It's been awhile since I last updated my blog, I know. I'd try to cover it up by saying I've been oh-so-busy, but I'll just flat out tell you that I'm lazy. Yep. And for that, I apologize. I'd like to think I'm kind of a big deal and there are at least 10 people who read my blog but who am I kidding. There are at least 400!!! That's my last attempt at making lame jokes I promise.
But anyway. I've always put off publishing a blog post because I have photos to include, with the caption and the resizing and all that HTML stuff. It's too taxing and makes me want to gauge my eyes out. So this post WILL be about what has happened in my life for the past few months, but it's gonna be long and picture-less and I'm just saying there are no pictures in most bestseller books these days so look at me go.
First of all, Happy New Year!! I'm pretty sure you have heard about 102946982659 one-liners about how the apocalypse didn't happen on 21 December 2012 but I mean I WAS pretty disappointed zombies didn't end up roaming the Earth. I just want to see one!
Second of all, as most of you know, I am writing this all the way from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, United States of America! I've been here for about, 4+ months. I arrived in the US on 24 August, 2012. Thinking about that day still makes my heart ache because I was crying SO much, it was like Toy Story 3 combined with Titanic and the last episode of Sherlock (BRILLIANT show, watch it!) and finishing Mockingjay at the same time.
I actually wrote a draft of the whole journey which should be titled A 30-Hour Plane Ride: How I Managed to Cry and Scare Little Children with My Red Eyes. Honestly. I stopped by Amsterdam (but I just stayed at the airport, because I was too depressed to go explore eventhough I had it all planned out). I've never been away from my family for more than.. 2 weeks at the most, I think. Now not only I have to be on LITERALLY on the other side of the world where they eat greasy food all the time and not nasi lemak and rendang and mee curry and chicken rice and satay and nasi briyani and..
you get the point, but I can't just come back anytime I want. Honestly, why can't plane tickets be RM 150? Or okay AT LEAST RM 500 for intercontinental traveling? WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE.
But now that I've been here for 4+ months, you know what, it's not so bad as I thought it would be.
1) Food
Yes I do miss Malaysian food (any Malaysian who's studying overseas and have never said that statement is automatically disowned and banned go throw away your MyKad). Yes I did have some problem with the halal food here. I guess I should've chosen a bigger city where there'll be plenty of halal restaurants but I won't say I really regret coming here to the small city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. When I went to Minneapolis, there were SO MANY halal restaurants, or at least halal marketplace selling halal meat and stuff there. I usually eat pasta, this vegetarian burger, mashed potato etc at the caf. It sounds bad but trust me I leave the cafe feeling full 95% of the time. Their breakfast menu is awesome. The way the meal plan works is I can come anytime and eat as much as I can so the possibility to gain weight is definitely, definitely there. Sod it, I think I've gained weight fo sho.
Speaking of big cities, I went to New York just last week! If you're following me on Twitter/befriend me on Facebook, you're probably tired of hearing me ranting about it. But, I am just SO glad I didn't choose a big city to study in. Eau Claire is just a cute little town and there are a lot of nice old people here which I don't mind. Except one time at the post office there was one very rude and grumpy old lady. But let's not talk about that.
2) Studies
Some people think it's easier to score good grades here. I don't know, to me it feels like the 'level of hardness' is just the same like it was in American Degree Program in INTI. Oh wait I take that back. I mean, 89 is considered B!! But I think I did okay for my first semester. I got 2As, 1A-, 1B+ (The B+ is for that kind of class where it's impossible to score an A and even the professor said the average students get B- or C+, so.) I'm just so proud I got an A for Women's Studies!! I LOVED that class so much. It was boring at first because you learned about how women fought for the rights to vote in the US and you came from a country where women can vote right away. That class should've come with a warning, though. 'You'll never enjoy books/movies/tv shows the same way after this semester, yay!' I mean I've always known the oversexualization of women in advertisements and all that, but you just have NO CLUE how bad it can be. The one topic that I was really interested in was about 'raunch culture', where shows like Girls Gone Wild or Playboy magazines make it seem like girls are in control of their body and they feel confident and powerful by showing off their 'assets' but no you're just objectifying yourself!! One time we even watched the first version of King Kong and how it was related to rape. We talked about Red Riding Hood and how THAT is related to rape as well. It was just fascinating. I even considered to minor in Women's Studies but I mean when I go back to Malaysia, what can I do with it anyway.. so I chose psychology instead.
