Graduation.

To Remember.
Nobody told me that graduating would be so tiring. We always see pretty pictures of girls and boys in their square hats, but nobody mentioned the blistered feet from walking around too much, the parched throats from lack of water, the ache in your cheeks from all the smiles, the awkward moments when you meet people you sorta know, the sticky hair from being plastered to your sweaty face, the mortar board falling all over the place because no pins could hold them in place, because in that moment, nothing could beat the feeling of glory that you've achieved another milestone in life. It is probably the biggest milestone yet, and with your family and friends congratulating you and telling you how proud they are of you, it's the best feeling ever. :)

My graduation wasn't what I expected, it wasn't everything that I've imagined. My boyfriend wasn't there, I barely had time to be with my friends, and I didn't get to take cool pictures with my graduation robes. But you know what? None of these really matter because the most important parts were all there; my whole family was there with me, and though they complained a lot about the food during the trip, it was all good because we got to spend time together. From fretting over what I should wear to my match my graduation robes to flustering over all of the official procedures I have to go through, it's really funny when I look back to realize how minute all of it are and there reall was no point worrying about it. Anyway, graduation's really just a ceremonial thing. During the whole event, I couldn't help but think wow, this is such a social convention, like every single little detail is. You don't actually have to go through the whole award giving ceremony to get the certificate, you've already earned the certificate, but because society dictates that you put on your graduation robes and mortar board, you go through it. 

So far, I've achieved all of my goals that I've set for myself, and god, it feels so good. Every late night, every class, every assignment, every exam, it has finally paid off. Due to a tiny little blunder in my first semester, I never thought that it would be possible for me to get First Class, but yeah, I really made it. I could still remember that particular moment when I was about to check my final CGPA, and how crazily overjoyed I was when I realised it was First Class! And what comes with it is my supervisor's recognition and my family's too. My tertiary education is gonna be free! If it all works out with PTPTN, that is. 

My university life had been amazing, I wouldn't change any part of it. I loved what I studied, I loved the people I've met, and most of all, I loved the places I've been. Many people would think it's a weird degree, or a weird place to be in, but nobody knows what it feels like to have felt so much passion to know the cultures and the social issues and to be able to write about it, it has really shaped me into who I am today. I could only hope that all these knowledge I've gained could be put to good use in the future. There were a lot of tears, but there were even more laughter than I remembered and I believe come what may, but I've grown even stronger than ever. I've gained a lot, but I've also lost a lot, and all of these bittersweet memories will be forever embedded in my heart.

As I embark on this journey called life, hahaha, I'm afraid and excited at the same time of what is to come. Having secured a job so quickly had been a great blessing and I know I have my lucky stars to thank. It was a roller coaster ride, and it's been one helluva ride. 

To greater tomorrows, :)



KL Trip.

To Travel.
So the past few days I was in KL, I have a week off from my internship cuz my colleagues are off in Maldives having the time of their lives. Haha, so I was forced to take the week off anyway. It feels kinda good to have a break, kinda like when we were studying and we had these mid-semester breaks. I decided to go visit my bro's new crib since I haven't been there and also meet some of my friends there, just really chill without any plan really. My bro's place was really nice, it's small, cosy, and it was decorated really nicely. The way he utilized the limited space he had made everything seemed very neat. I stayed at his place for 5 days, and in that 5 days, with his place being a bachelor's pad and all, I had to make some girly sacrifices. For one, I had no hairdryer for all 5 days. I use the hairdryer everyday but he had none, so yeah. Next, I used men's Head & Shoulders shampoo everyday. Yay! Last but not least, I had not conditioner for my hair too! WEEE. Thank goodness my hair's pretty easy to manage, and it does feel a little dry at the end of 5 days, but there wasn't much difference. :D 

Photo credits: My brother.
My brother brought me to watch live wrestling, it's Malaysia's Prowrestling. The experience was pretty surreal I would say. I've watched WWE before, when I was like 6 or so, but that phase of my life is long over. But my brother, he has always loved wrestling and it was nice of him to share his interests with me. Out of the 5 days I was there, 3 out of 5 days were about wrestling. Lol, it's okay cuz I enjoyed the whole drama and hype on it. Got to meet a few wrestlers and I felt sooooo cool, but I was really trying hard to fit in cuz I had no idea who these people are. XD

Fiery hot female wrestler, Scarlet!

