Gary Jules-Mad World

Fact number #1

People always tell you it's easy doing something only cause they've done it successfully. They forget how they've struggled, or rather, they choose to let you wonder why it's so hard while your self esteem is left to rot.

Fact number #2

How were your problems always solved? Don't go looking for new ways to solve them, don't hope in things you've hoped before and have failed you. Go back to how they were solved. And they will be solved.

Fact number #3

The world is too busy to know what it means to love.

All about mom!

Omg it takes forever uploading pictures with malaysian internet :(

sad sad sad.

But the good thing is! Malaysian heat is more bearable than Mancunian cold! Probably because i was born and raised here.

Anyway,

Happy Belated Birthday Mummy Dearest!

this is my fav photo of her. candid ftw. so pretty!

sis is back in malaysia and she now drives the yellow banana car if everyone is wondering! She's serving her bond under shell at the moment as a reservoir engineer (i think that's what it's called?)

hahaha michael's expression. priceless!

eh i look like a victorian old woman but nvm :D and that's mum new handbag. sis and i picked it out for her.

LOVE!

she wanted a pic by the lilies

Also went for dinner with a few miri friends!

Had jap food. shiki was closed. Clockwise from left bottom : Yong, angelina, Lim, kevin (in hiding) XD, pol and me. hahaha i look like billieboo again here. Wasn't ready lah.

I'm still waiting for everyone else. Lydia, samo, qhaz, sharon i'm waiting for you guys!~ and anyone else who's in miri. So sorry if you didn't get an invite, i'm really kind of lost as to who's back in miri right now. Yong mentioned a few of you, Jason, Daniel, Tay etc etc let me know if you wanna go out! i have a new number now so ask it from yong if you want.

Angelina is yong's girlfriend :) nice meeting her. it's nice watching yong speak to her, maybe cause i've never heard him call anyone "baby" before. hehe and she has an amazing resemblance to belinda wong! when belle had long hair. doesn't she? many people agree :)

black n white againzzzzzz wheee

Oh yes.

There is a debate going on about how fat i am. Should i make a poll about that? XD

Senglee said my tummy is fatter, mark's tuition teacher said my face is fatter, shuwen said my face is smaller, yong said i am not fat, mom said i am exactly the same.

Mom asked why i didn't gain A LOT like how sis did when she first came back from the uk. I said it's because i was too emo that i didn't eat much nor sleep much. and she said "good lah! isn't that a good thing then"

mommy!!!!!! you're supposed to care more about my health! lol haha she's so funny.

I bought BIONICLE for michael

The other day, he came to my room and said:

Michael : Sarah, when are you going back to uk?

Sarah : Why? You want me to buy you another bionicle is it!

Michael : No, i don't want you to go.

T__________________________________T

Why is he so sweet like that? Sigh. I really expected him to say YES I WANT THE RED/SILVER BIONICLE cause he's been going on about it all day.

Sweet boy. He was selected to represent his school for basketball. And he won bronze in a mathematics competition. Growing up so fast. Sigh.

Did my nails again! The white stuff are supposed to be hearts! And the hearts are actually just meant for nail tips which explain why the hearts are kinda chopped off at the end but my nails aren't that long now.

Anyway they are fading so quickly. Cause i don't have a house maid at the current time and i need to do all the chores (washing dishes... for 6 people). Not just the dishes of course.

If you are from Manchester, you should know that in Malaysia, it is much more affordable to hire maids. At times my parents feel our maids are underpaid and end up buying them gold necklaces LOL.

My nails match the theme! Say hello to my sweet bear :)

Check it out! Apparently my mother sent this package over to manchester for christmas but i never received it and it got sent back here. So i only just opened it. It's a card, a christian fridge magnet, the bear and 3 eyelid glues.

Eyelid glues are cosmetics i use btw if you're wondering.

In the card :):):) Although i think sis was away during that time cause that is sure as hell not her handwriting XD I know it's mom's! And i vaguely remember mom and i discussing once that sis usually writes "i miss you lots" in her cards so i guess mom got the hint to write just that XD

Sometimes, mom helps mark do his homework too. And she tries to fake his handwriting.

hahaha is mom awesome or what XD

:):):)

Ok well that's all.

