Today marks the 3rd day of me being jobless…indefinitely. I’ve been getting a lot of shocked reactions when people found out that I quit my job. I’ve kept my plans pretty low profile and not many knew I was leaving until my last few days at work.

Of course, it was surprising as I’ve always enjoyed what I do. How do I feel? Rather indifferent, actually. I guess it’s because the reason I quit was very different – I’m going to chase after my dreams and wanderlust. I’ve been repeating the same phrase endlessly and wanted to keep it short and sweet. I’ll always remember that line:

“I’m not moving to another agency but will be spending the next few months backpacking across Asia.”

It delivers probably only 70% of the point because it won’t be just “the next few months”, it will be an indefinite timeframe…which is hard to explain.

Then they ask, “So, when are you leaving?” And I got to repeat it all over again.

Next week, we’ll be flying off to South Africa for the World Universities Debating Championship in Botswana. No, we’re not debating (we used to), but will be helping a friend run the tabulation system. 3 full weeks there including Christmas and New Year’s. We’ll be back in Jan.

After that, I’ll be heading home for a couple of weeks and spending Chinese New Year with my family.

The “real” trip starts mid-Feb. First stop: Yangon, Burma for 2 weeks. Then, we fly out to Bangkok and that’s what we have for now. The best plan is not having a plan, since we have all the time in the world. We don’t know how long this will take. Let’s just go with the flow.

By far, I’ve had 5 farewells with my colleagues and there is one  planned for every day until I fly off to South Africa. There has been loads of eating and drinking since it’s Dec as well. Yes, I’m growing sideways – not good! Ahhh! There are still many people I wanna catch-up with, guess I’ll have to leave those to Jan/Feb next year.

I’m still trying to get used to being jobless. On Day 1, I was back in the office to clear off a few things and to return office equipment. I spent Day 2 packing and categorizing all my possessions. I was awoken up early in the morning of Day 3 to get breakfast and here I am.

It hasn’t sunk in yet but I think I’ll really miss my job.