Singaporean wrestler, Andruew Tang going "YEAHH!".

Here's all the people I met, most of them are Penang people lol. But okay lah, who else am I gonna meet right? They're all my close friends, and since I don't have a car and had no sense of direction, it all worked out pretty well. :D People kept asking me like, "What are you doing here?" And I'm like, "Well, nothing, actually. Just meeting some friends and buggin' my bro." I didn't really have a purpose, I was open to doing anything at all, and it was just a pleasant trip away from home.
At Jibby & Co. Nice Basil pesto! I think I'm gonna try to make it.

At Inside Scoop with the girls.

Our date at Nando's, with one big lamppost, my brother, cuz he's my driver. XD

That's all there is to it, some good food, family, and close friends. It's kinda weird writing this post, actually cuz I haven't been writing this kind of posts in awhile. Maybe I should do something like that, to remember. Kinda dreading the following week cuz it's back to the grind. Zzzz.

Ciao, bro!


First Day.

To Disclose.
As the title states, it was my first day at Piktochart. And damn, it has such an interesting working culture. It's different, it's new, it's surreal. LOL. Even though it's my first real job, but I know that it's different from other corporate jobs out there, because there's just so much freedom in the office. Okay maybe it's too early to judge, because I barely had any work to do, but the first thing that I noticed was that the company had a very open concept; there was no partition between tables. Everybody was so friendly and welcoming that it made it easy for me to go around and talk to people. Oh right, that's my only task for the whole day - talk to every single person in the office. Thankfully, half of the office were on leave, so actually I only spoke to half of the office people, but it was still so tiring cuz I'm constantly listening and talking and listening and talking,. At one point I'm nodding and giving appropriate responses where needed but my thoughts have already drifted far, far away. Hopefully I did manage to capture some bits and pieces of their stories.

The meetings they had were actually on bean bags! It was really cool. Presentation-based meetings to get everybody up to speed on what different departments are working on and I felt swag sitting on those beanbags. Hahah. Shortly after lunch, Laura, my mentor, I guess I'm gonna call her that cuz she'll be teaching me everything there is to know about UX research and it was pretty overwhelming hearing so many different terms and different ways of thinking and understanding all this new user behavior stuff, but she tells me not to feel too overwhelmed as it takes time to really understand what the heck is going on. So anyway more tasks and more explanations will be done tomorrow, cuz she's really scared I had too much to absorb. I'm a little scared but also looking forward to learning new things. Today I was really drained from talking to so many new people in one day but yeah I believe it will all get better soon. 

It felt good, how I could relate much of what I learnt in AIESEC's working culture to Piktochart's working culture. I was so inspired that I did a little sharing to my fellow AIESECers in hopes that they will learn as much as they could right now, because really, you never know when it may come in handy. That's the thing about life; there will never be a point in your life to say that "I have learnt enough", because learning never stops. There will always be countless amount of books to read, wise people to listen to and then there's also Google which makes learning that much easier. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, but at the same time, I'm nervous too. Hopefully I'll be updating my blog more often along the way and also take more pictures. =)

Piktochart.

To Babble.
I've been meaning to blog for a while now, but I just couldn't find the time to. The past few weeks were really crazy times, and it's amazing to look back and realize that it hasn't even been half of the semester yet. I honestly could not remember when was the last time I felt like, Phew! I can finally take a breather! Finally, yesterday I finished an assignment that was due today, and I felt such relief. Even then, I could say that I did not give my all for my final year project - it was left unfinished because I could not bear squeezing out another word out anymore. My brain capacity must have shrunk from all the heavy thinking I have been doing, or maybe it expanded? Hahaha. Seriously, I was at my limit of writing creatively. Even this post sounds crappy because I'm just writing whatever comes to my head right now.

