The Sun is Setting on First Year

 In the blink of an eye a year has nearly gone by. This afternoon I ordered packing materials to pack my stuff away to move out of my residence hall. It's odd - this hall that I often can't wait to be rid off (it's a shared toilet accom, if you wanted a mental picture) has me sad that I'm leaving it. I catch myself longingly looking out my window that beholds the dumpster behind our hall, along with the music school next to it, wondering where all the time went. Just last week, someone was playing Glimpse of Us on the piano in the music school. I'll miss it. 

A certain fear seems to creep up on me - it's like I've gone forward into the future and seen myself leaving in my third year, and the thought overwhelms me. There is so much I can do with my youth, and I almost tell myself that I should travel every day, that every day I sit lounging in my room is a day I could've spent in some isolated part of Wales hiking, or sitting by the beach, or adventuring generally. My wallet would beg to differ, and so would the exam I have 2 weeks from now. 

I can't believe it really, that the Sun is setting on my first year as a university undergraduate. My friends and I often talk about it and we often can't believe our luck in finding each other, and in surviving a whole year away from home. It's funny too, to miss home yet to not want to leave the life I am living here. It's a dilemma. I'm not sure what home has for me anymore, or if the life I lead here is only so rosily tainted because I am not in full responsibility of my well-being here just yet, and is made sweeter by the fact that I am here with a definite purpose for the next 3 years - will life still look as rosy when I'm out of the academic world, and looking for my next purpose?

I actually think it would. 

5 months!

 Leaves turned yellow then brown then fell, dry and crushed, only to be dampened by winter's rain and cold and the one-time snow. I blink and suddenly I realize I've been here for nearly 5 months. The person I was earlier in the term wouldn't believe this, because she'd still be bleary eyed from crying and battling the seemingly obligatory fever she gets whenever she's put in a new environment. Sucks, but it did create a bonding moment with some flatmates. 

Exam season is here!!! I have one more paper on Monday, and yet here I am, writing. I've had an itch to write and listen to songs and write again all day. I guess that is a good thing, but when compared with the fact that I still have some revision to do before this Monday's paper, perhaps I'd better get on that instead. 

I'm still finding my way around what this blog should be about. I write what is closest to me in my personal journal - a white book that about bursting at its seams now because of the things I stuff into it. Perhaps every entry I type out in here should be labelled brain dump. So far that's what it's seemed to be. 

I've seen a lot of seagulls here Iman, as you must know. Maybe it was just a coincidence that we saw so many crows last you were here. I'm winning now. I wonder if you read this page often, or even at all. 

A thought has been plaguing my mind recently - I've been getting a lot of Islamophobic content on my socials lately, and it's been disturbing as I'm a Muslim myself. Seeing people spew hate and believe Islam and its people are violent quite honestly shakes me to my core, and makes me scared. In fact, I've been wary around my friends, in self-conscious fear that that is what they actually think of me, when the bigger part of me is certain that they know better than to assume that of me. I dig this fear deeper into myself by looking up statistics of hate crimes, of people actually admitting to hold prejudices against Muslims, and I just end up even more scared. Can one say that this is just part and parcel of being in a foreign country, where you're the minority?

Sigh. I'd best shower and go to bed soon. That will put these thoughts to rest. 

Brain Dump :P

 Check out my Anak Perantauan Playlist if you haven't!!! That is such a cool blogger feature by the way hats off to you, Blogger. 

I'm actually not very sure what I want this blog to be about, and have refrained writing in here because I've realized whenever I wrote about how things felt like they were going good, I'd feel terrible the next day lol. So I think I'll keep those pieces of sentiment to myself. But then what am I to write if not about how bewildering all this feels sometimes?

Cardiff has been transitioning into winter with mist all around for the last two days, and with it has come the Christmas decorations!! Just a week or two ago Halloween ornaments lined the shop shelves and my friends and I were out in town excitedly looking for Halloween accessories for our little residence event. Now I find myself coming back with a chill and with assignment after assignment to chase, not to mention the lectures to catch up on. Did I mention first year undergrad psych students don't get reading week but nearly every other first year does? Insane! Have you seen the reading we've had to do? You'd think we were researchers instead of first years. 

Alongside the whirlwind of work and weather there's been the issue of housing my friends and I have had to settle. We just got here!!!!! (It's been a month). House hunting has been quite the trip. We're all a bit spoilt by our current halls of residence that is an unbeatable 3 minutes away from our lectures, literally just across the road. But quite honestly I've walked more than I've ever had in the month I've been here - so maybe a house 10-15 minutes away won't be so bad. 

Christmas lights and festivities get into full swing November 14th and I can't wait!! Halloween was such a vibe, and even then I thought it was being treated as the generic second sibling (if my brother is reading I DO NOT mean you bro), hence I can't imagine how Christmas will be like. Mariah Carey is already unfrosting amongst my friends who are constantly singing her infamous Christmas song. 

Toodles! 

Going into Week 2

 So much rage in that last post!!!!! Lol. I'm not sorry for my rage, but I am sorry for the girl who felt that way. It was just 3 days ago, and yet so much has changed about how I feel, and yet I can still feel those fears lingering, albeit they are weaker now. 

I can't say exactly what has aided in this transition, but things definitely feel better now, if not by much then a little at least. I wake up wanting to see my flat mates, and I enjoy the warmth of their company more ravishingly now. This morning we shared a communal alarm clock - the half marathon outside our windows. 

