i miss my friends :( i miss my flat 24 housemates :( i miss belle and deena :(
i still cannot get over the idea that someone thought i cannot speak and understand english.
she gave me an advice, read more. i read news in english, everyday. i watch documentaries, everyday. she only uses very simple english with very limited vocab and she thought that i couldn't understand her?
you know, girls like to share their stories when something out of ordinary happen. so, i know all of my friends in london are busy with their studies as exams are just around the corner. i don't want to bug them.
you want to know what i did? i look at the reflection of myself at the black screen of my laptop. and started talking to the reflection. macam tak betul sikit pun ada.
kesian jadi kawan saya, terpaksa dengar saya membebel selalu. and now, my friend is myself.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Monday, March 10, 2014
some of my stories in curtin
Assalamualaikum :)
As the title speaks for itself, I will be sharing some of my experiences here, in Curtin Miri, not Perth not Singapore or any other Curtin branch universities. do you know that there are five Curtin campuses around the world? which makes me wonder, what's the point of having many campuses if you're not even one of the top universities? no need to compare with universities around the world, even among Australian universities, you're not really in a good place. to add with that, your minimum requirement is too low. okay, persoalan saya berhenti sampai di sini. sambung pada hikayat hidup saya pula :)
so, lots of my friends in London asked me, "how's miri?". and my answer was
"try to imagine a transition that I'm going through from London, a city that never sleep to Miri, a city that never live/awake"
it's more like living in ktj except I can't go home every weekend. My first week was a torture, the time was killing me. i felt like things were not moving and I tried to sleep most of the time just to kill time.
However, I find it not that bad anymore. I can update my blog, I can go for a jog, I watched numerous documentaries, read so many articles and now, I've adapted to a slow, mundane life in Miri. no more complains.
apa apa pun, saya nak share sedikit perbualan dengan mereka mereka di sini yang saya rasa agak menarik.
soalan norma yang kita terima apabila masuk universiti, "sebelum ni belajar mana, buat apa?"
dan saya jawab, "buat a level, dekat ktj"
dia : "ohhh. tak fly ke?"
saya : "oh, fly. sebelum ni belajar kat sini (tunjuk note book LSE)"
dia : "oh, kat mana tu?"
saya : "London School of Economis, LSE"
dia : "oh, kat UK eh? kat mana?"
saya : "kat London"
dia : "kat Manchester eh"
saya : "tak tak. kat London"
apparently there are many people who knew the existence of LSE and to my surprise, they are engineering students. the person I had the conversation above was with an accounting and finance student and she never heard of LSE. okay, I give her credit for knowing that those who do A-level intend to study abroad even though I find her question about Manchester was rather amusing.
next is about me worrying for my electricity bill because I did not realise that only allocation of 50 ringgit for electricity is included is our rent. if we exceed the allocation, we have to pay the exceeded amount ourself. so, I had this conversation with my friend;
saya : I'm a bit worried about my bill cause I on my aircond for 24/7 on my first week here.
dia : what do you mean by 24/7? you use it for 24 minutes and 7 seconds?
saya : oh, tak tak. maksudnya i on 24 jam sehari.
saya rasa saya share dua perbualan ni je buat masa sekarang.
oh, lupa nak tambah. dah berhari hari hutan dekat dengan curtin terbakar tapi hari ni yang paling dasyat. rasa macam berjalan dalam awan siap dengan salji lagi. cuma masalahnya, bila nafas bau asap sangat kuat sampai sakit tekak dan salji dia tak berwarna putih, dia warna hitam atau kelabu (abu).
okay, tamat sudah hikayat kali ini :)
As the title speaks for itself, I will be sharing some of my experiences here, in Curtin Miri, not Perth not Singapore or any other Curtin branch universities. do you know that there are five Curtin campuses around the world? which makes me wonder, what's the point of having many campuses if you're not even one of the top universities? no need to compare with universities around the world, even among Australian universities, you're not really in a good place. to add with that, your minimum requirement is too low. okay, persoalan saya berhenti sampai di sini. sambung pada hikayat hidup saya pula :)
so, lots of my friends in London asked me, "how's miri?". and my answer was
"try to imagine a transition that I'm going through from London, a city that never sleep to Miri, a city that never live/awake"
it's more like living in ktj except I can't go home every weekend. My first week was a torture, the time was killing me. i felt like things were not moving and I tried to sleep most of the time just to kill time.
