Been home for just about a week. Home is beginning to refer less to any specific place, but rather wherever I happen to be at a particular time. Relations with my parents are still pretty much the same Cold War situation that it was, although we have largely avoided any major flare-ups for now.

Still, I seem to have become more distant to everything in this country. I somehow feel as if I belong less to this country. It's an alarming thing to realise that I relate less to people of my own country than those in Britain. I have never felt the total lack of sophistication in Malaysians so keenly as now (yes, this does completely smack of pretension, but no apologies from me...). On the other hand, when I'm in London, the decadence and pansiness of the British people do drive me up the wall at times, so it's probably a matter of the grass being greener on the other side.

I have been working part-time in the NST again this time round, but things seem to be going slow in the few days I've been here, although I've managed to finish a couple of articles as it is (no guarantee on whether they get published though). Also catching up with some friends, although my reserves of cash is drying up with alarming speed.

The other main thing that's happened this week is of course the earthquake off Sumatra and the resulting tsunamis. It's sad that tragedies only seem really tragic when they happen close to home, but it's true... when tens of thousands of Iranian died in the Bam earthquake last year, there wasn't so much media coverage. As it is, the tourists who perished on the beaches of Thailand probably maximised the amount of coverage in the Western media. Not that this is a necessarily bad thing, as more publicity means more humanitarian assistance and donations from private citizens.

One thing that really chilled me to the bone is the realisation that if not for Sumatra being in the way, we would have taken the brunt of the tsunami across the entire western coast of Peninsular Malaysia, instead of just receiving some of the diffracted wave in Penang. Fortunate for us, but I bet that doesn't comfort all the Acehnese who have suffered so much. Part of me wants to go do something about this. I have called the Maha Vihara, a Buddhist temple in Brickfields where they are accepting donations from the public, and the lady I spoke to told me to just turn up if I want to lend a hand with the work. I just might.