every day life – Page 27

The Big Holiday

So, its March already. Lets blame the fact that February was ridiculously short on the fact that the book post is not up and not on the fact that I am terrifically lazy, OK?

Anyway.

The day before yesterday my hearing came back! I would just like to point out that: I was right.

Yesterday, my sister turned 24. Speaking on the phone to my mother, she remarked that next year my sister would be the age my mother was when she (my sister) was born. :o Its kind of strange to think I have a sister in her mid twenties. Its kind of strange to think that actually, I’ll be 21 soon. Its cliche, but I really do not feel that…not old, not even grown up, I guess lets just keep it simple and say that age.

This weekend in its entirety, when I have not been asleep, I have been busy ignoring my actual work and instead planning a trip to Japan in June. Technically, I’ve been thinking about this trip since I accepted my offer of studying abroad. I knew I would be going to Japan and that I would not accept just a short weekend away. No, it would be my Big Holiday after uni has ended and before I returned to the UK. of course, dreaming is different from actual planning. That has been very stressful. But plane tickets and hotels have been booked now so its definitely happening. I leave Malaysia on the 31st of May, spend 13 days in Japan, and arrive back in the UK on the 14th of June. I can say that i am very looking forward to Japan and not looking forward to going back to the UK in the slightest. But lets focus on the positive- JAPAN!! I cannot believe I am actually being able to spend such a long time there. Honestly at one point I was wondering if I could afford to go at all, but I focused and thought it through and budgeted and ended up being able to realize my dreams of a Big Long Holiday. 13 days! I shall be spending 2 nights in Tokyo, where I will visit Kamakura and Yokohama too, followed by 5 nights (5!) based in Aomori, where I shall be visiting Hirosaki, Lake Towada, and Mutsu too, then I’ll go up to Sapporo, stopping at the Onuma Quasi national park on the way, and once in Sapporo I will also be checking out Otaru and either Furano, Lake Utonai or Lake Toya. THEN , yes there is even more, I’ll be coming back down to Tokyo, making a brief stop in Hakodate along the way, and once in Tokyo I’ll have just one more morning there so I can like, not miss my flight, but also go to odaiba to the museum of emerging science WHICH HAS ROBOTS. actual, human robots. ahem. Also, my last hotel in Tokyo has its own Aquarium, which I have got to see.

Of course, trying to fit so many places into as short a time as possible has meant the planning of this holiday has been a total pain. Yesterday I was up until 3.30am trying to put together an itinerary. This was not the first time I have spent hours trawling through the Internet looking for information but it was the first time I did not just give up out of despair. The sheer number of things to do in Tokyo alone is staggering. I was panicking for a while, worried about so many things, struggling to figure out what I wanted to do and how to fit it all together in a logical way, and most importantly, trying to decide what I could afford to do. Japan is not exactly cheap. And I have been living in Malaysia for the past year. Planning this holiday, I have been made to realise the extent that living in this part of the world has ruined me. I have gotten so used to paying near nothing for food, transport and accommodation that I have completely forgotten how the rest of the world works. Especially places like Japan. During the dreaming stage of this holiday I had been feeling pretty cocky. I had a good chunk of money- so I could do anything, right? Wrong. A big amount of money in Malaysia does not equal a big amount of money in Japan. I began to doubt my sizable chunk was enough. And that was when I began to doubt I could go at all. I did not want that though and so I made various plans based on different budgets and tried to convince myself to choose the cheapest one.

Yet, I ended up ditching those and going with the original, expensive plan.

At the end of the day, as much as I do want to and will try to visit Japan again even after this trip, I feel like I should act like this is my last trip and I should just go for it and do what I want to do. That is, I’ve always wanted to go to Northern Japan. Sure, it would be cheaper just to spend a few days in Tokyo but I really wanted to just get on a train and head up and keep going. Even for my first trip to Japan I wanted to go to Hokkaido and I was bitterly disappointed when I could not fit it in. Oh, my last trip to Japan was wonderful- I am so glad I saw Nagoya and Kyoto, but that did nothing to change the fact that I wanted to see northern Japan, and see all the gorgeous, dramatic scenery it had to offer. of course, Northern Japan is quite far out from Tokyo, and its not the biggest tourist hub. Its been a struggle to find information in English, and it will be difficult up there without knowing Japanese. It will be expensive. I’ll probably end up embarrassing myself. Maybe I’ll get lost. But living abroad has given me a sort of crazy courage when it comes to making a fool of oneself in foreign countries. I think the fact that this is not my first time travelling abroad myself, like the first time I went to Japan, will also help me have courage to really experience things and not shy away for such a silly reason as its difficult. difficult does not mean impossible.* And yes, its expensive but as it turns out, now that I’ve actually sat down and looked at costs instead of panicking about it all, my sizable chunk is actually just about enough.