However, I find it not that bad anymore. I can update my blog, I can go for a jog, I watched numerous documentaries, read so many articles and now, I've adapted to a slow, mundane life in Miri. no more complains.
apa apa pun, saya nak share sedikit perbualan dengan mereka mereka di sini yang saya rasa agak menarik.
soalan norma yang kita terima apabila masuk universiti, "sebelum ni belajar mana, buat apa?"
dan saya jawab, "buat a level, dekat ktj"
dia : "ohhh. tak fly ke?"
saya : "oh, fly. sebelum ni belajar kat sini (tunjuk note book LSE)"
dia : "oh, kat mana tu?"
saya : "London School of Economis, LSE"
dia : "oh, kat UK eh? kat mana?"
saya : "kat London"
dia : "kat Manchester eh"
saya : "tak tak. kat London"
apparently there are many people who knew the existence of LSE and to my surprise, they are engineering students. the person I had the conversation above was with an accounting and finance student and she never heard of LSE. okay, I give her credit for knowing that those who do A-level intend to study abroad even though I find her question about Manchester was rather amusing.
next is about me worrying for my electricity bill because I did not realise that only allocation of 50 ringgit for electricity is included is our rent. if we exceed the allocation, we have to pay the exceeded amount ourself. so, I had this conversation with my friend;
saya : I'm a bit worried about my bill cause I on my aircond for 24/7 on my first week here.
dia : what do you mean by 24/7? you use it for 24 minutes and 7 seconds?
saya : oh, tak tak. maksudnya i on 24 jam sehari.
saya rasa saya share dua perbualan ni je buat masa sekarang.
oh, lupa nak tambah. dah berhari hari hutan dekat dengan curtin terbakar tapi hari ni yang paling dasyat. rasa macam berjalan dalam awan siap dengan salji lagi. cuma masalahnya, bila nafas bau asap sangat kuat sampai sakit tekak dan salji dia tak berwarna putih, dia warna hitam atau kelabu (abu).
okay, tamat sudah hikayat kali ini :)
Friday, March 7, 2014
ghana :)
Assalamualaikum :)
Seperti janji saya pada mereka mereka yang bertanya "macam mana ghana?", saya tulis post ini khas untuk anda :)
hikayat nya bermula dengan, pada suatu hari.....
There was 15 volunteers in my group, 6 from LSE 4 from UCL and the rest from Arizona State University.
We were there to build water tanks (which I believe they could do it faster without us) and experience life as Ghanaian (which is not entirely true). We didn't really drink the water that they drink and we definitely did not eat things that they eat because they said if we do, diarrhea is definite.
We were divided into 2 groups as we were building water tank for 2 houses. To be honest with you, I felt like I was working on a construction site. It was tough, hard, tiring, exhausting and body ache was a promise. even though it was a menial construction job, it was not easy.
On our first day, the work I did the most was sifting the sand. When the mason showed us how to do it, it LOOKED EASY. trust me, it wasn't. when we arrived at the lodge after we were done for the day, my hands were aching so much!
oh, I forgot to add about the weather. It was hot but I don't think it was so much different than Malaysia. In fact, Malaysia was hotter when I check the temperature. That explains the big hat I wore in the pictures below. I didn't let the sun touch my face even a bit. However, my skin still got burned. Alhamdulillah my face was fine, my hands got sunburned. I guess because we were literally under the sun for the whole day.
On the second day onwards, things did not seem that difficult anymore. My body did not ache so much and we kind of enjoy what we were doing even though I knew that we were slowing things down. If you were to ask me how much work we did and how much did the mason do, I would say we did at most 10% and the mason did the rest. itupun rasa macam dah buat banyak sangat okay. trust me, we gave our best. kami tak bermalasan pun.
oh, other thing that I find difficult to do is mixing the cement and sand. It's Ghana, things are done manually. At first they let 5 of us to do it but nothing happen, hahaha. seriously, berat teramat sangat kot! If they were to do it, two of them would be enough. Sometimes only one person did it, lol.
Here is a little info about my host family (the house that we were building water tank for). The household consist of 11 members (if I'm not mistaken) and the mother is the breadwinner. She cook and she sells her cooking at a village nearby. Her husband died few years ago, she told me how he died but I can't exactly remember how. Her daughter just gave birth about a month before we arrived and trust me, Ghanaian women are strong! The daughter that I just mentioned can carry a very heavy brick that need 2 men from our group to carry it. Tolong jangan kata budak laki kumpulan saya tak kuat, batu tu memang berat oh.
