So now we sort of own a house. We signed the contract a few weeks ago, but yesterday we actually made the first (of five) payments on it. Since it’s a house that’s being built - as opposed to buying one that’s already there - we don’t pay for all of it at once. Instead, they make what they call “lifts” where they charge us gradually as the house is being finished. Yesterday we cleared the first three lifts all in one, as the construction was already started (and in fact, quite a bit on the way, as you can tell from the pictures below).

So now I’m about $70k in debt, and this figure will grow rapidly until April, then peaking at about $400k with today’s exchange rate. Mmm, debt. “A person in debt is not free.” Well, screw freedom, I’m getting a house!

One of the two below is my house. Care to guess which one?

April can’t come soon enough.

I need to send a guy in my project team to Malaysia in about two weeks, and I’m considering going with him. I haven’t had a look at what they’re doing over there for quite awhile, and I think I may need to do that. The sucky part about that is that it will effectively put me on the road for almost a month, as I’ll be off to my parents for christmas almost immediately after coming home, and then flying over to the states only a few days later to visit Lori’s parents.

I shouldn’t complain, though. I’m very fortunate to get to travel so much and see the places that I do but I’m also fully aware of how crabby I get when I get jet-lagged left and right, heh.