honestly, this weekend of stressful planning has been totally worth it. Its all coming together so well. I still have so much to do but look at all those places I am going! This is pretty much exactly the holiday I had been dreaming of for years, now booked and ready for me to undertake it. How awesome is that? How lucky am I? And yes, I do say that in a smug sort of way. I kind of want university out of the way with so I can be there already! (sorry, Malaysia. its not that I’m keen to leave you or anything but…Japan!!)

(*Well, technically there are certain things that are impossible. Like, most of the nature reserves in Hokkaido. but that’s more because they are so remote that I’d need a car to get to them, and a lot of time. I had been disappointed that at first, but the more I researched the more I realised I would still be seeing so many lovely things even having to stick close to Sapporo. And Aomori. etc. It’s all OK. )

Listening To: LeeSsang - Tears

Untitled

This first week at university was very quiet. Maths, like always, started with no introduction. Yet all other modules were introduction lectures. Half of my telecommunications lecture on Thursday was the lecturer explaining what she thinks makes a good engineer. My electronic engineering lecture on Friday was mostly revision, with the lecturer trying to get us to remember our basic electronic engineering stuff from last year… thankfully in that instance I was not the only one struggling to remember this stuff. Labs have yet to start either, thankfully. Then it was Chinese New Years on Monday which means I had a glorious four day weekend- today is a Tuesday and I woke up at 3pm and spent most of the day reading. I had great plans for these four days involving waking up early and getting things done- my messy room would be cleaned, the mountains of clothes piled on my chair would be sorted and what needs to be washed, washed, and the rest put away, Japanese would be learnt, electronic engineering would be revised, math tutorials would be complete. Typically, I went into these four days with far too high expectations of myself. The other days went much like the others- sleeping late and lazying around. Tomorrow, I have class at 9am and a) have not done all the preparation work and b) have no idea how I am going to get up and not just, you know, sleep through it.

I am feeling very relaxed and slightly less miserable as the last few posts as I got my results on Saturday. Well actually, results came through on Friday but it took me one day, a tearful and deeply personal conversation with my mother and an entire extra large bar of cadburys chocolate before I could check them. When I saw them I let out an embarrassing squeal of delight and then sat there, laughing to myself in sheer relief. (I hope these walls aren’t so thin that my neighbours could hear this farce.) Oh, my results are miserable compared to the last two years. but I have not failed anything and do not have to take any resits. Therefore, if I just work hard this semester there is still a chance of me getting onto the MEng course. (She says, after just talking about how lazy she has been. Woops) I had to check a few more times before I could let myself relax but once I believed that it was correct and I was seeing it correctly it was quite unburdening. It was all OK. Not amazing, I am still disappointed in myself, but it could have been so much worse and I am so relieved that I managed just to pass. I’m very glad to have it all over and done with. I felt rather light and very, very happy.

I also felt slightly ridiculous for the long conversation with my mother, part of which was me complaining about how much of a failure I was and how terrified I was for the future. But admittedly, there was so much more than it. I talked about so many things I had been keeping to myself and it was terrifying to make myself so vulnerable and to admit to some of those things, and I really hope that just once my mother understands not to talk about these things I said to someone else, but it was also very therapeutic. My mom was wonderfully supportive- telling me again and again not to be so hard on myself. I wished, and this made me feel like I was three years old, that we could have been having that conversation face to face and I could have cried and she would have held me as she always does whenever I break down. It is amazing how often I can think to myself I really dislike my mother- I argue with her frequently and a lot of the time we do not get on- but when I am feeling so vulnerable I want nothing more than my mother. Because when it comes to this, when I am feeling low and afraid of returning to that dark place (and really, it is that fear that makes the unhappiness all that worse), it feels as if its only my mother who I can talk to and who can make me feel better. She has been to that dark place too so she understands that fear, and she knows how to deal with it. I admit, sometimes I do admire my mother and her emotional strength. And even if sometimes I find her confidence irritating sometimes I admire that too because sometimes I can understand she likely developed that confidence the hard way.