3) People + roommate
There's one too many stories that I hear about roommate disasters, either from the internet or from someone I know but I think my roommate and I get along well!! :) She's very neat and organized, which is the exact opposite of what I am HAHA. So I ~try~ to keep my side of the room clean. The fact that she's the Resident Assistant for the wing I'm at also helps, A LOT, since I'm new and whatnot so I can just ask her anything. Also, she and her boyfriend are SO ADORABLE together. I already booked my seat at their wedding I don't even care.
Moving on to the people here in general, they're pretty nice. Some people are very friendly and you're like wow bless you for making my day I hope you find $20 on the ground today. But then there are also some people who just, you know, I won't say racist, but they're just uncomfortable with the 'unknown'. Probably never had a international/Muslim friends before so they won't really talk to me. But overall, 98% of the people here, are nice, smiles at you, etc. One time though, I waited for the bus to go to Michaels (an art store), and I met this girl and we talked and I don't know how or why but we ended up having lunch and going shopping together. It was weirdly awesome. We had a lot in common, too! (We both agreed that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is perfection). Even some random people I talk to (more like they talk to me, since I'm not one who goes up to strangers and chat haha), there's always that 'who knew we have a lot of common!' realization.
If I'm being honest I was scared to death people would look at me weird for wearing tudung but surprisingly people here treats me alright. However I do know this one Muslim woman (I think she's from Egypt but I'm not sure) who works at Walmart and she told me how she got called a terrorist, 'Muslim whore' and all that and that made my heart ache :( But she was smiling when she told me that and she said people just don't know any better. Bless her heart.
4) Price
When people say the price of things here are cheap, they mean the branded stuff compared to Malaysia. I mean sure a $70 pair of Levi's jeans is cheaper than RM350 in Malaysia, but that's still expensive to me. I'm not really one for branded stuff (except Forever 21, LOVE.). It's true that you can't convert dollars to ringgit and after awhile I stopped doing it. I mean even a can of Coke is considered RM3 and you can get 2 cans back in Malaysia for the price of one here. Don't even get me started on movie tickets! $10 for one movie can I cry. Ok sometimes you can get $6 but still, that's at least RM19.
I do try my best to be careful with money (ceh) and have come to the conclusion Walmart is the cheapest place to get everything. I might be wrong but I'd rather take a 15-minute bus ride to go there than walk to this store called Shopko because that store rips everybody off ugh I banned it for life.
5) Weather
Wisconsin is famous for its BAD, HORRIBLE WINTER. And so far I'm copingby staying in my room all day watching movies. I just got tired when back in November when the temperature started to drop, people would be saying 'oh this is nothing yet'. Then December and it got chillier and people would say 'oh this is nothing yet'. I mean YES I GET IT THE WEATHER WILL BE MUCH COLDER but having that statement being repeated over and over got old and I just wish the worst will come already so people would stop saying that. Nowadays the average temperature is -5 to -13 celsius. But honestly it depends on what weather app/website you use because different websites tell different things.....
But yes the first time it snowed, REALLY SNOW, I was beyond excited!!! It was just beautiful. Still to this day, I get excited when it's snowing. People keep saying how you'll get excited about snow the first few days and then get tired of it afterwards but nope doesn't apply to me. I still love it! And I don't really tell anyone this but I LOVE and EMBRACE the cold because everybody has to cover up, like I am! I mean back when it was still summer-ish I feel like people look at me weird for wearing long-sleeve tops and jeans when everybody else was wearing spaghetti tops and shorts or something. Like 'ew don't you feel hot in THAT?!'. I mean I come from Malaysia, where it's summer all year around. Doodz, please. Some girls even went walking around in their bikinis as if this is a freaking beach or something. We have a river people float on, but not a sandy beach! So now everybody has to wear everything long-sleeve and all covered up, I FINALLY FIT IN! Hahahahaha.