There's still a lot on my plate, but I guess I could take a little break right now. I have utterly zero mood  to do any academic work right now, I was even trying to force myself to do one of the assignments for one or two hours earlier, but guess what? I didn't manage to even come up with one sentence. At times, you think you're superwoman, you can do everything in a disciplined manner; constantly and without stopping. But sometimes, we need to realize that we are not machines, we are not meant to work, work, work without stopping. We have emotional and social needs that need to be attended to too. I could tell you that I was on the verge of breaking, especially when I had that feud with my boyfriend, but yeah, I made it without breaking anybody's hearts (I hope). Though I did snap at a few of my friends when I felt on the edge. Sorry, guys.

Riiiighttt, back to the whole point of this post, I have some pretty exciting news that I was ecstatic to share two weeks ago. Drumroll please? Jeng jeng jeng! I got my internship at Piktochart! Weeeeehooooooooooooo! Finally this whole internship thing is settled, all that's left is just some formalities and I'm all set to start my internship! :D The whole application-test-interview process lasted for about two weeks, and it was in the midst of all my assignments and final year project, and yeah that's one of the reasons why I was so worn out too. But it's all worth it when I got accepted into their internship programme and right now I'm so excited to start! Although it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but it's a totally new field for me to indulge in and I'm already excited as to how much exposure I'll be getting. Check them out if you haven't already heard of them! Click here, it's free to use. =)


I've really gotta thank everyone around me - my family, my boyfriend, my friends - for supporting me at such stressful times. Initially, I was not too sure if I was capable enough for this internship because it's a UX Researcher intern, and I've never even heard about User Experience (UX) before. My boyfriend pushed me to apply, and to go through with the test, so yeah. I remember beaming with pride when my parents congratulated me and told me how proud they were. =) Nothing beats family love. Not forgetting my brother's FTS when he found out how much my internship pay was. Also, my boyfriend's unsupportive speech about how now I have to pay for everything he spends. Ahahah. Such love.

Voluntourism.

To Disclose.
Today, one of my friends brought up a really interesting topic for her presentation; Voluntourism. I thought her presentation was amazing because it brought up a lot of points that I have thought of but which I had never really dwelled upon. Personally, it was very relatable to me because of my exchange experience via AIESEC. Her whole presentation was basically slapping AIESEC in the face ten times over. Lol. Needless to say, I was very excited throughout her whole presentation. Nodding my head and pumping my fists up in agreement to each point she threw at us. But I know my friend could relate to it too because she was also one of the volunteers that went for an AIESEC exchange. She did not share about AIESEC during her presentation, although I expected her to. I think it was a good choice that she did not, but presenting voluntourism as a whole was a really interesting take on her part.



Voluntourism is basically made up of two words;

Volunteer + Tourism = Voluntourism.

I have never heard of this word before but without a doubt, AIESEC is Voluntourism and I understand this whole concept completely. It involves people from all over the world to take part in a "community project" or "social work" for a summer break or something and then you go back to your life feeling like you've changed the world. Truth to be told, before I went for my exchange, I didn't expect that I'm going to change the world. I mean, come on, it's living six weeks abroad, how much change could I have done? Once I leave the place, the impact I left would have disappeared together with me. True enough, I didn't feel like I made any difference after my exchange experience, which made me feel even more skeptical about AIESEC than I already am. That's also why I changed my department to Talent Management instead of the sales team I was in. I didn't feel like I could keep persuading people to join something I did not believe in.

One of the selling points of AIESEC that I am always reminded by my seniors to use is, "Travel with A Purpose". I always thought that, wow, yeah, that really makes sense. If I were to just travel around sightseeing, I may not even enjoy it all that much. Volunteering somewhere would make it feel more meaningful, more stories to tell your friends. AHAHA. Okay but when I went for my exchange I didn't think about all this alright. I came back and read up more on voluntourism because I am interested in what it really is and what people has to say about it. They found that most voluntourists are women and young adults aged from 20 to 25 years old. It feels like these altruists are really doing something to give back to the community, and maybe this is really the only way they can, but perhaps doing it at your hometown would also bring as much, or even more significance to the community.