When we talk like we did the other night, it gives me hope that one day things between my mother and I will change and we will get on. That I can forgive her for not always being the person I want her to be and for how she hurt me, and that she can forgive me for the terrible things I said which yes, definitely hurt her, and for being the sort of person who can become so very nasty when she is hurting. Sometimes, when we talk like that and we actually connect and she actually understands me and she says such nice things to me, I think maybe we’ve already arrived at that place. I just know we’ll end up arguing the next time we speak and we’ll be back to square one but it was very nice having those few hours to feel close to my mother again.

I don’t know. In these rambles I guess all I want to say is that this week was not so bad and good things happened these past few days and it was so very nice to have those moments. Now I should really go to bed. its 2.30am and I do have to get up in only a few hours.

Listening To: sistar - gone
mood: awake

“Why did I stop? Please tell me, when will I grow up? How long can I stay a child?”

This break without university has undoubtedly been a good one. First, I went to Thailand for 6 days and had a whale of a time with my sister. We took the night train (14 hours!) to Chiang mai where we spent three days visiting temples, experiencing the night safari, cuddling with tigers, spending too much time at the night markets, experiencing a day looking after elephants, then we flew back to Bangkok where we chilled at Siam paragon and the aquarium, learnt to cook Thai food at a Thai cooking school (though we both agree, we’d likely never make the dishes so tasty again!) and watched Thai boxing at lumpinee (=awesome) and got hopelessly lost in the maze that is Bangkok (=not so awesome). I got back and had a few days to mozy about as I wished before I jetted off to spend the weekend in Penang with my friend. It was only the second time I have been a tourist in Malaysia and the first time I have ventured outside of KL and it was wonderful. I went to the beach for the first time in three years and it was so hot and sweaty to be there, but it was so wonderful to take off my shoes and let my feet sink into the sand, to wade through the waves as I hunted down shells and finally, to sit down in the shade and read idly to the sound of the waves. Of course there was other stuff, too. I have posts about both these holidays lingering in my drafts, waiting to be brutally edited and in desperate need of spell checking. I will see if I ever get around to that. University started again this week and I am feeling hopelessly overwhelmed and unmotivated already. I think I will look back on my second year as university as one of the most brilliant (moving abroad!) and one of the most horrible (second year electrical and electronic engineering!).

I don’t look forward to uni at all anymore. In fact, it quite depresses me. I dread lectures, and I dread labs even more, and mini projects involving programming and real time systems I dread the most. This term is suspiciously light on contact time, which only makes me dread the sheer amount of work I am likely going to have to undertake in my own time. Not only that but there are a lot of labs. I hate labs.

I am beginning to seriously wonder if I should have listened when I told people I wished to do engineering and they told me don’t do it. I had a lecture yesterday introducing a ‘most pleasant’ module called “professional skills for engineers”. This module involves two individual presentations, a multimedia presentation and a group presentation. I started the lecture feeling vaguely unhappy about the whole thing, I ended it feeling in desperate need of a tub of ben & jerrys and a lot of angry rock music. The group presentation involves us choosing us our own groups, which for most people is a good thing, but for the shy, such things are not quite so pleasant. I shall have to wait to see who I am forced together with, and how it all turns out (likely: badly) Then there is the individual presentations which have to be on something engineering and science related and they suggest do something we know, as we are likely to be questioned about whatever topic we choose. And, to make it even more fun, the two presentations have to be on different topics. I realized as I was sitting there that there is nothing I know, let alone two things.