My skin feels much better in malaysia. Not as dry and not itchy. I don't even use face moisturizer now! Yong said i'm fairer now wheee~ Thank you UK weather!

I'm thinking of getting a job somewhere soon but mom says she won't let me till she gets a maid cause i need to stay home and do chores. HAHA i guess i'm fine with it. I did tell myself i'd come back here to malaysia and work on myself. wake up early, be more responsible etc etc. so far so good.

Till next time~

Continuity

No true fiasco ever began as a quest for mere adequacy.

Slowly but surely a twinkle of reassurance diving through troubled waters magnificently creates a ripple.

There at the surface of nature, a minute disturbance finds itself in calm rapport with the ecosystem of wild and reckless conditions.

Enlarging, it cares not about the danger it has opted to be a part of in its existence. Growing, it engulfs exterior motives and shallow perception while sorrowful layers of practicality shred, blending and melting into the wholesome nature of water.

A day in a futuristic image floats regardless and the tranquility of oneness comes to recondition how an idealism had morphed into tragedy.

This fiasco lingers, as though partially immersed and united within. It is and always will be. Nevertheless the small and beautiful ripple knows no end.

People will read again.

As the journey proceeds, signs and symbols, mazes and twisted realities often splashing dangerously will be misread no more.

Effort and shortcomings in solitary evenings would always stay on, but to and for a purpose which colours waters in a spectrum of versatility and paths so vast for choices to peruse.

Slowly but surely a twinkle of reassurance diving through troubled waters magnificently creates a ripple.

To its demise, another grows bigger, to continuity.

Home is where the heart is

I usually write these notes on my i touch whenever i feel really errrr reflective. i wrote that on the plane.

i was honestly nervous to meet my parents because durrrr.. i felt like the prodigal daughter lol

but once i saw them, everything just melted away.

i have the best family in the whole wide world.

mom told me once they accepted i was going to change to law, they just moved on and never once thought i had wasted their money.

sigh T_T all the guilt is seriously all in my head. but honestly i know mom always believed me in law from the very start. and dad.. well, let's just say his ultimate dream was to become a lawyer himself but he had no money to study and ended up taking an electrical and electronic engineering course because the opportunity came up.

like father like daughter?

just maybe :)

i cannot express how nice it is being home. it just feels like jumping into a warm pool and eating hot melted chocolate in a bubble bath after. lol those are just random feelings i love.

it's nice sleeping on a queen sized bed :)

Forget that, it's nice being able to step in the shower walking far enough from the nozzle to avoid being splashed when you first turn on the water not knowing how hot/cold it'll be!

man! that is the greatest luxury EVER

in the uk lol hahahaha i need to shiver naked outside the shower and wait for hot water to be generated.

it's nice seeing everything again. honestly when my family moved to the new house 2 years ago, it didn't feel like home. mainly cause i was in college in kl when they moved and suddenly when i came home after college i never stepped into my old house of 19 years!

but now it has definitely gotten more cosy because the place is more messed up and decorated!

hey look that's my prom dress!

the tv lounge. i love how the food just covers the rattan table top. it makes it more homey. my family lives by this concept of FOOD hahaha we have food everywhere. snacks, junk food, everywhere. kitchen, living room, tv lounge, random drawers hahah

they bought a new carpet while i was away :)

and look! my old dutch piano, the love of my life. sorry matt xD

and check out my ride! hahahaha oklah not mine. dad traded his ancient mercedes (from holland, left stirring, engine dies at every junction, malfunctioned aircond) for a new one! now all our cars have the same car plate number! i bet dad would never let me touch this car considering i got into an accident in my instructor's car even without a license.

hahaha if you are from manchester you must know road casualties are high here beyond your wildest imaginations.

i once saw this sign on a road somewhere on the way from sheffield to chadsworth and it read "5 casualties in 5 years" zomg is that human lol

Btw, i still need to get my license.