Voluntourism is also more popular amongst the Western society to travel to Asian countries to volunteer, some sort of Western imperialism that would make us Asians feel like, "Wow, there are these white people coming over to help us." Haha, let me testify for that. When I was at my exchange, all the Vietnamese students were so amazed by these ang mohs and did not give a shit about me because I looked local and Asian. Sigh, seriously.. I'm more interesting than them lah okay. Haha but anyway yeah, I think it does make them feel even more narcissistic about themselves. I think that's the perfect word to describe this whole voluntourism thing.

Especially in our Instagrammable culture, they just take pictures with these Asian kids to show that they are doing something, but in truth, they did not do much, they did not even carry out the workshops at my project. While it all looks like a bed of roses on their social media, nobody truly knows what they did at their project. Sigh okay, I need to stop bashing ang mohs, but seriously, it applies to everyone in general actually. Even I felt a sense of pride in going to Vietnam to volunteer, but I knew it was more of my own personal development than creating any sort of impact to my students.

I'd like to end this post with a paragraph I read somewhere about #InstagrammingAfrica.

On these trips, we hide behind the lens, consuming the world around us with our powerful gazes and the clicking of camera shutters. When I directed this photo opportunity and starred in it, I used my privilege to capture a photograph that made me feel as though I was engaging with the community. Only now do I realize that what I was actually doing was making myself the hero/star in a story about “suffering Africa.”

Think your travel trips through before going for volunteering abroad, and remember, creating an impact should always be about the people, not ourselves. =)

Why do I jog?

To Babble.
The past few days had been really taxing on me. I had a lot of tasks at hand and even though I was really, really as productive as my mind allowed, I still am not ticking off my tasks because these tasks need a lot of time and comprehension to complete. Ugh, I was feeling too over productive to the point that I just wanna give up some of it, like, you can't have the best of both worlds right? Sigh, but my stupid consciousness at the back of my mind nagged at me constantly, 

Are you sure you won't regret this decision? 

Seriously, this is what I ask myself all the time when I am at crossroads. It's the perfect question for me to decide on anything, and I am constantly striving to be better, to learn new things. Today I'd like to share on why I choose to jog whenever I have the time. Of course, sometimes my lazy worms get the best of me, but since I did jog today, I'd like to share on how it made me feel. This may also be my first ever "lists" post, someone had once told me that people like to read lists and my posts are always really messy and disorganized, so this may actually make it look organized for once.

1. It clears my head.

At times like this, it really helps me to clear my head. Just earlier today I was seated at the study table for the whole day typing away and cracking my head to come up with something to write. It gave me a splitting headache and I felt so miserable that I still had so much work to do. Getting out for a jog just gave me the break I needed, and I needed something different, not even watching TV shows could cheer me up. After the jog I felt really good that I look forward to continuing my work. It's a miracle, isn't it?

2. It allows me to appreciate the little things I overlook everyday.

Without noticing, there is this whole world around us that we always overlook because we were either too busy tapping away on our phones or taking for granted our mundane everyday life. Let me tell you, where I am, Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, it has most beautiful skies ever - those that you only really see in movies. There are no high rise buildings, so the scenery is simply breathtaking and I am grateful for being here everyday.

3. It helps me focus.

Actually, I think this is an elaboration on my first point, but honestly, I'm running out of things to write. The rhythmic tap, tap, tap, of my sneakers just helps me focus and also my concentration on breathing helps me to focus on completing my run, and not let my mind run wild or overthink my worries. It's really just one of the best feelings ever, being able to focus on one thing instead of thinking about everything else. 

 4. It helps me to feel and be healthier.

Okay, I'm not typically those girls that go on diet or restrain from eating because I don't really gain much weight and stuff. So the reason for my jogs are really so that I am healthier. I have the worst stamina, because being the nerd I am for my entire life, I don't do much sports. I think gaining some stamina at this point of my life would be really good because then I wouldn't tire so easily and I'm able to do more, see more things if I travel and stuff. :D


Trip to Bau, Sarawak.

To Travel.