We were awoken by the loud cheering and music outside of our hall. What luck on a Sunday morning! 

We joined in on the cheering, and even pulled chairs to huddle by the window. I smile at this memory - definitely a small memory I'll look back on fondly one day. 

There were even a group of runners in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costumes!!!! How cute!!!!!! We kept an eye out for more festive runners, and managed to even spot one wearing a Snoopy costume, and another - though I didn't see them and heard this from a friend - was wearing a tiger costume. 

The weekend has been fun aside from the sight of runners. Yesterday I went for the Malaysian Society's Give it a Go frisbee. Didn't really play much in highschool but I played enough to know that I liked the sport, and knew that I wanted to pursue it here in Cardiff once I got here. It was a sunny day in Bute Park, adding to the joy of it all. My legs still ache like I just did splits the whole day - but every time they do ache, they remind me of the joys from the day before :)

Sunny day in Bute Park!

Frisbeeeeeee!!!!

                                     

At home, I was never really much of a cook. I always felt intimidated by the thought of cooking up a meal, so whenever I did cook a meal for my family I'd decide to take a break and never do it again. But I find cooking to be very therapeutic here, and find myself doing it for almost every day of the week.  Today I made tomyam and rice and telur dadar for lunch, my monthly craving. It was good!! And my roommate ascertained me of it - she took 3 helpings for herself when I offered! Never knew I was that good of a cook guys. 

my lunch today :) 

All in all, it's been a good weekend alhamdulillah. Not to say I won't feel those negative feelings again, though I hope I won't, but if I do I hope I recognize that they're temporary and normal, because living in a foreign land is no easy feat; that alone should be rewarded with a clap on the back. For all the anak perantauans out there, I see you, I feel you, and I hug you virtually. We're living our dreams, guys! That pain we're feeling? A mixed package deal with our dreams. The only way out is through, my loves. 

Here's to spooky season babes!!! Have a great week :) 

The 1 Week Mark

 I haven't journaled in a month. It scares me. I used to journal all the time. Now whenever I look at my journal and the stationery I have for it I wonder how what to write about, and find that there is nothing in me I can dig up to write about. I feel myself slowly slipping away, shedding off this colourful skin I'd grown over the course of the last year and a half in my festivity. I long for those days. I long for me to come home. 

This Saturday will mark my 1 week of living in my uni halls of residence. It's a shared toilet and pantry flat. I can't tell what makes me hate this all even more - the shared toilet and kitchen that occasionally has their own drama, or the fact that I find myself a little lost without a hand to hold, that I feel like I've been left in the forest to fend for my own, only given a bloody night lamp to trot about with, no weapons. I look at my lecture slides and feel an immense desire to sleep away the next 3 years. 

Ungratefully, I wonder if this is where I should be at all. I recall my journal entry upon entering Taylor's, and being so sure then that it had been the right choice to be in Taylor's, and that that really was my home - and it turned out to be true. A year and a half flew by and I spent it being my favourite version of me. 

Now here I am in a foreign land, questioning my every being and wanting to scream at someone. I don't know. I just don't. I wish future me were here to grab me by the shoulders and tell me what needs to be done, whether I should go back or stick out the storm a little longer because the relief is soon coming. But the facts are clear; I haven't journaled in a month, haven't felt like I've had anything positive to write about in a month, other than the fact that I'm trying out my dream of living abroad, but even then I can't seem to cheer over it as much. 

Childishly put - I just want a friend. Someone to depend on, someone to feel depended on. 

mic test, 1, 2, 3...

 It's 11:45PM Malaysian time, and I've created this blog on a whim. It's 9 days before my flight (8, in 14 minutes now). I have not packed. 

All I've done is cry these last few days. This is the sentence that has been on the forefront of my mind. A banal statement. A brag perhaps, though there is little about it to brag about. Like a bride on her wedding day, I'm getting cold feet - is this right? Should I have opted for a different programme? A different way to study abroad? No, I tell myself every time those thoughts resurface, because the tickets have been bought, I've (my parents have) paid thousands for my visa, and it's no time to chicken out, frankly. 

I cry over my own thoughts rather than the realities I see before me. They say to make my mind a pretty place to live in because I spend most of my time in it - a challenge I consistently lose at. Eldest daughter guilt is real. Tiktoks about the reality of my parents aging fight to find me in my weakest hours. My sister likes to covertly remind me about how much she'll miss me. I have not finished watching Derry Girls with my brother. And yet here I am, on a one way ticket to the UK, on the precipice of being away for 3 years minimum.

On my better days, I think about the life I will lead - the journeys I will take, the opportunities that will present themselves to me, the ones I will grab by their balls, and most of all deep down, how much I've wanted all this - the chance to study abroad, to see the world for more than just within my country. 

A little sad to think about how the bad thoughts have been plaguing my mind more than the good ones recently, and I think I'm starting to understand what my dad said about filtering the thoughts I should harbour with the ones I shouldn't in these days leading up to my departure. Perhaps I should think about the memories I will create, the dreams I shall fulfill and create even further, and the adventures I will embark upon. 

How has this been for a mic test?

This blog will serve as my online and public journal. To find inner peace and regulate my thoughts on days like these - in hopes I lessen my tears. Or, if they persist, to make sense of them, and console myself. 

And to you, fellow anak perantauan, should you come across my page - things start out hard and difficult in most great journeys. Is the Sun waiting for us on the other side? I suppose so. Take my hand - let's see.