I am a second year engineering student and I have no idea why I am doing this subject anymore. What are my areas of interest? Surely I should know this by now?! Well, after much thinking, I’d say I sorta have an interest energy generation and renewables. I think that was one of the reasons I got into this subject and I don’t think anything has happened over the course over my degree to sway those interests to something else. But what do I know about these? Sadly, I draw a blank. I have no passion for this degree do I? I remember in A levels there was this guy who wanted to go into aerospace engineering and in his free time he built model airplanes. His friends all teased him but I bet he is doing really well with that sort of interest in the subject- that it even bleeds over into his personal time. In my personal time I cannot wait to get away from my degree. I don’t build circuits for fun, I don’t make myself personal coding projects, nor do I even read anything science and technology related (I attempted to read newscientist weekly for a time but it got too much…) Just why am I doing this subject, I wonder, when I am so…so ungeeky. When I don’t really have any passion for it. I have an interest in it, its not like I hate everything I study, but in the end, am I just getting by? When I talk to my dad, an experienced engineer, he can immediately talk about anything engineering related- he can tell me about components and circuit design and different technologies and analyse an unfamiliar circuit within moments. Will I ever be that competent? I certainly am not now, and I don’t even feel like I am even beginning on the path to that level of knowledgeable, as I probably should be. There are so many basic things that I continually forget.

I am beginning to doubt that I ever will become a competent engineer. I proved it in these exams last January- did I not? The exams were unfamiliar, and so I did badly. I cannot help but think that If I was a a good engineer, I would be clever enough to tackle even unfamiliar questions, because I would be clever enough and knowledgeable enough about my subject to apply it to even unfamiliar situations. With the way these exams went this January I feel like I have proven myself unworthy of this degree, or rather had it confirmed. I have never felt like a good engineer. I struggle so much with my subject. And with the way this subject is, most of the people on my course are the sort of insanely clever, well rounded individuals you’d ever meet. When I compare myself to them I cannot help but find myself lacking. I have always been aware of the difference between them and me, but it is only becoming more apparent as the degree gets harder and they continue to flourish whilst I…feel like I am being left behind. I feel so very unsuited to this. I wonder if they too are worried about what to do for this presentation, or if when the lecturer told us about it something immediately popped into their head. I wonder if they too are still floundering with no idea of what they want to do in the future, without any real goals and no passion for anything. Somehow, I doubt it. Everyone has at least one thing they feel passionate about, don’t they?

This is the thing, the worrying thing, there is nothing I feel truly passionate about. Well, nothing that matters. Being able to consume books like air is not exactly an employable skill. When it comes to those- what do I have? I speak just one language, I am terrible at sports, I am shy and reclusive, and then I am not even good at my degree. If only I could just be clever, if only I could have some competency in my degree I would feel more confident and more driven, but I feel myself stalling because I just.. don’t know anymore. I really dislike my degree right now. I feel lost and confused and continually disappointed in myself. I know that I need to overcome these feelings, that no matter what happened in January that I need to keep working but I cannot help the thought that it doesn’t matter how much I work, I will likely never end up anywhere with my terribly personality and how terrible I am at my degree and I think, well maybe I should just enjoy myself and read books instead. Its not good, nothing is good right now. I thought I’d be able to sort myself out with a good break but in the end I was running away for a bit, now I am back exactly where I was.

My room is a mess, my Japanese books lay forgotten on the shelf, my kindle keeps getting fuller and fuller, I go to bed too late and its not like I can ever get to sleep anyway, and I am gaining weight from binge eating too much. I am a bit of a mess right now. I have been for a while and I am at a loss to how to fix it. I just…don’t care anymore. no, not that’s not right. I do care, I care so much that I am retreating out of fear and trying desperately to pretend that I don’t. I have all these EXPECTATIONS and all these DREAMS and I am having to realise how unrealistic they all are, how maybe I am not the sort of person who can achieve those things I dream of, that perhaps I’ve always had too high expectations for myself. I want to be one of those clever, well rounded people. More than that I want to be a competent, knowledgeable engineer. But it feels like… I feel like I’m trying to squeeze myself into a mold that is not made for me.

I need to deal with this and I don’t know how. I need to do these presentations and act knowledgeable when I am not. I need to work in groups in labs and pull my weight but how can I when I just do not know what I am doing? I am dreading this semester. Not looking forward to it at all.