Sebelum saya sambung menulis, jom tengok gambar dulu :)
I asked the project leader, the one who designed the water tank and manage water brigade;
why should we come? With the price of our flight ticket, you can build more water tanks (our flight ticket was more expensive than our donation for the water tanks). We were just slowing things down, they could do it faster without us. Plus, it will create more job for the local if we were not here.
So he said,
I was once like you, a volunteer. Yes, you could give your money and we manage it but this is not just about building water tanks. We want to create awareness. Now you know how Ghana is and you will start to tell their story. And we need more volunteers to continue our work. If you don't feel attach to this place, would you be willing to come and stay here?
it was not exactly how he put it but the message is there. We were there for 10 days, throughout our stay, we had to take the malaria pill. Just imagine if you were to stay for a year, are you willing to take the pill, everyday, for a year? Emily, the project coordinator, she has stayed in Ghana for a year and she didn't take the pill. You know what is the aftermath of taking drugs do to your body, especially to your kidney. I honestly feel like I want to be one of them, to work with Global Brigade.
I also had a conversation with an elder in the community. I asked her, if she could make a wish, what would it be?
surprisingly she said;
nothing
if you were there, I bet you would have endless wishes. or at least a piped water. and a toilet. and some rice. and the list goes on....
One of the local guy taught us a Ghanaian song, their traditional song. it's about how proud they are with their country and how happy they are being a Ghanaian.
We were thinking, maybe because they've never been out of Ghana that they don't know how people in other countries are living, london for instance. that's why they don't wish for anything else because they don't know what is anything else they could get.
You know, at first I thought they are very content with their life, grateful for what they have, which is good. but then, is that really the explanation for it? isn't it the same with you take your life for granted and too lazy to do something to move forward?
but then, Ghanaian work hard. they work really hard. it's just that, life for them is not easy. now is the time for me to look at myself, self reflection. How lucky I am to be malaysian, and even able to experience a life in london. There are so many people who have so much less than us but they can still be grateful. and that elder can even say there's nothing else she could wish for with her current condition.
I read someone wrote somewhere about travelling;
travelling is like a book. if you never go out of your comfort zone (not to travel), you are stuck in one chapter.
I'm not copying word by word but the main point is there. even Allah tells us to travel :)
Al Ankabut : 20, Al Hajj : 46, etc
banyak sangat ayat Allah suruh kita berjalan. sila baca blog ini untuk pencerahan :)
I think this post is too long already and I will write about the cape coast castle some other time :) serious, cerita disebalik cape coast castle tu sangat menarik! our ancestors were lucky tanah melayu had iron back then. If not, maybe the west would treat them as how they treated africans. tapi mama kata, melayu malas kerja, tak jadi penjajah nak jual diaorang jadi hamba, buat habis beras je, lol.
Seperti janji saya pada mereka mereka yang bertanya "macam mana ghana?", saya tulis post ini khas untuk anda :)
hikayat nya bermula dengan, pada suatu hari.....
There was 15 volunteers in my group, 6 from LSE 4 from UCL and the rest from Arizona State University.
We were there to build water tanks (which I believe they could do it faster without us) and experience life as Ghanaian (which is not entirely true). We didn't really drink the water that they drink and we definitely did not eat things that they eat because they said if we do, diarrhea is definite.
We were divided into 2 groups as we were building water tank for 2 houses. To be honest with you, I felt like I was working on a construction site. It was tough, hard, tiring, exhausting and body ache was a promise. even though it was a menial construction job, it was not easy.
On our first day, the work I did the most was sifting the sand. When the mason showed us how to do it, it LOOKED EASY. trust me, it wasn't. when we arrived at the lodge after we were done for the day, my hands were aching so much!
oh, I forgot to add about the weather. It was hot but I don't think it was so much different than Malaysia. In fact, Malaysia was hotter when I check the temperature. That explains the big hat I wore in the pictures below. I didn't let the sun touch my face even a bit. However, my skin still got burned. Alhamdulillah my face was fine, my hands got sunburned. I guess because we were literally under the sun for the whole day.
On the second day onwards, things did not seem that difficult anymore. My body did not ache so much and we kind of enjoy what we were doing even though I knew that we were slowing things down. If you were to ask me how much work we did and how much did the mason do, I would say we did at most 10% and the mason did the rest. itupun rasa macam dah buat banyak sangat okay. trust me, we gave our best. kami tak bermalasan pun.
oh, other thing that I find difficult to do is mixing the cement and sand. It's Ghana, things are done manually. At first they let 5 of us to do it but nothing happen, hahaha. seriously, berat teramat sangat kot! If they were to do it, two of them would be enough. Sometimes only one person did it, lol.