T_T

I am ageing like nobody's business and here i am without a license.

but most importantly the best part about being home is how much i feel like a little girl again.

yknow sometimes i just feel like i'm not ready to grow up. i get it that at this age i should want to be all grown up ms independent but it's always nice feeling like someone's taking care of me sometimes.

i guess it's human nature.

this is probably the oldest thing in the house. it's a pillow with branches and flowers. i used to use my fingers to trace where the branches would lead as a little girl :) you probably can't understand the fascination in that but it's like any ol little habit! i'm sure everyone has their own.

kinda like how i used to like to rub my knee with my palm as a child. and how matt likes to fold random parts of the blanket twice and rub his fingers on the edge of the crease.

though matt's fascination is still present till now LOL hahahha he does it on my coat sometimes too wtf

Overall i feel pampered and loved in miri,it feels laidback and homey. it's a wonderful feeling but i know i must tell myself to be wary. because if i want to improve my mindset and attitude i need to remember what it's like out there. i want to be prepared when i go over for law in sept.

anyone wanna go out? can't wait to meet all my miri friends!

but not today though, cause it's mom's birthday.

i got her clinique cream, more hand and body cream, a book of poems from st therese and topshop earrings :)

mom has been the best to me. the most understanding. if i had to lose everything, the one thing i would struggle hardest to keep would be this love between my family and i.

and matt hahahahaha he calls me FF (future family) but let's not get ahead of ourselves hereeeeeee hahahahaha

hey baby why are you facebooking in tiger tiger huh? tiger tiger is an awesome club in manchester! though i haven't been there. i was replying his fb comments while blogging, he was on fb via iphone instead of dancing XD

My nerd XD

Need for Sleep

Touchdown in malaysia after 14 hours of flying T________________T

I swear i only got like 2 hours of sleep this is the new era of panda extinction no more!

I never really had any problem sleeping on planes, as in problems exceeding the problems of normalcy. But ever since i've discovered i can't even sleep well in my own bed (nightmares) i guess sleeping on a plane is a no-no. So don't call me a pessimist! I sound so cheerful already for someone who gets haunted every night by nightmares and who's freaking scared of plan B(course change)

EMO.

I. need. my. sleep.

Senglee is waiting for me at KLIA the international side and im at the domestic side hahaha i'm too tired right now so im draining my coffee and am gonna see him in a jiffy.

Back to my sleeping problems. Omg, after that 1 hour of sleeping they just had to wake me up for meals :( the time zones in UK and dubai and Malaysia are all so different how the hell am i supposed to know when to wake up to eat? When is lunch? dinner? breakfast? When huh when? All the times get muddled upppppppppppppppppppppp

And and and after finally getting here to malaysia i have to wait 6 hours for my kl to miri flight which will take 2 hours. sigh that's another 8 hours. SO close to home but yet SO far :(

Emo.

But anyway *change mood* it's soooo good being in malaysia! It's sooooo good hearing everyone speak my accent! No offence to mancunians but it just feels like hommmmeee right now :)

Ok gtg b4 seng lee kills me XD

Volcano Eruption

Yellow!

Due to the recent volcano eruption somewhere in Iceland, i am still here in manchester! my flight got canceled. I should be annoyed but i'm actually fine with it. A few more days in manchester won't do me any harm :):) i will need to contact my airlines to get my flight rescheduled but the phone lines are too busy at the moment and the emails are on job queues.

The bad thing though is that the airlines didn't bother to inform me about the cancellation. I was lucky that matt and i were booking a taxi to the airport the night before and the taxi services told us the manchester airport was closed. So that spared me taxi money and a lot of time and effort. Imagine if i actually went all the way to the airport with allllllll my luggage and had to come back again XD

Anyway at least everything's all packed up now in boxes which will be stored in manchester till i get back. I am gonna spend roughly about 100pounds=RM500 on storage. lol :S

Uni starts for matt and my friends this monday. If i'm still here i'd get to have a one-woman holiday! *yelps* pffft the things that excite me XD

The Big Change

Remember when I said i had made a big decision that would change my life forever?

I am ready to reveal what it is :D

And the big plan is...

I am switching from Chemical Engineering to Law. :]

Obviously I have given this a lot of thought. Obviously if you know me well you'd know for SURE that i am still in doubt. But in a nutshell, I withdrew from Chemical Engineering, went for an interview (totally uncalled for!) and managed the offer into law within the same uni. *strokes self* XD

I've been running around settling outstanding payments, settling my packing/storage, spending time with matt(which explains the pictures), banking in cheques nyehehehe, shopping for the family back home, requesting letters from various academic offices.

But right now what I really want to talk about is my decision to enter law.

...