I didn't think that we'd actually go through with this trip, but it actually happened, and it was veryyyyy fun. Heheheh. It all started last semester when my lecturer wanted to bring us to a kampung stay, and he said that it's really nice and relaxing and it's perfect for a chilling place. Of course, we were excited for it, so after he threw in his plans we went for it! In the midst of all the assignments and classes, it was just perfect for a weekend away. I don't know why I already feel like a mountain's on my shoulders but it's only been the second week of classes. 


This is what I had for breakfast, Lei Cha, at Ming Ming Foodcourt. I've never heard of it before and that gross-looking green thing is actually some sort of mint soup. Really healthy stuff and even though most of my friends didn't like it, it's actually not bad to me. The crunchiness of the nuts added to the mushiness of the vege makes a pretty interesting blend.


Our first stop is at Bung Jagoi where we hiked for about 2 hours or so. For me it was damn tiring and I'm not someone that likes to hike, but I think it was quite easy for some of my friends. There's even like a "boss" level where it's just a looooooooooooong never ending stretch of steps that almost killed me. My legs feel like jelly after the hike. 



It was a very beautiful place to hike. It's kinda secluded, there was not even a signboard indicating that we've reached a hiking place. Even though I'm not someone who typically likes to hike, I really enjoyed it because I was simply taking in my surroundings, there was nothing much like a spectacular view or amazing flora and fauna, but it is simply being together with friends and appreciating nature at its best that I love most. Plus, the weather was really good, which is another thing that I was grateful for.




The peak of the hike was this little village that had a few kampung houses but no tenants. It was really weird. All that's left of the place is one aunty that lives alone in her house and house and she takes care of the place and serves tourists if any drop by. She says she live a pretty lonely life, and is really grateful for some company. Sometimes we feel that we are imposing on people's lives because when we visit she may feel obliged to serve us tea and snacks, but actually, I think she was really happy we dropped by.

"At times I felt like I may be going crazy because I was alone for so long and I had nobody to talk to."

We had a little chitchat with the aunty and she shared with us some stories about her daily life. I strained to understand her strongly accented Malay, and I managed to understand most of it. When I looked around at how the aunty lives such a simple life, I reflected on my own and how I need to have so many things to survive. This is really simplicity at its best and it's these kind of journeys that reminds you to be grateful with what you have.


This is where we stayed at Kampung Tringgus, it's a homestay located after the 'real' kampung and we had the entire place to ourselves. There's no electricity, but there's a toilet, so it was not too bad. There's also no reception so it's really like a retreat, back-to-nature kind. We even had to start our own fire to barbecue the food and damnnn I haven't done that in such a long time. It's really cool cause everything's so basic you face a lot of challenges in doing the simplest things like how it's pitch black at night so we need help with holding the torchlight or else we literally couldn't see anything.



Thanks for an awesome trip! <3

'

Look around.

To Babble.
It's kinda the raining season here in Kuching, Sarawak. I love the fact that fluffy clouds are my shade when I cycle home from uni, but I also dislike the fact that when it rains really heavily, I'm really helpless because I have no car here. I just spent about half an hour just now walking back in really heavy rain, like literally those cats and dogs are falling kind. I just dinner with my housemates and it was a 10-minute walk back home. Halfway through our meal, it started pouring really heavily, but I wasn't worried at all, because I wasn't alone, and it's just rain. How much damage can getting soaked do to me, really?

Sometimes in life, there needs to be something significant, life-changing or bombastic to be memorable, but I think we need to step out of that whole ideal of how we need something drastic to feel alive. I've always been that kind of person, actually. Always needing something really exciting or something different to remember, to make me feel whole. I don't know how or when this started, but I've been this way for a while now. And this kind of attitude won't get me far, especially when I'm in a long-distanced 6-year long relationship. Of course, there is always this tick-the-box livelihood that symbolizes or accomplishments in life, but that shouldn't be so. It isn't fair for anyone at all. What we really need is to look at the simplest things in life and appreciate what we have.

"Look around you. In a year, nothing would be the same."

