Two months ago, I got a job in an event management company. I was offered an interesting temporary position whereby I had a chance to develop a good connection with important people in Saudi Arabia and abroad. I actually had been dreaming about working in an IT company, so this major step was surprising for me. I was bored and had nothing to do at home. I had been searching for an IT job, but perhaps I was not lucky enough to get one. So I thought.. yeah why not? After all this was just a temporary work which lasted for only 2 months. The new job also seemed to be so interesting for me. The company that I worked with had a contract with one of the Saudi government bodies to organise a prestigious international forum which was related to ports and maritime industry. This event was the first of its kind to be held in the Kingdom (@ Jeddah Hilton Hotel) and was expected to be an important gathering for all people in a related industry. The three-day forum, which featured exhibition and conference, was held under the patronage of the Governor of Makkah region (which includes Jeddah, Mekkah, and surrounding), Prince Khalid Al Faisal. Personally, I was eager to be part of the event because of its genuine support from the government and its importance to the maritime industry. Through this job, I started to realise how IMPORTANT and powerful the shipping industry was; 90% of goods are transported through the sea. It was indeed a huge industry! I came to know big companies like Maersk Line, DP World, Hanjin, UASC, and many more who have made a great contribution to the maritime industry.

I got a tag from Mulia about wearing a headscarf. It’s interesting that she brought this issue up because people have been asking me about it a lot, especially when I was in Australia. And I never thought about writing this issue in my blog. I would like all my friends who wear headscarf to continue this tag: teh Senaz, mbak Ina, Mika, and for those whose names are not mentioned (sorry if I missed out some ppl).

The price increase that affects the Gulf countries right now has also a tremendous affect on my whole family. All I can say is that, at the very same time that the price of goods increases, my family faces some financial difficulties. Being a businessman means that my dad has to take a lot of risks, and that includes losing so much money. Sadly, this year’s Hajj seemed to be so unfortunate for him. I am pretty sure it was not the first time that my dad encountered this similar problem, but this year is more obvious knowing so many expenses have been spent for the past few months, including moving to a new house and traveling to & from Australia. So we are currently trying to save as much money as we can and to live “modestly”. No more eating outside and we barely go out on the weekends (which is fine since I love staying at home anyway). We also try to reduce the number of snacks or beverages that we consume; stuffs like yoghurts, different kinds of juice, cheese (cream cheese, labneh, etc), and chocolates. Thankfully my brother, who I presumed to be very hard to convince, amazingly understands the whole situation. During his birthday (22 Feb), he didn’t ask a single thing; he would usually ask my dad to go out to eat. We try to be so blunt with him, at one point we even use the words krismon or kere just to make fun of the situation.