First and foremost, I know a few people who are surprised as to how i can be so open about what i write on a blog. I know many bloggers refrain from blogging about thin iced lifechanging moments. However, i feel that the exposure of weakness that comes from being only human is part of what distinguishes one from another. Therefore i am not going to be anxious about opinions triggered from reading this blog and I am not gonna come up with some excuse about why I did badly in Chem Eng (eg, it's damn hard! i wasn't taught properly! I didn't like so and so!)

I just couldn't do it fullstop.

To be honest, I am unsure as to why I couldn't do it. I am seriously unsure. The causes are completely muddled up. Could be adaptation issues. Lack of confidence. Not up to standard. Not that much technical brain. Mind isn't straightforward enough. Laziness so on and so forth.

What I AM gonna tie it all down to though, is interest. Am I sure if this is the cause? No. But if i succeed in law, i am going to duly proclaim interest as the fat culprit.

Why? Because if you ask me about whether or not I have a vision in Chem Eng, I honestly see nothing. I think the degree is freaking awesome, flexible, versatile and is known to be the epitome of easily transferrable analytical skills applicable to almost anything. It is generally known to provide job security, lucrative income and outstanding reputation. And best of all, if i dislike the manufacturing industry, who cares! This degree would take me wherever i want to go. Finance. Accounting. Business. Human Resources. You name it. With my ALevel results that got me into the uni, i am living proof of a person that is equipped to do this course. If i can do this awesome degree and have the opportunity to go ahead and do it, then why the hell not?

This is where an identity crisis comes to take a seat so nicely on top of the comfortable throne of Freaking-Awesome-Degree. Is this what I really want? Is this what I am good at? Is this where I belong? Is this the direction I am supposed to let life take me? Do I aspire to be like one of them?

In ancient greek, when a man died, they would only ask one question. Did he have passion?

The answer to all of it..

..is no.

To be honest I never saw myself working in the industry. The only thing closest to chemicals I really have interest in is make up. *Bimbo alert XD When people talk about carbon dioxide emission and saving the world from pollution/global warming or discovering renewable energy sources for the year say 2040, it may come off as really important but i'd honestly rather be traveling the world, say, communicating with legal parties of various countries about international law.

Because of this lack of interest which is supposedly the root factor, I am swallowed by an identity outburst where everything that makes up the lowest possible version of me surfaces to engulf my character. Withdrawal symptoms, depression, failure, sadness, doubt, low self esteem, dread, nightmares, so on and so forth.

Now if i could only choose one thing out of two, which would i choose? A so-called freaking awesome degree? or a confident character and clear mindset?

All my life i've been coping well academically. But right now i am going to say I have chosen a different path. Contrary to popular belief, I don't believe that if you managed the results for something, you should take up something difficult. [yes chem eng is one of the most difficult courses in the uni (quote lecturer)]. Contrary to popular belief, I don't believe that one ought to use one's full potential to the maximum for something one doesn't believe in.

Something else really contradictory to all that, is this. Who says street smartness isn't smart? Who says everything apart from smartness does not count? So what if i'm not a math whiz who can calculate square roots in my head. I've conducted an orchestra in front of more than 500 people, tuned an entire band of 50-100 instruments with my naked ears, won awards for essay writing at the commonwealth level, have gotten 15 (or more) guys to hit on me so THERE

i digress XD

I believe that anyone can make it big in this world with confidence, strategy, passion and self-motivation. No matter which direction they choose for their lives.

This blunder in my life has definitely taught me things I would never have learned had I sailed through all this while. It taught me to feel how a friend of mine felt when she failed her exams, and how hard it was for her to face her parents. It taught me to feel how another friend of mine felt when she was doing badly and was pressured because I was continually shining. It taught me to feel how it was like asking questions for a change rather than answering them. It taught me how it was like feeling continually unsettled that when everyone asked me things i would always only answer "i don't know" because i felt like my whole life was kept on hold and i didn't know where i was going.

If you never had to ever feel any of it then kudos to you. It can't be good for you but it may be helpful for building up one's character in the future, who knows. Maybe i just needed it :)

I feel like I am in a damned quarter life crisis but somehow or rather i will choose to believe that there is no bad from which good does not come.