So anyway, back to how I was walking home from dinner, there were 4 of us, holding on to our umbrellas for our dear lives, but even though each of us had a personal umbrella, we were still drenched wait because it was too windy. The streets drowned in a layer of water while the drains threatened to overflow. My feet were in the water the whole way through as we waded through the streets, singing "It's Raining Men". And in that moment, I looked at the faces of my friends, and I know that I will remember this forever. It sounds so cliche, but it is true. When I leave this place, I want to remember everything I experienced here; the people I meet, the places I've been, the hardships I've faced, it all made me who I am today. 

Happy 6th Year Anniversary!

To Remember.
Six years. 
It seems like a long time, but honestly, it's not. When I tell people the length of my relationship, they'd be like WAO how did you guys manage that? WOW that's long! WOW WOW and WOW. For me, It's not something to brag about. In every relationship, there's ups and downs. And in mine, there was plenty. We even broke up before, but we got back together. It's not about the length of the relationship, really, cuz I've never felt like it's been six years. Sometimes it feels like we just started, sometimes it feels like he's always been in my life, and I can't imagine otherwise, but.. it's always how two people are willing to compromise to be with each other. I guess when it feels right, you'd fight for this one thing that you want with all your might. It feels like that to me. I may not know what the future holds, but it's nice to take things one at a time. 

I think one of the best feelings in life is knowing that somebody else feels the same way about you. I don't mean it in a boyfriend-girlfriend way, but even with your friends and family. When you know that that person cares about you just as much as you care about them, don't let go of that feeling, fight for it to keep that person in your life. Do small things, little things that would make them happy. At least for me, when the people I care about feels happy, it makes me the happiest. =) Be grateful for every single day in your life because you never know just when something would change.

Change is inevitable, and I'm one of those people who really hates change. It's like my greatest fear ever; change. Being in a place that is unfamiliar, insecurities creep in and it just beats you down when you are at your lowest. But this is life. Nobody can run away from change because mankind's greatest enemy is time. I've gained and lost many friends along the way, and it's really sad, but that's just how things are when we grow up. You learn to value friendship in a different manner and you learn to choose your battles because you know not every battle is worth fighting for. 

I'm grateful for the people around me, and I'm grateful to have my boyfriend, my best friend, cuz I know he'll always stick around for me. This picture pretty much sums up our relationship, not in the gender perspective, but how we are always goofing around. =)


Happy 58th, Malaysia.

To Remember.
Yesterday, my country turned 58 years old. It feels different this year. The dawn of the new era of technology and internet has made things more transparent and everything has to be disclosed to the public. Younger generations are said to be more patriotic compared to the older generations and at least right now, many of them are participating in the nationwide rally, Bersih 4.0. On a side note here, I have never understood politics well. I'm not someone that reads the newspapers a lot or care about Malaysian politics a lot. Sure, I know who's the Prime Minister, and yeah, I know my state's Chief Minister, but really, that's about it. There's too much going on in Malaysian politics for me to care. Besides, I've always been a fiction book reader. Times have changed, though, when I took up Anthropology and Sociology as my major. I had to read up on a lot of these general knowledge, or else I'd be lost in class.


To be honest, I'm not sure what Malaysia's up to. There has been news that says Malaysia is ruled by a dictator rather than democracy. I kinda agree with that. Yes, the law says that we are a democratic country and it's the rule of the people. Our constitution states that we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Yet, the people are restricted in many ways, now more than ever. At times, I feel that Malaysian news had a comedic side to it. The things they do, sometimes, really cracks me up, that's how ridiculous it is. As part of the younger generation, it really disappoints me as to how our leaders are doing their job. I'm not sure they even have the interests of the people at heart. Is this how future leadership is going to be like? Each race for its own? Human nature is dominated by greed, but what about empathy? Selflessness?  Unity? Maybe those words carry no meaning anymore. Lest they be forgotten, that it was unity that brought our nation together.

Bersih 4.0 was a desperate cry from the people for a better nation, in which they demand for four things :

  1. Clean elections.
  2. Clean governments.
  3. Save our economy.
  4. Right to dissent.
This has never happened in Malaysia; the biggest rally ever regardless of skin, sex, age, status, everybody just comes together peacefully to make their stand. Why can't our leaders hear our voices?For the past years, the Bersih rally has focused on electoral reforms, but this year, the people has specifically called for the resignation of Prime Minister Najib bin Razak. Regardless of the persistent bans and illegal accusations, tens of thousands turned up at Dataran Merdeka for the peaceful protests. Those who could not make it back home, had their own rally in their respective countries and it showed, it really showed how much the people want a change. 
So, Malaysia, are you ready for GE14?

