'Why Not?'

Year 2010 had been great to me, a great roller coaster ride. Decided to move back to Indo, did that, broke up with a boyfriend, met another person back home, got engaged within 3 months, and broke off the engagement a little after 6 months.

During this roller coaster ride, I was lucky to have a motivator friend, Tony Roy, who had reached his enlightenment the year before. That and cheap data plan for my Blackberry in Indo, made my year bearable and slowly I began to grasp the idea of 'seizing the day' a.k.a. 'Carpe Diem' that Mr. Tony had been preaching.

Long story short, my friend Roy, a safety net, one day messaged me and asked if I wanted to visit Angkor Wat with his co-workers, Neil and another girl, and maybe others in November.

(Hmmmm.... November huh? I might be in the States though I'm not sure when in November. Well, Carpe Diem, why not? Angkor Wat then.)

Then, I told Roy about the possibility of me joining him to Angkor Wat in November. As the days gone by, I found out that my tickets for Seattle was set for November 9th, gave Roy the bad news that I might not be able to join him for an adventure in Angkor Wat.

There were other options of places they might decide for vacation as Neil mentioned in the previous blog, and as long as they decided to go somewhere outside North America, I wouldn't be able to join them, I explained.

Not long after that, Roy told me they decided New York. Yes, New York... Everything happened really fast, they all got their visas done and tickets booked within a week. Very surprising!

(Wow, NY huh? Why not? I haven't been there since 2005 anyway, and since we're all gonna be sharing one room, I could save money in accommodation. This is gonna be awesome!)

I asked Roy who would be coming on this trip for sure, and he confirmed Neil and the girl co-worker. I gave him my okay to join the trip since when else could I get to visit NYC and since I was on a tight budget, it would be nice that I could save money on the room. Then, he gave me the bad news that the girl co-worker, who is much older than us, would prefer the girls staying in separate rooms from the boys.

(Oh shoot... That's gonna be a lot of money on the hotel. Hmmmm... I think I'll say 'no' for this trip. This girl co-worker, sounds like she's gonna be balls of fun and I have to share a room every night during the trip with her? Hmmmm... no.. I don't wanna join them anymore...)

Roy asked me if I was still joining them, giving him all of my reasons above, I gave him an infamous answer of "We'll see". Months passed by, and he kept asking if I was going to meet them in NYC, again I said "We'll see" until he told me that his sister, Kristy, was going to join us.

(Kristy seems nice. I've heard good things bout her, and she seems cool. With another person, the cost of the room will be more affordable for me. Okay, why not? NYC, here I come!)

Little that I know... everybody was not too keen on the girl co-worker, and from there, a tale of friendship and inspiration between me, Roy, Neil, and Kristy emerged and nourished; and later would birth the 'Frank' moniker.

The Beginning

Month : Mid - September
Location : SIA Training Centre, Singapore
Main Actors : Roy Felix, Neil Edric
Special Mentions : Kristy and Fenny (Roy's back-up)
Side Role : Stef (through messenger) and Jon-Erik (background)

Tick, tock, tick, tock ............
Another deary afternoon.
Slouched in my seat, had finished lunch and was waiting for the clock to strike 5:00 pm so could leave for the day. Just a few days remained for me to leave SIA after two and half years of toil and misery. Ok ok it was not all that bad. We did have the long lunch hours, movie sessions, coming in at 10+ every morning and managing to leave most days by 4 in the evening. But still, listening to users bitching all the time..... it was time to get out !!!

Next to me, Roy is upright in his seat, busy at work on his laptop. Markets shares, e-newspaper, chatting with friends online , these were the things that kept Roy engaged. As for all the clients work, that was handled by our new hire Jon-Erik (thanks dude, we know we worked you like a dog, but we will put that down to fresher training :P).

Now we did have a couple of bank holidays hitting us in November, coupled with the weekend, made it a perfect time to take a vacation. So where .... hmmm ??

Apparently the first bank holiday Roy was off to hometown, Medan, so that kinda ruled out that long weekend. (Small background - The dude is loaded with green , remember i did mention the share investments, so he keeps on flying to Medan whenever he can :P ) . So that left only the next bank holiday.... that too it fell on a wednesday , so probably need to take 2 days mc (medical certificate) and make it a 5 days vacation. Oh, yes you read right , who in their right mind would want to waste vacation days, when a doctors note for 2 days of r & r is just as useful. hahahaha

Well we started discussing prossible locations - Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam .... hmmm so many choices.
"We'll See" (one of the many catch phrases of the trip),
"Well since there is still 2 months", we decided to defer the discussion to a later date. Roy returns back to his daunting tasks of keeping up with all the happening around the world ;) , and me back to staring blankly into my laptop with music blaring into my eardrums (Courtesy white Iphone 3G - oh how i miss thee .... another story, another time)

A few mins pass , when Roy turns and says "USA?"
Neil "Huh?!"
Roy "Stef is asking if we would like to go to US in November?"
Neil "Uhmm ... Okay :D"

And that my dear friends was how long it took for us to decide to go for a US trip. In the coming few days we had 2 beautiful ladies join us - Kristy and Fenny.

Friendships, Love, Hate, Betrayal, Comedy of errors, Theft and all sorts of drama awaited each and everyone of us, but little did we know what was in store.......