Here is a little info about my host family (the house that we were building water tank for). The household consist of 11 members (if I'm not mistaken) and the mother is the breadwinner. She cook and she sells her cooking at a village nearby. Her husband died few years ago, she told me how he died but I can't exactly remember how. Her daughter just gave birth about a month before we arrived and trust me, Ghanaian women are strong! The daughter that I just mentioned can carry a very heavy brick that need 2 men from our group to carry it. Tolong jangan kata budak laki kumpulan saya tak kuat, batu tu memang berat oh.
Sebelum saya sambung menulis, jom tengok gambar dulu :)
 |
| our last day in Ghana, Cape Coast Castle |
 |
| Sarah was showing us how the water tank system works |
 |
| this is a view of a small town close to our lodge. |
 |
| trying to mix the sifted sand and cement |
 |
| they were tying iron construction into a shape of a water tank |
 |
| the kids LOVE taking pictures. oh, did i mention the kids were barefoot? i seldom see any kids wear anything on their feet |
 |
| Fransis finishing the last bit of the tank. It was too dangerous for us, only the mason can do it. |
 |
| at the local school where we teach them on the importance of drinking clean water |
 |
| this is a song that my group came up with. Ebura is the name of the source of water that they drink |
 |
| almost every night we would gather and spend our time together as there was nothing much to do, no internet |
 |
| our last day at Srafa Aboano (the name of the village) |
 |
| with the student coordinator, Audrey. at Cape Coast |
 |
| a picture of me with Miruka :) |
 |
| On our first day, getting to know the local community. with Elena :) |
 |
| the lady in the pink top claim she is the queen of the village. |
 |
| spend our day at the beach and enjoy some delicacies at the hotel restaurant |
 |
| with Marco :) |
 |
| Just before we took our ride to the airport |
 |
| me explaining something |
 |
| again, group photo with the girls |
 |
| oh, I just like this photo |
why should we come? With the price of our flight ticket, you can build more water tanks (our flight ticket was more expensive than our donation for the water tanks). We were just slowing things down, they could do it faster without us. Plus, it will create more job for the local if we were not here.
So he said,
I was once like you, a volunteer. Yes, you could give your money and we manage it but this is not just about building water tanks. We want to create awareness. Now you know how Ghana is and you will start to tell their story. And we need more volunteers to continue our work. If you don't feel attach to this place, would you be willing to come and stay here?
it was not exactly how he put it but the message is there. We were there for 10 days, throughout our stay, we had to take the malaria pill. Just imagine if you were to stay for a year, are you willing to take the pill, everyday, for a year? Emily, the project coordinator, she has stayed in Ghana for a year and she didn't take the pill. You know what is the aftermath of taking drugs do to your body, especially to your kidney. I honestly feel like I want to be one of them, to work with Global Brigade.
I also had a conversation with an elder in the community. I asked her, if she could make a wish, what would it be?
surprisingly she said;
nothing
if you were there, I bet you would have endless wishes. or at least a piped water. and a toilet. and some rice. and the list goes on....
One of the local guy taught us a Ghanaian song, their traditional song. it's about how proud they are with their country and how happy they are being a Ghanaian.
We were thinking, maybe because they've never been out of Ghana that they don't know how people in other countries are living, london for instance. that's why they don't wish for anything else because they don't know what is anything else they could get.
You know, at first I thought they are very content with their life, grateful for what they have, which is good. but then, is that really the explanation for it? isn't it the same with you take your life for granted and too lazy to do something to move forward?
but then, Ghanaian work hard. they work really hard. it's just that, life for them is not easy. now is the time for me to look at myself, self reflection. How lucky I am to be malaysian, and even able to experience a life in london. There are so many people who have so much less than us but they can still be grateful. and that elder can even say there's nothing else she could wish for with her current condition.
I read someone wrote somewhere about travelling;
travelling is like a book. if you never go out of your comfort zone (not to travel), you are stuck in one chapter.
I'm not copying word by word but the main point is there. even Allah tells us to travel :)
Al Ankabut : 20, Al Hajj : 46, etc
banyak sangat ayat Allah suruh kita berjalan. sila baca blog ini untuk pencerahan :)
I think this post is too long already and I will write about the cape coast castle some other time :) serious, cerita disebalik cape coast castle tu sangat menarik! our ancestors were lucky tanah melayu had iron back then. If not, maybe the west would treat them as how they treated africans. tapi mama kata, melayu malas kerja, tak jadi penjajah nak jual diaorang jadi hamba, buat habis beras je, lol.
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