Showing posts with label Thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thoughts. Show all posts

About Studying Abroad

I thought I could just make this post into my #2 post but I have decided that since I am free, I might as well spend my time into writing this post about studying abroad.

 I have been studying abroad for almost two years now, although it is not too far away in the global sense, it is far enough in the sense that it is a hassle to go home frequent. Ever since I started high school, I have had the dream of studying abroad to countries that I have never been to, although my only study-abroad destination back then was only Japan.

 In the end, I realised my dream of studying abroad and it was nothing really like what I have expected - getting to know many foreign students and having fun studying and enjoying a picturesque life, nothing like that. I have been in the comfort of my home ever since I am born, I do not have to think about food, money, daily routines and stuff, everything is scheduled properly for me and I only had to follow it and everything would go just fine.

 Ever since I came to study in Taiwan, I have been battling with many anxieties that I have since this island nation has (almost) everything that defied my expectations - it's not as clean as I thought it is, people here are not as friendly as I thought it is, food here is not as friendly as I thought it is, it is not as developed as I thought it is. Sure, some may beg to differ or even dispute what I am saying here, but this is purely my own feelings about this country and it doesn't and shouldn't matter to anyone else, especially those taking offence for it.

 Point is, I was so anxious about everything that defied my expectations and I had some hard time trying to make myself used to the new environment there, luckily I had some mental support and over time, I was able to get used to it and be more independent in facing many problems here and stuff. 

Being Homesick

This is the thing that I have really not expected. I have never thought that I am a person that can feel homesick since I haven't been exactly a family-centric kind of person, or so I thought. I remember myself leaving the bus terminal in Ipoh with my grandma sending me away, I'd always remember how she looked sad to send me away with tears in her eyes. For all my life, my grandma has been a very strong person and I have seen her cried once when my grandpa passed away more than 17 years ago and that was the only time. The second time was at the moment she sent me away. I knew if I'd ever felt homesick, it will be because of my grandma.

The first two months of me in Taiwan went well because it felt more like a vacation for me since everything is new and I am still trying to adapting to many different new things in that new environment. 

The first time I felt homesick was on my grandma's birthday on 11th November that year. I was in Taiwan, I couldn't be with her and thought of her feeling lonely over there back in Malaysia. I thought of how much shorter and weaker she had become over the years. Grandma is getting old. 

It hurts when I had that thought in my mind and I wanted to spend some time with her, caring for her and have a good dinner with her to make her happy that night but distance made it impossible for me to do so. It was hurting to think that I might not have a lot of time left to spend with her because let's be honest, she is getting old. That day I knew, that I might be a little family-centric after all.

I went back to Malaysia for the first time in May 2018 since I went to Taiwan, it was for the election, so I had the opportunity to go back home for a little while.

 I went back home alone at that time and it was a crushing moment when I entered my home. It was empty, the air is dead, it was dirty, it feels like it was deserted. It was crushing to me to see that scene because for all of my life, the house has been clean and it was always filled with human activities and the voice of my grandma. But this time, there's none.

 I started rewinding my memories back to the previous year before I went to Taiwan, I remember my grandma always keeping stuff into boxes and covering many things - to prepare to move out of the home to my uncle's after me and my brother went to Taiwan. I started to understand how she felt when she was keeping all the stuff, the sorrow, the anxiety of moving to a new place, and the loneliness above all - to leave the place she has been calling home for almost 30 years and having to say goodbye to everything. It must've been hard for her, and I didn't understand it back then.

 I was there, standing in the middle of an empty house, feeling crushed from all of the feelings.
The thing about studying abroad is, besides the usual perspective-opening and experience-gaining part, is that it brings out something about myself that I haven't known before. I never thought I would feel homesick, I never knew how much I love my grandma up till the day when I felt the heartache because I couldn't spend time with her. It brought out the part of me that I had never thought I had.

 If I had not started studying abroad, I wouldn't have started appreciating many of the things that I have always taken lightly of. 

