Your Girlfriend's Girlfriends

One of the things i miss most about Malaysia is my prized collection of girlfriends.

I was lucky enough to be born into a family filled with strong intelligent kind women. Then I was lucky enough to be selected for a boarding school where they groom strong intelligent kind women-to-be.

All my working life, i take extra pleasure in nurturing and cultivating friendships with strong intelligent kind women who made up the staple of my social life in KL. Luckily, it's easy to separate them with the other kind. My favourite scouting grounds are my workplaces, which just happened to coincidentally(?) be where the lot usually end up in - journalism and non-profit. Oy, what amazing women i met!

In the first part of my Roman adventure, I met more strong intelligent kind women in the masters programme. Amazing women who are brazenly brave (and i mean that about them being brazen). Each of us came with our own sliver of bravery in breaking the mold, daring to hope, doing the things we really want to do in this life in spite of everything, which in turn fuel the others to lose whatever reservation we had about our capabilities.

Now that the masters is over and we fly to the four corners of the earth, and i am not back in KL, there is a gaping hole in my life where the strong intelligent kind women used to be. my projectmates are mostly men, the people from the masters who remained and returned to Rome are mostly men, and well...my romantic relationship is also with a man :p

men men men! too much testosterone!

I havent had the time or the inclination to cultivate new friendships lately. Mostly because i really have no idea how long i will be here, and quiet frankly cultivating good relationships with strong intelligent women is hard work. ask any men and they'd tell you. but now that it seems that i might be looking at medium term at least in rome, i am thinking maybe it's time to start gardening. fortunately, The Organisation is teeming with strong intelligent kind women :)

i count myself lucky to be counted as a friend to these strong intelligent kind women. you see, men are great, but women, strong intelligent kind women, are the best!

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