Turning the page over to law, honestly I gave up my reading hobby quite a long time ago. And yes, what if I can't bear to keep reading all the materials required of me for reading? What if it turns out to be dull, incredibly insipid and full of crap? What if in the end i do not even get the job i wanted? What if in the end every job opportunity i get shoved with involves compromising my ethics?

That aside, what I do remember, is this :

"I secretly like law because i secretly want to be able to talk my way through anything."

I wrote this when I had already begun Chem Engineering. Reading back my blog entries I realise I always had a thing or two to say about Chem Eng which resembled a whine more than a proclamation of joy. No wonder my readers commented and advised me to consider doing a different course. But I kept persisting with Chem Eng, wanting to persevere like I did in taylor's, thinking persevering was the ideal way. Don't give up. Don't give in. Keep going. I can do this. Everyone believes in me. I've come this far.

Life in taylor's changed me. It brought me down a notch as a person. But right now, I refuse to believe this descent is meant to continue further. I do not believe one mistake in a life should have the right to snatch from me an ideal self I once was. It's not who i was in the past i'm reaching for, but an idealism in the past that i know is strong enough to hold firm for the future.

When i was in alevels i could already foresee a lack of passion in engineering. But because i did well, i thought it wasn't going to matter that much. I thought what many people think. Do this. Struggle. Get great grades. Earn tons. Happy life.

That was not the case.

After my sem1 exams, I was so confused about my suitability to this course that I conducted a survey asking my friends what they could see me working as. I got different answers and almost no one said engineering. I did career quizzes and never once did my options show engineering. I considered time and time again with indecision.

Thinking back through those times I knew i always had a greater respect for people who could socialise well and be stern in they're opinions. I had a longing to train myself to be more eloquent, quicker on my feet, more opinionated and braver to put my thoughts into words, spoken or written. Would i rather grow to be THIS person, or a person who'd control processes in plants?

Former.

Who says you cant do chemical engineering and still be the former? Well of course you can, but then you'd also need to like to calculate raw data from scratch, design flowrates in pipes/tubes, learn mechanisms in reactions, and be bombarded with 500 equations.

And don't get me wrong, I have been steered in the "calculation" direction all my life. I was in the science stream all along in high school and alevels. But If i end up somewhere else in life, I really wouldn't mind. Because honestly there has been way too many occurrences that have already changed me along the way up till now. If i don't end up getting a job i love, at least i would've been trained the right direction; to be the person i aspire to become from here on. at least there is a vision.

Everything is still a knot in my mind but all i can see in Chem Eng for me, are dead ends. Both academically and character-wise. If i could somehow pull this off academically how would the other side of me feel, the lost, weak sarahjane who felt like her identity was fading?

My friend alan called what i'm facing the "i-don't-know-what-i-want-but-i-know-what-i-don't-want" dilemma. I am unsure about law but i know i don't want to continue in chem eng.

I understand there is a traditional asian mindset that believes medicine is the number one highly reputable profession, followed by engineering and then possibly law. With utmost strength in me, i reject this notion and I urge anyone out there to consider starting new traditions because life is empty without passion, no matter how hard you try to earn reputation.

A man can lose so much of himself before even realising what it means to be reputed.

I'd honestly give it all away right here telling everyone about my failure, just so i can stand up, accept vulnerability gracefully and grow stronger.

Someone even came up to me and mentioned her worry for her child who was planning to take Chem Eng because I wasn't doing too well. I assure you to stop comparing, and stop taking control over your daughter's decisions. Ask her what she wants, and ask her if she knows she can do it. Because her passion is as a great a capability as her academic strengths.

Whatever your opinion is and however it differs from what i've written, it is respected. I am seriously uncertain of how things will turn out from here on but i'll definitely be writing when the time comes.

Secretly, when i think of the past, everything that has happened; my failure to get a scholarship in chem eng, the deadline for fee payment being postponed a few days later when i was coincidentally worried about the deadline wondering if i should change courses, all of it happened for a reason. call me crazy but i have a feeling in my gut the reason is i just never really wanted chemical engineering enough or wasn't meant to be doing this course.

If you have patiently read through all this, i thank you for your interest in my life. You are a true sarah jane fan and that is rare ;)

or you might just be nosy OR enjoy reading. XD

Lastly, thank you, all my friends and all my readers. At least i know i haven't been alone this entire time of self-wandering, and that is was not all in vain.

To the next chapter!