Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Pygmies, budgies, Kuala Lumpur

It's been officially confirmed that the World Memory Championships will be in Malaysia again this year. Well, as official as these things get, anyway - last-minute drastic changes of plan are part of the tradition, and you can't really start making travel arrangements based on what has been announced as early as January, because it might all fall through yet. Still, presumably someone there is offering money to someone in order to get the championship there, which is always a good sign.

The problem with Malaysia is that all the best memorisers are German or Austrian, and several of them are young and not particularly wealthy. Being old, and rich enough to buy my own plane tickets if need be, I'd hate to win the WMC because someone else couldn't afford to go there, so I hope everyone important will get their flights paid for them one way or another. We'll have to see what develops.

This, in conjunction with New York, will mean I'll be visiting three continents in 2006. That's really very cool and jetsetterish, isn't it? And yes, I'm counting a trip to Germany as a trip to a different continent. We're not in a continent, we're on an island floating next to one. I'm pretty sure I haven't done this before - the previous time I went to Malaysia, in 2003, I didn't go anywhere else that year, mainly because I was unemployed for most of the year and financed it with horrifically huge loans that I'm only two-fifths of the way through paying off now. Ah, the follies of youth.

Still, it makes me wonder if I can get an Australian holiday into my schedule somehow. They do have a memory championship over there, and I could always drop by and watch. Nah, that would just be silly.

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