Speaking of snow, I've tweeted this but in my pop culture class, the professor (my FAVORITE professor this semester) asked everyone in the class to predict when Eau Claire will receive it's first inch of snow. And since my name starts with A, I had to go first. This was still back in October I believe, and I hadn't seen snow yet at the time so I was freaking out I mean it could be snowing the next day for all I know?!?! So I just randomly pick a date. December 10th. And as the class list goes on, everybody else started to pick dates in the range of November 25 - November 30th and making me feel dumber than Karen in Mean Girls. I was way off! But then, plot twist! It snowed (14 inch, to be exact) on the 9th of December!!!!! Since I was the closest, I got the prize :) :) :) :) Which was this ball of chocolate. The professor even went on to explain that you have to smash the ball on the table and only then the chocolate ball will open up. "I like it because you can be violent with it." Sigh I wish I have her as my professor every semester, seriously! She's also a HUGE fan of Harry Potter and by huge I mean she has tattoo(es?) of Harry Potter, and her car's plate number is MUGGLE7. I kid you not. She is awesome. In previous semesters she even asked students to sort of analyze Harry Potter movies but JUST MY LUCK, she decided to break the tradition and chose other movie instead. Oh well.
I don't think I ever showed how/what the prize looks like so here it is just for my blog reader(s)! Lolol
Another highlight from the time I'm in the US is when little kids come to the dorm for trick or treating during Halloween!! THEY WERE SO. CUTE.
Okay since I'm doing highlights I might as well add one more. Representing Malaysia in the International Folk Fair!!
It was SO much fun and we sold nasi lemak and teh tarik and it was a hit! We played batu seremban and listen to patriotic Malaysian songs (yes Negaraku included) and I was reminded more of home, in a depressing way but I got over it. But yesh you never really appreciate your country until you're literally more than 10 000 miles away and you're the minority and you feel so united with other Malaysians :')
So yeah that's basically my life in a nutshell, so far. I probably should update my blog more
often so that I don't have this, 6-month gap and feel like I have SO MUCH to write but feel like I have nothing to write at the same time.
Till next time, goodbye! May you all have a wonderful 2013!!
ps; I'm pretty devastated I didn't reach my goal to read 50 books in 2012 :( Only 23! Ugh. Gonna set the same goal this year! Fingers crossed!
I actually wrote a draft of the whole journey which should be titled A 30-Hour Plane Ride: How I Managed to Cry and Scare Little Children with My Red Eyes. Honestly. I stopped by Amsterdam (but I just stayed at the airport, because I was too depressed to go explore eventhough I had it all planned out). I've never been away from my family for more than.. 2 weeks at the most, I think. Now not only I have to be on LITERALLY on the other side of the world where they eat greasy food all the time and not nasi lemak and rendang and mee curry and chicken rice and satay and nasi briyani and..
you get the point, but I can't just come back anytime I want. Honestly, why can't plane tickets be RM 150? Or okay AT LEAST RM 500 for intercontinental traveling? WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE.
But now that I've been here for 4+ months, you know what, it's not so bad as I thought it would be.
1) Food
Yes I do miss Malaysian food (any Malaysian who's studying overseas and have never said that statement is automatically disowned and banned go throw away your MyKad). Yes I did have some problem with the halal food here. I guess I should've chosen a bigger city where there'll be plenty of halal restaurants but I won't say I really regret coming here to the small city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. When I went to Minneapolis, there were SO MANY halal restaurants, or at least halal marketplace selling halal meat and stuff there. I usually eat pasta, this vegetarian burger, mashed potato etc at the caf. It sounds bad but trust me I leave the cafe feeling full 95% of the time. Their breakfast menu is awesome. The way the meal plan works is I can come anytime and eat as much as I can so the possibility to gain weight is definitely, definitely there. Sod it, I think I've gained weight fo sho.
Speaking of big cities, I went to New York just last week! If you're following me on Twitter/befriend me on Facebook, you're probably tired of hearing me ranting about it. But, I am just SO glad I didn't choose a big city to study in. Eau Claire is just a cute little town and there are a lot of nice old people here which I don't mind. Except one time at the post office there was one very rude and grumpy old lady. But let's not talk about that.