Listening To: SISTAR - Gone not around any longer
mood: awake

Day by Day

It’s been a while since I posted regularly hasn’t it? Reading through my last entry its completely obvious how out of practice I am- and how stressed I was at that time. I have an unfortunate habit of using lots! of! exclamation marks! when stressed! It doesn’t read well does it? I also find that I have been so stressed lately that blogging became just another thing I have to do which it should never be. I want a record of my time here in Malaysia and that isn’t going to write itself, and that doesn’t have to be a chore.I admit, everything seems like too much effort lately. I am feeling very drained. My last exam was yesterday and so I ended up staying up until 4am reading and totally I woke up at 2pm, literally woke up, as if 10 hours of sleep is a natural amount to be completely passed out for, and finally dragged myself out of bed at 5pm. Today I was supposed to get through the large amount of chores I have but in the end I have spent most of it asleep.

Isn’t it strange that its already the 17th of January? Christmas last year was a very quiet affair. (Last year. What.) The Semester ended like it always did- suddenly, with deadlines that seemed so far away suddenly beginning to pile up, tests to be taken, lectures finishing and with that came the realization that oh shit, lectures are finishing and I am only on example sheet 1, then panic and finally, beginning to properly revise. Revision is largely how I spent my Christmas break. It was not a very Christmassy Christmas. The only time it really felt like Christmas was when I went out into KL with my friend a few days before the 25th to go see the Christmas decorations at KLCC, Times Square and Pavilion. It was a ridiculously fun day. We went to KLCC first and had lunch- western food, of course. Then we went to M&S and indulged in more western food- I got very enthusiastic and brought shortbread and microwaveable Christmas puddings and chocolate covered hazelnuts, dolly mixture, chocolate coins… Proper chocolate and sweets and something to make me feel Christmassy. Then we went onwards to Times Square and finally pavilion. As for the decorations? Spectacular, of course. Christmas here is more commercial than anything else of course, so they really go all out. We saw gardens of Christmas trees coated in lights, a small army of giant toy soldiers, angels hanging from the ceilings, and of course there was some mediocre Christmas music playing, though nothing as awful as what had been playing in Tesco earlier. Pavilion had the best Christmas decorations of the lot, but it was all fairly grand.

Christmas itself was spent in my room revising. I did phone my family of course and we talked randomly about this and that. With my mom being in Cape Town it was fairly quiet for my dad and sister, too.

New years came too quickly. I spent new years eve in the library then at 10 to midnight, just before leaving, I texted my sister “happy new years!”, amused that it was January 1st here whilst it was still midday on new years eve there. I talked to my sister as I walked back to my room. Later, I spoke to my Grandmother, too. Her and my grandpa also spent a quiet Christmas. It seems that no one in my family is really celebrating this year. Even for new years, my sister, who used to always go out, was staying at home with my dad. That did shock me, but then my sister has changed a lot since graduating. As we were talking on the phone she told me about her job and what she wore to work and all the things she had bought lately and I once more became very aware of those three years between us, of the fact that my sister is maturing fast, is an adult now. This makes me happy whilst it also makes me sad. As time passes I know my sister cannot remain just my sister for much longer, but will likely one day have a husband and her own family taking up her time. The distance between us will only grow further, you know? I don’t feel mature or adult-like, but spending Christmas alone and not celebrating definitely made me feel little adult, like I’ve truly outgrown Christmas mornings spent opening presents and lazing around watching movies with my sister or arguing over a game of monopoly with her whilst waiting for my Dad to finish lunch. I’m growing up now and things are quickly changing, have been changing for the past few years. I guess this was the first year it hit me how different things are becoming, in this strange new adult world I am about to venture into, tentatively, one foot in the door and one foot still on the threshold.

I was alone and revising, or to be honest, procrastinating from revising.

All the time examinations were creeping closer, a parasitic presence in my mind. I have struggled this semester with the work, with getting myself to work, with everything. But I tried very hard with my revision. I reminded myself again and again of my goals to get onto the MEng course and struggled on. In the end… it did not go well. I’ll write a separate entry about that, lest this gets too long. And now? Now I have two days free then I’m flying to Thailand where I’ll be meeting my sister at Bangkok airport, and we’ll be exploring Chiang Mai and Bangkok over the course of 6 days. I’m both very nervous and very excited. After that? A couple of days break then I’ll be spending the weekend in Penang. That I am excited for. So in the end? I may be tired and miserable right now, but I certainly have a lot to look forward to.

Studying abroad for the year, despite everything, is still one of the best decisions I ever made.

