Mini-reunion

I left school five years ago and obviously I had not been able to keep in touch with many of my schoolmates after that. Recently, a friend of mine, Ernie, held an open house for Gawai. I was invited and decided to join a few of my ex-schoolmates to visit her house for a 'ngabang' (or a mini-reunion) session.

A lot has changed and some stayed the same since then.

It was kind of fun to meet up with familiar faces that you had seen for almost everyday in the span of five years sometime ago. It was a bit awkward too since I was not really buddy buddy with some of them. However, we have the same circle of friends and we used that to make small talks among ourselves.

Catching up with each others' studies and work seemed to be a normal conversational topic after five years of not meeting with each other. In another five years, more things would have changed and perhaps, our conversation would revolve around real jobs and families...

Time flies. I still feel like it was not that long ago that I wore those school uniforms and played around in class. The idea of finishing my degree in less than a year seems surreal. The real life waits for me next year (insyaAllah) and I do not know if I am well-prepared for that. For now, I'll just buckle up and go with the flow before I start to build a 'life' that I can finally call my own.

Photo credit: @ibanezz06

Summer Trip Travelog: How It Started

A lot of stuff can ignite the urge to travel within someone to a certain place. Maybe it's the culture, the history, the people, the nature or the food. For me, it's curiosity that drives me. I often wonder what has drawn people's attention to come and visit them and I like the adventure of finding the answer myself through my own personal exploration. Sometimes, I fell in love too.

A trip to Europe is the ultimate dream (for most people I know at least and thus, myself). Honestly, I know nothing about Europe in particular. I know that it is one of the world's continent but that's pretty much it. As you can see, I am not really fond of geography nor history...

However, my lack of general knowledge regarding it was not an obstacle. It was money and time that put a limit to my movement.

I nurtured this little dream of mine since I was in my first year of studies. I saw my seniors' photos and I thought that, one day, I would do the same thing and this year, I did it!

It had always been our (my housemate and I) plan to have a Europe trip in our third year. Therefore, I have been putting aside some of my pocket money for the last three years for it. They weren't much but enough for me not to worry about my spending for the next few months or so. This is crucial for a student like me: overspend and suffer to make ends meet after. Alhamdulillah, so far, I have been managing well.

Last January, my housemate and I booked return tickets to London and Kuala Lumpur. After the purchase, we were always counting days to that exact moment. Initially, it was just the two of us but my housemate managed to persuade a few others to join our trip and tada, we have a group of traveling buddies.

It is always an experience traveling with different groups of people. We all have different interests and stuff that we look forward to see and I like that. I get to see what excites them and enjoy them myself. Therefore, our itinerary varied greatly because some people gets excited seeing beautiful man-made buildings and some gets excited seeing the wonderful God's creation, nature.

In all honesty, for our trip, we only had a rough itinerary and most of them were planned as we go because um...we're amateur travelers. A lot of unplanned stuff happened but I love every bits of them because that's the best part: being on an adventure. :)

Here!

I am currently typing away from the comfort of my own home in Kuching! Yes, after a year, eight months and two weeks of being away, I am back!

My holiday started exactly three weeks ago but I have been spending some time traveling around to a few countries. Hehe. I will save the details about the trip for my future posts because let's face it, I have nothing better to do currently.

It's only the third day (or second) and I am still trying to adjust my body clock. I am sleepy all the time and returning home means runny nose and red eyes 24/7. I am definitely allergic to cats... but I love them. Big sobs. I am also using that as an excuse for my lack of productivity. I can't even lift my head and move my body to clean up my own stuff! Tsk tsk tsk.

My sluggishness includes catching up on TV shows and Youtube videos that I have missed while I was away traveling. Bad news: I don't think I'll ever finish any series in a jiffy like how I did in Canada because an hour video is taking more than one day to load. HELP!

Maybe it's a sign that I should not be spending so much time in this virtual world...

Note for me

My housemate and I have the same book. Apparently, all this while, my book was with her. Tonight, she found a note in it...

This guy can be sweet and annoying at the same time. So embarrassing! -_-

However, needless to say, the deed is done, brother! B)

Love Language

I was watching Youtube when I saw this personality quiz: Love Language.

I was immediately sold and took the same test right away after that. Apparently, love comes in five main languages: acts of service, receiving gifts, physical touch, quality time and words of affirmation.

So, what moves my heart the most?

Surprise, surprise.

I absolutely agree! I really love spending time with the special people that I have in my life. I love uninterrupted bonding time, no phone calls, no texts, just you and me. I am guilty of occasionally indulging myself in replying string of texts while hanging out but not so much anymore now (I think). I can get upset when I don't have the full attention of the people that I am interacting with, which in reality, happens quite a lot, sadly. WHY? Sobs.

Then, it's the words of affirmation which was not quite what I expected. However, I do understand why I got a high mark for it. I love letters. I love reading pages of long handwritten letters. The letters I received were unusually funny and cheesy, I love them to bits. I can cry and laugh at the same time reading the words that I don't usually hear coming out from that particular person's mouth, which makes it much more meaningful than it already has been. Yes, write and send me letters, I'll love you to death.

Acts of service and receiving gifts were tied in. I figured that I do not really like when people do things for me because I feel like I am burdening them. I appreciate the gestures, but they don't move my heart as much as I feel guilty for some reason. I do not think that I will ever feel touched to the point that I will tear up out of happiness...or will I? I shall wait for the day to come and blog about it for me to prove myself wrong in the future.

Lastly, I am obviously not a touchy person but I do love hugs! I used to hug my friends a lot back in my school days. Hugs are my instant pick me up kind of thing. It makes me feel better when I don't feel so good, when I have tonnes of worries in my head, and it just makes me feel loved in general. I miss my huggers and huggees! All that I can hug right now is my huge penguin.

Help me!

I think this helps to clear the air in trying to figure out myself a bit. I have been wondering why I can never react overwhelmingly to certain stuff that people do for me. I thought I was not normal! Hey, it turns out that I am perfectly fine, just that it's not my cup of tea. I guess you can now think what you can do for my birthday next year! Nothing expensive, I just need your love, tender and care. ;) HAHA!

What is your love language? To find out, click here!