Over gmail chat - sometime around the ides of March, 2012...
Charlie: Hey bro, how's the teaching job in China going?
Jesse: It's not.
Charlie: What happened?
Jesse: Well, they couldn't get their paperwork together so they reneged on the job offer last minute.
Charlie: Whoa, that sucks.
Jesse: Yeah... but I still came to China! I've been traveling around, seeing stuff, it's awesome.
Charlie: Nice! What are your plans?
Jesse: Not sure, I might look for a job here, something to keep me busy until I start grad school in the fall.
Charlie: Dude, you should come to Borneo. I could definitely keep you busy for the summer.
Jesse: Whoa, that sounds awesome! For reals?
Charlie: Totes.*
Jesse: Alright, well give me a few more weeks here in China, and I'll plan on heading down to Borneo in mid-April.
Charlie: Sounds good. See you then.
Jesse: See you soon!
*Charlie would never actually say 'totes'.
That's an ever so slightly abridged version of the chat that Charlie and I had over gmail back in March. The correspondence may have been a little more involved, but basically it didn't take much convincing to get me to Borneo. So as it happened, after six weeks of romping around China, I made my way to Kota Kinabalu where Charlie generously put me up for three and a half months, and pulled me into the adventure that is his life!
Charlie came to Malaysia in 2009 around the same time I moved to Thailand to teach English (this isn't the first time Charlie's appeared on my blog, you can see a less tattooed version of him if you scroll back to October of 2009!), but while I continued to bop around the world after my teaching gig, Charlie decided to stay put and make a life for himself in Borneo. And I must say, it is quite the life! From trekking through the interior jungles of Sarawak with the Penan, to nocturnal spearfishing under a full moon off the shores of Mantanani Island, the adventures I've been on with Charlie have been memorable to say the least. In my quest to build an interesting life story, I've found it very helpful to surround myself with interesting characters, and since Charlie has been the main character in this most recent chapter of my life, things have been pretty awesome!
Thank you, Charlie!
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