK SIM card whilst I was in Sri Lanka, it ate the rest of my phone credit and the phone cut off after two minutes. Once I was settled, I immediately sent an e-mail to Adult Education, trying to trace the person who called me so I could rearrange an interview for when I return to the UK.

We spent our first day out going round the town area of Negombo, where we were met by a man who claimed to work at my Aunty and Uncle's hotel. He took us round the markets, and bought us some spices at 'good prices', but once we figured out how much he charged us in sterling, it kind of spoilt the day. We tried to take the train back to the hotel, but public transport's not as efficient here, so we wondered the town, stopping at a small café, where I used my Tamil skills to find us a nice bakery to stop and eat at. We later had a river boat tour in the afternoon, where I got some nice photos.

I booked an auto to take me to my Aunty and Uncle's hotel in the early morning, a Christian-Sinhalese called Kumar, who took me to Negombo at a reasonable price the day before. We went on a tour from Negombo, stopping at various points such as seeing rubber trees, riding elephants, visiting an elephant orphanage, seeing a tea factory, visiting a herbal museum and receiving massages, and seeing a Buddhist temple in Kandy. Our tour guide told everyone at each place that I could speak Tamil, and I managed to get a fair bit of practice and hold a few conversations with some of the locals.

After the tour, I was dissapointed to find my driver, Kumar, hadn't waited to take me from my Aunty's hotel to the airport, as arranged. My flight wasn't till the next morning, and I was hoping I could have used him to show me a bit of the real Sri Lanka, as I like to do on all my travels; it's a shame I was solidly on the tourist trail the whole time I was here. One last interesting thing I worked out, I noticed whilst in Negombo that the Tamil spelling for Colombo is கொழும்பு (Kolumbu) whilst Negombo is நீர்கொழும்பு (Neerkolumbu); Neer in Tamil means water, so Negombo means Water-Colombo.