Listening To: G. NA - Tell me Now
mood: Lazy

Go your own way

It is past 2am and I should be in bed but I am wide awake from a huge bar of chocolate I ate earlier. Oh yes, it is that time of year now- with exams looming in the distance and course works piling up and revision suddenly becoming more urgent and all I want to do is eat my way through it. Not good when I’m not supposed to be having dairy right now, and I am eating little else. Probably due to my lack of sleep and terrible diet I now have a cold. It started suddenly with a sore throat and now I am hacking up my lungs every few minutes. Lovely and exactly what I need right now.

I had a maths test today which went terrible. It was strange; I was in the library last night and suddenly this guy in my course comes up to me and then he offers me his answers to the coursework that I could keep and even explained several concepts to me and talked to me about the test…which is the only reason I feel slightly bad for failing it so miserably. I spent 4 hours in the library the night before that attempting to learn fourier transforms and in the end I got not a single question correct. It’s so confusing. It’s going to take me a long time to get it all learnt but in the end, there is still time. I pray that if I just keep at it then it will all click and I will be able to do better on my exams. That even I’m still struggling, I am at least I am buckling down to my work and that has to count for something. See look, it may be the sugar talking but I’m trying to be positive here. I’ve started my maths revision, obviously, and my power electronics. I just need to sit down and get on with my software engineering, which is something I am desperately putting off because I do not understand C++ in the slightest. My lecturer is OK but nothing can change the fact that I struggle to break problems into lines of code. I’m also behind on my control systems and signal processing. My control systems lecturer is really good so I am hoping that I won’t struggle too much trying to actually learn it, but my signal precessing lecturer…is not so great. She seems so young and when she lectures it never really feels like a lecture. She is way too relaxed and did I mention she looks about 20? She is nice though, she came up to me in the tutorial the other day to ask how I was getting on and settling in to the campus which was awkward, but as I said, nice. Apart from that labs still suck and I’m still behind and I only have 4 days now to get done what I’ve been putting off for 4 weeks. Trust me, I have a massive backlog. its the one thing I can’t be positive about. I feel slightly sorry for my lab partner for being stuck with me.

The other day me and the other electrical and electronic students from the uk met up with one of the UK staff members in control of study abroad and we talked about Malaysia and how we are finding it. It was a bit nerve wracking and I worry about what I said. I actually felt a bit bad for him because we had a lot of complaints. Things are good here but there are things that are different in a frustrating way. The lack of organization, the general laid back attitude of Malaysia… I had a parcel due from the UK and i went to the mail office 4 times asking after it before they thought to tell me they were keeping it upstairs in a different place. I had by that point a already been calling up customer service and sending off a letter of enquiry to Pos Malaysia thinking it had been lost. oh, that was bad. Also, the uni isn’t quite at the same level as back in the UK. The lectures at this uni are still OK even if not great, but the resources just aren’t here. None of the notes are ever uploaded online, rather they are uploaded to a drive that can only be accessed on the uni computers (I know! How backwards!), its a struggle to get hold of textbooks from the library, there are too few computer rooms and too few printers, and half of the too few printers are always broken. I will also forever be annoyed that I had to pay for a tool kit for my one module. The heat is another thing that gets annoying. it doesn’t bother me, but I am fairly concerned about my belongings. My favourite necklace and bracelet are now rusting, and I keep finding mould on weird things- my handbag (!), a wooden hair accessory (!), one of my makeup brushes (!). I bought these anti humidity box things and I’m not sure they are working out. I need to get hold of some silicon sachets and spread them everywhere. Perhaps I should stop being so cheap and turn on my air con, but come on, it seems such a needless expense, and the sound of it drives me crazy. :/

Of course it is now my reading week which is the one thing I don’t need to pretend to be thinking positively about. I am terribly exciting for going to Seoul. I am eager to travel and this sounds bad, but to get away from here a bit. Not Malaysia per say, but taking a break from campus would be good and I am desperate to stay in a hotel and to be free of the mould and the funny smell coming from my bathroom and the 60 million spiders that reside in my room even though I vacuum it twice a week. (In fact, vacuuming seemed to release a plague of spiders from the deep dark corners of my room *sigh*)

Yes, its coming up to that time of year where I just become a bit grouchy and fed up and I’m eager to take a break from real life. Can it be thursday already? I want to be on that plane to Seoul already!

Listening To: Fleetwood Mac - Go your own way
mood: hyper

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