 Soon I will be going back to Taiwan after spending a month back at home, no matter how much I am unwilling to return back to Taiwan, I had to. At least I will see my grandma again soon, this time she's going to Taiwan.
A sunset view of my school

9 Years of Blogging - March 6, 2016

I started my first blog back in 2008 when my friend who was using Blogger to blog about his daily lives and his football craziness. He persuaded me to start blogging a lot of times by saying how fun blogging is and he always ask me to read his football entries, so out of curiousness I tried out my first blog, I had no idea what I was doing back then, I did not even know what is a "blog" exactly back then. But nonetheless, I started a blog. I don't remember the URL of that blog moreover whether I have ever posted a single blog entry.

I started to make blog entries when I entered secondary school, back in 2009. Back then I had two blogs that I maintained, one of them is this blog that has had numerous facelifts and another one written all in Japanese called "Chocolate Memories" (as far as I can remember), don't ask me why I named it "Chocolate Memories", I had no idea, because I am not a chocolate fan, to begin with. All and all I have been blogging for about 9 years now if I have to count the time when I do not have the slightest idea what blogging is.

I have maintained about half a dozen blogs to date, I did not keep track of it but I guess that is the number of blogs that I owned/contributed to. This blog lasted the longest from 2010, and it has a lot of records of me as a person for all these years. There are numerous occasions where I wanted to close this blog down and delete it forever. But then I always remember what I told myself when I first started maintaining this blog, that I am going to keep this blog no matter what, no matter how embarrassing my entries used to be. Indeed, when I look back at those entries that I wrote years ago, sometimes I laugh uncontrollably thinking how stupid I was, and sometimes I feel like punching myself in the face/gut because of the stupid things that I have done.

The year when I posted the most entries and had the most traffic to my blog was on 2012 when many of my friends were doing blogs too. I am still subscribing to their blogs to this day (partly because I am too lazy to remove them from my subscription list). Fast-forward to 5 years later to this year, most of the blogs that I am subscribing to is literally dead. In fact, most of them haven't been updated once since more than 3 years ago. On my subscription list, there are only about 3 blogs that are still occasionally active.

Many of the entries that I have posted has been reverted into drafts by me when I gave this blog a facelift again a few weeks back, those entries shall remain my own memories and I intend to make it that way for now. Entries about me having a crush on someone and got sad because of that is a considerably large percentage of all my entries, guess what's all on my mind was love, love and love back then.

One thing about writing a blog is when I look back on all the entries I have written, I can notice how much as a person I have changed/grown into in all these years. For example, the way I write entries. I have this entry back in 2012. I used to write my entries with one line per sentence so that a very short entry looks long enough. After I gave my blog a facelift, I decided to change the way I write too because this way it looks better and more mature. I guess this is the direct influence after I read Joyce's blog. I mean after I met Joyce, I think I have changed a lot, for one thing, it felt like I got more mature in thinking, I started reading books and started thinking more critically. Maybe it's an illusion but that's what I felt. But from all the reading of my old entries and comparing it to the entries I wrote back a few weeks ago, I have definitely become a more mature person and the way I think has definitely changed.

Another thing I noticed is how drastically my linguistic ability has improved. I dare not say about my Mandarin proficiency because I have not noticed any improvements in it, although definitely, the way I express myself using words has become better. My English has definitely got much better compared to, say, a few years back. My English is definitely not very good still, but I am surprised how much better I am right now compared to before. Definitely, too, my Japanese ability has improved much, I guess I have to thank my Japanese teacher, Yamada sensei that helped me so much with my Japanese when I started attending to her class back in 2014. 

It's funny how people tend to think that everything in this world is static, things don't change with the flow of time. The fact is, every day, things are changing, for better or for worst. Through all these years when I am blogging, every time I post something, I don't feel like I am a better person compared to the previous time I posted an entry. But over the years, the change is so drastic that I almost couldn't recognise myself, it felt like two totally different people. I guess blogging is a good way to realise and to remind myself how dynamic this world is.

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