Vietnam : I'm back!

To Travel.


I've been back in Malaysia for technically.. 1 week? But, I was in Thailand for a few days, so I don't know how to count the days that I actually am back in Malaysia. I'll talk about Thailand in a bit. =) Anyway, I'm back! That's it! My whole AIESEC exchange journey is over and I've left lots of memories in Vietnam and I've also learnt so many new things. =) I can honestly say that I'm really grateful to be back, because I was with my family and also, I get to see my boyfriend! But on the other hand, I miss the life, the people, the food in Vietnam and I do wonder when we will see each other again. =/ This picture that I've shared is taken when I'm about to leave Vietnam, it's the last picture I took in Ho Chi Minh City.  When my friends sent me off in Vietnam, some of them were crying, but I didn't. =x I don't know why I didn't. Is it because I don't feel as close to them as I'm supposed to? Ah, maybe. I'm honestly not sure. But there's also a part of me that really hates crying in public so I only cry in public when I can't hold it in anymore. I've been meaning to write this post for a while now, but was super duper busy the past few days, so it's delayed.

The first thing that I noticed when I touched down in KLIA was that, I understood the language that I hear. It was so torturing in Vietnam that I totally do not get what people are saying around me. And being constantly exposed to Vietnamese and French language, it was really giving me a headache. When I reached KLIA, there were many languages spoken around me; Malay, Mandarin, Hokkien, English, Cantonese, but I'm proud to say that I understood them all. It really feels good to be in my native land. =) And the currency, YAY! back to MYR so I don't have to do the conversion in my head to gauge how expensive something is. That felt really good too! =) 

In my whole exchange journey, there was a lot of ups and downs, but the one thing I regret about, the thing that I felt like I could do better, is to give more effort in the project I was in. I'm always like this, not giving all I can to push for something better. If somebody else is capable of doing it, by all means, do it. I didn't push for much change, or even if I could see fault in some things, I let it slide, because I could feel my laziness creeping up on me. My brain just wants to take a break, and I did not want to take up much responsibilities. I'm constantly hearing the phrase, "I know you can do much better." But when am I ever going to take action to "do much better?"

Vietnam : Mekong Delta

To Travel.

Being able to meet up with Melvin and Eng Jee in Vietnam was cool, as to how I also met two of my other coursemates; Yee Huang & Jia Pei! After much deliberation, I decided to go for this 2 days 1 night trip to Mekong Delta! :D It was honestly way better than my expectation because I've heard from my friends that there wasn't much to the tour and I might be wasting my money. But I still really wanna visit Mekong Delta, so.. For this tour, I managed to find a really affordable one which is only 500,000 VND  including tours, entrance fees, hotel and bus. What a steal! I really liked the tour and it was led by Jimmy, a 33-year old man with high spirits. It was really nice to see the countryside of Vietnam and also the numerous boat rides that I did not expect. Everything was amazing and I'm so glad I went for this tour.

Day 1:

1. Vietnamese traditional music. 
Which sounds pretty much like the Chinese one. 


2. Boat Ride. 
I'm telling you, this place is amazing for pictures!!! :D :D :D





3. Horseback Riding.

4. Free Lunch at Floating Restaurant.


5. Bee Farm, but I didn't take any pictures with the bees. XD



It feels like the perfect day to be out for the tour, because the skies were amazing. Vietnamese weather is a little unpredictable but these two days, the skies were really clear and blue, and it only rained once for a short while, so it was perfect!

6. Free time. Which we utilized to walk around Can Tho at the night market. We tried a lot of street food and it was really fun! :D





Day 2.

1. Floating Market.





Again, amazing pictures to be taken here. <3






2. Rice Paper Making Factory.





And that wraps up my Mekong Delta trip! =)
And we are all stories, in the end.