Thinking of Johor For The Long Run

Read Sixthseal’s blogpost about Johor’s Iskandar, just one of the many things i have been reading about the development within the state and it prompted me to spill about my plans. I haven’t spilled here in a long time, I know. 🙂

Blogging is SUCH a chore, you know?!

But it’s good to be back to share sometimes.

So for those who have wondered where I have disappeared off to, I’m currently in my second year of my compulsory service with the government. When my FYDOship ended, I was supposed to report for duty at Batu Pahat!! After many tearful phone calls to the headquarters and a very fortunate switch with a colleague in JB, I’m still in JB, living with Chee Kiang who is still working in Singapore. 🙂

We’ve been doing this for over 7 months now and living together has been amazing. We cook almost every week night, sometimes I dump him here and drive home to Subang Shah Alam myself. Yeah, my family has moved away from Subang too. It still hurts when I think about my childhood house in SS18.  Going into Singapore whenever friends want to meet up, exploring JB together, watching downloaded movies together on our landlord’s flatscreen and sleeping in the living room every single night because the entire apartment is literally our bedroom.

Oh! I’ve started baking and cooking more too!

Butter cookies fresh from the oven! I wanted to decorate it with royal icing but the icing i made was way too sweet and runny, so I gave up. I’ll need to head out to buy lemons and meringue powder to try again. Don’t think I’ll use raw egg whites again as it is not hygienic. And I have no idea where I can get pasteurized egg whites.

Spinach pan mee with the necessary yums

Tried roasting a chicken. Tasted okay, couldn’t get it to be a dark crispy brown. 😐

Herbal chicken, not too bad!

And my favourite and my best dish (ahem), chicken+broccoli+carrots+french beans dimsum style. <3

I think I drifted off again.

Yes, so throughout university I knew that I had to, needed to, MUST end up in Johor in order to put an end to the nonsense that was a long distance relationship. I was sent to Kluang first when I first entered the workforce and after making it through 6 months, I am finally in JB. When my first year training ended, I managed to secure myself to be permanently based in JB.

It’s all going to plan, isn’t it?

But deep down in my heart, I wanted.. or thought that it was to be this way: That the both of us complete our respective three years with the government and move back home to finally start our lives somewhere permanent.

But it’s not fair to uproot him from Singapore when he has put in so much effort building up his career here. Not only that, if I go back, I will have to start networking all over again. It’s okay if we start off immediately after the end of our compulsory service because we are still relatively young then and can slug it out. But I’m afraid that won’t be the case and we’ll probably have more…well, changes in our lives if we wait it out a few years and head back in our very late 20s or early 30s.

I do want to open my clinic one day and I want to open it somewhere where I will grow old.

I am confused about plans to work in Johor, KL or Singapore.

The reason why I want to go home is so that my children can grow up around their grandparents and I can be there for my family. It’s just horrible to have to grow up and old without your parents around. But most people don’t have a choice because of their careers and I am afraid that we might just be one of those people.

For an AIMST graduate, it might be a little tricky because the degree is not listed in the list that the Singapore Dental Council has come up with. Most of the Malaysian public dental schools aren’t even on the list too. We have to sit for an exam which, IF you can qualify for it with the suitable requirements, has a waiting list of 2 years. I hear that it’s the final paper for the Year 5 NUS students. I will of course try for it if I have the chance to. I would need to study really really really hard for it and cross all possible fingers and toes.

Singapore would be nice. But I really need some guidance if Johor is just as good, if not better. Or even better than KL for that matter, which I hear is pretty saturated now.

It gives me hope that there is so much development going on in the city and there is a buzz of excitement about the endless possibilities. Healthcare facilities, residential areas, educational institutions (though I’ll probably still send my kids to a government school to let them see the real Malaysia and save the money for their overseas education) etc.

The whole Johor-Singapore thing works very well for us now. I know a big chunk of Johor roads now, made a horde of new friends from work and more contacts from helping out with the southern zone’s dental association….

I just hope that it is the right choice to be based here.