Had a nice visit from my website designer and blogging experts, Nic and Krista of Redbox Studio. Inspired me to start blogging, Walking With Jason in Borneo.

Explored two other blog ideas, wrote about 8 entries, which I've since put on hold, until I had a chance to complete a backlog of more pressing work leftover before our move to Sarawak, a turn around weekend for me. Finally, I got back into a regular writing routine of 15 to 20 hours per week which I record in a log book - if the hours aren't logged in, the writing doesn't get done.

Justin Rona was born, 2.81 kg, and writing, naturally, took a backseat.

Began teaching at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) as Visiting Lecturer, while waiting for JPA approval for my contract. Replaced existing creative writing paper with the one that I wrote and taught at USM - better for students.

The Malaysia English Language Teaching Association (MELTA) began an online literature forum/discussion, via the literature students at UKM, about my short story "Neighbors" from Lovers and Strangers Revisited.

"Neighbors" will be used as part of the SPM literature text starting in 2008.

In less than two weeks, there were over 200 comments! Feel free to add your own comments or read on page 22 about the choices that I made in writing "Neighbors". Posed were three questions:

1) What interpretations can we draw from the event and characterization in the story?

2) What interpretations arise about Malaysia and her people?

3) What are some of the main concerns of the story?

Moved to Kuching, Sarawak on the island of Borneo; packed our two cars and 144 boxes in a 40-foot container and all of our furniture in a 20-foot container.  All items arrived intact except the glass from a rattan coffee table, plus our washing machine picked up a violent rinse cycle.  My first priority was to get the house, especially my office, set up as fast as possible so I could get back to writing, and our lives back to normal before I had to start teaching and before the baby came.