Well, all letters have come through now. I actually did get a single en-suite room, which resulted in me letting out a rather embarrassing shriek of joy when I found out. My father thought I had won the lottery or something equally epic. No, I just somehow ended up with what I wanted and never expected to get. I was surprised and slightly ecstatic to end up with my first choice of room. Even luckier, I am right next door to my close friend, who is also going to study abroad this year at the same university. With the letters also came the next wave of paperwork and I filled out what I hope is the last of the forms today. The hotel has also been booked, as well as the flights from Singapore to Malaysia.
I am not sure I have mentioned this before but my friend and I are taking a small trip to Singapore before heading onto Malaysia. We booked the flights to Singapore a while ago to ensure we get out to Asia, as there are many flights from Singapore to Malaysia, whereas the flights to Singapore were starting to book out and therefore increase in price. This makes me sound really organized but it was originally my friends idea. I am grateful for her of thinking of this, as it turned out to be a fantastic idea. We’ve got the flights we want, the hotel room we want, and will be spending 4 nights in Singapore to get some travelling done early, and at the same time adjust to Asia as tourists first. It all fell into place with surprising ease, which was a relief. I am greatly looking forward to passing out in a hotel room after the long flight, instead of having to deal with checking into campus. I am also growing very excited about visiting Singapore. I have been flicking through the single guidebook I own and writing itineraries in my head. I am actually rather excited to travel again. Although, I am praying that my friend and I don’t end up arguing, or annoying each other somehow during the 17 hours of travelling and the 5 days spent together thereafter. I hope it ends up being fun.
Apart from that, I am still spending my time trying to prepare. I am feeling better about packing in one aspect- books. I grew to dislike reading on my smartphone, as the screen was just too small to read for long periods of time comfortably, and it eats up battery life. I came to realise I should use my netbook for my reading, therefore I installed calibre and kindle for the desktop. With these on my little netbook I can safely say I feel a bit more confident about leaving my books behind and relying on ebooks for the next year. In the end during term time I don’t tend to read that much so if I could just have a few books on hand it would be fine. The only real drawback is how expensive ebooks are and how limited they are in some way. A lot of the books I want to read are quite old and don’t have digital formats, so I have been carefully reading reviews to find some books to load up for the year and almost every time I find a book I wish to read, the price is something I just cannot afford. I am watching the sales very carefully. I’m sure I’ll find something in the end.
I am still not making much progress with anything else. I did rewrite my to do list and made it more attractive…which is procrastination at its finest right. :/
But with everything booked and paperwork filled I think I can start to feel more optimistic. If I just steadily do a little bit each day it should be OK.