Looking Back and Looking Forward

Ok this was unexpected. I am now taking the train heading North to my long left hometown (ahem, just for one whole semester though) in first class coach which has a much bigger space compared to the second class coach I usually take (and we got free mineral water and banana cake). It is not because I suddenly feel like spending more money on travelling (the fee is doubled!!!) but other tickets were sold out. I have never expected that the tickets would be all gone because it is no where near any public holidays or festivals so I tried to book a ticket online five days before departing and my jaw dropped. Anyway, thank God that there was still one seat left for the first class coach. I have to go home before Wednesday because my sister is getting into the Institute of Teacher Education Temenggong Ibrahim Campus in Johor Bahru (which is 8 hours drive away from our hometown!!!) very soon. Otherwise, I am not sure when I will be able to see her face to face again (I think that I will miss her even though I seldom do so when I was away in Selangor...). At the very beginning it was me who left the home to further my study in Selangor. When I got the result saying that I got a place in Selangor Matriculation College I was thrilled but the first reaction of my dad was 'so far away???'. Now it is my sis's turn, which is much more further, the Southest end of Malaysia.

Firstly, let me take a selfie~ XD

Back to the main topic of this blogpost, since I am on my way back to my hometown, it indicates that I have officially finished my first year study in University Putra Malaysia (whee~~~) and I am no longer a junior, hahaha (it doesn't matter for me actually, just that I am a step above in my degree). Looking back for the two semesters that I have undergone, there are changes in my life and perspectives but also things that remain the same. The focus of my life in first semester and second semester was rather different. During my first semester I studied quite hard for my core courses (which excluded Ethnic Relation and Asia and Islamic Civilisation, hahaha), the adage 'new broom sweeps clean' explained this. Besides I was active in Wushu training for the Inter-university Wushu Competition 2013 held in Kelantan and got a gold medal in Girls Traditional Long Weapon (because my opponent gave up).For my second semester, the way of classes were conducted changed. I felt like we were left alone to do our own research regarding the topics given. The thing that made this whole semester quite messy was we were divided into two groups taught by two different lecturers for certain subjects, but the content taught by these two lecturers were somehow totally different from one another and all of us were sitting for the same paper. Weird, right? I am glad that I survived although I was quite confused and lost my determination in studying at the end of this semester. One more thing was that I didn't print any lecture notes from my laptop because...I didn't feel like doing so (LOL). This is kinda negative, but the positive one was I got my direction in fulfilling my social responsibility as an environmental student (which I think everyone of us should do). Now I am working as a volunteer for outreach in Malaysian Environmental Sustainability Youth Movement (MESYM) to introduce this website and how to fully utilise it as lecturers and students of UPM. I also play a role as a motivator trying to involve more people especially my coursemates to get active in environmental field although we were still nothing but mere environmental students (don't look down on us, we might be shy but as soon as we are inspired we can do more than you can think!). As overall, my second semester appeared to be duller and less excited (the normal syndrome of all university students?). This is very bad. I must ignite the passion during this 10 weeks break and move myself forward again!

I do have some planning for my semester break and it is definitely not working as a part-timer. 10 weeks are just too short for me to do things that I enjoy! Here is the list:

• Starting another blog which concentrates on environmental related stuffs. (It is quite messy for my current blog because it looks too 'not professional' for environmental issues as I write about almost anything I think interesting here. Hope that the workload of having two blogs will not be too heavy for me.)
• Working on initiating the collaboration between MESYM and UPM on green concepts. (This is the biggest project I am involved in. I have no idea what will turn out but I will do as much as I can to let people know about the platform provided by MESYM so that everyone can have a role in contributing to the environment.)
• Taking online courses so that at least I learn something new outside ordinary classes on ordinary topics. (Just like last semester I want to take some courses from COURSERA. I planned to take a few subjects but hopefully it will not go like what happened last semester break which I was only able to finish one subject out of four that I had taken at the beginning. Even though online learning does not sound serious, it is serious and beneficial as well.)
• BLOGGING!!! (Finally I got back on blogging after my final examinations. Due to procrastination and laziness, I missed a few quite important posts (important in my own opinion) and now I am thinking whether I should get back on them or simply move on to the following topics I want to write about. There are so much to write but...I don't have the right mood to do so. So much excuses, hahaha...)
• Reading, simple as that. (Reading is a good habit as recognised by most people in the world. I have forgotten when was the last time I actually read a book no matter what genre it was. During the Big Bad Wolf bookfair I bought some really cheap and nice books but I rarely read them. For your information they are currently hibernating in cupboard as I am not able to bring them back to my hometown. Nevermind, I have plenty of e-books in my laptop and also kindle, I just have to make myself pressing on the ON button and start reading.)
• Hiking or jungle trekking. (There are lots of good hiking or trekking sites in Penang such as Teluk Bahang or Cendana Hill. The most important reason is, I brought my brand new Adidas hiking shoes home, bwahahahahaha...)

Three hours left to reach my hometown! I think I should stop typing now, it gives me a jet-lag typing or reading on a moving vehicle (as if I am taking airplane now, hahaha). See you guys on the next post real soon (hopefully)!