2) Studies
Some people think it's easier to score good grades here. I don't know, to me it feels like the 'level of hardness' is just the same like it was in American Degree Program in INTI. Oh wait I take that back. I mean, 89 is considered B!! But I think I did okay for my first semester. I got 2As, 1A-, 1B+ (The B+ is for that kind of class where it's impossible to score an A and even the professor said the average students get B- or C+, so.) I'm just so proud I got an A for Women's Studies!! I LOVED that class so much. It was boring at first because you learned about how women fought for the rights to vote in the US and you came from a country where women can vote right away. That class should've come with a warning, though. 'You'll never enjoy books/movies/tv shows the same way after this semester, yay!' I mean I've always known the oversexualization of women in advertisements and all that, but you just have NO CLUE how bad it can be. The one topic that I was really interested in was about 'raunch culture', where shows like Girls Gone Wild or Playboy magazines make it seem like girls are in control of their body and they feel confident and powerful by showing off their 'assets' but no you're just objectifying yourself!! One time we even watched the first version of King Kong and how it was related to rape. We talked about Red Riding Hood and how THAT is related to rape as well. It was just fascinating. I even considered to minor in Women's Studies but I mean when I go back to Malaysia, what can I do with it anyway.. so I chose psychology instead.
3) People + roommate
There's one too many stories that I hear about roommate disasters, either from the internet or from someone I know but I think my roommate and I get along well!! :) She's very neat and organized, which is the exact opposite of what I am HAHA. So I ~try~ to keep my side of the room clean. The fact that she's the Resident Assistant for the wing I'm at also helps, A LOT, since I'm new and whatnot so I can just ask her anything. Also, she and her boyfriend are SO ADORABLE together. I already booked my seat at their wedding I don't even care.
Moving on to the people here in general, they're pretty nice. Some people are very friendly and you're like wow bless you for making my day I hope you find $20 on the ground today. But then there are also some people who just, you know, I won't say racist, but they're just uncomfortable with the 'unknown'. Probably never had a international/Muslim friends before so they won't really talk to me. But overall, 98% of the people here, are nice, smiles at you, etc. One time though, I waited for the bus to go to Michaels (an art store), and I met this girl and we talked and I don't know how or why but we ended up having lunch and going shopping together. It was weirdly awesome. We had a lot in common, too! (We both agreed that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is perfection). Even some random people I talk to (more like they talk to me, since I'm not one who goes up to strangers and chat haha), there's always that 'who knew we have a lot of common!' realization.
If I'm being honest I was scared to death people would look at me weird for wearing tudung but surprisingly people here treats me alright. However I do know this one Muslim woman (I think she's from Egypt but I'm not sure) who works at Walmart and she told me how she got called a terrorist, 'Muslim whore' and all that and that made my heart ache :( But she was smiling when she told me that and she said people just don't know any better. Bless her heart.
4) Price
When people say the price of things here are cheap, they mean the branded stuff compared to Malaysia. I mean sure a $70 pair of Levi's jeans is cheaper than RM350 in Malaysia, but that's still expensive to me. I'm not really one for branded stuff (except Forever 21, LOVE.). It's true that you can't convert dollars to ringgit and after awhile I stopped doing it. I mean even a can of Coke is considered RM3 and you can get 2 cans back in Malaysia for the price of one here. Don't even get me started on movie tickets! $10 for one movie can I cry. Ok sometimes you can get $6 but still, that's at least RM19.
I do try my best to be careful with money (ceh) and have come to the conclusion Walmart is the cheapest place to get everything. I might be wrong but I'd rather take a 15-minute bus ride to go there than walk to this store called Shopko because that store rips everybody off ugh I banned it for life.
5) Weather
Wisconsin is famous for its BAD, HORRIBLE WINTER. And so far I'm coping
But yes the first time it snowed, REALLY SNOW, I was beyond excited!!! It was just beautiful. Still to this day, I get excited when it's snowing. People keep saying how you'll get excited about snow the first few days and then get tired of it afterwards but nope doesn't apply to me. I still love it! And I don't really tell anyone this but I LOVE and EMBRACE the cold because everybody has to cover up, like I am! I mean back when it was still summer-ish I feel like people look at me weird for wearing long-sleeve tops and jeans when everybody else was wearing spaghetti tops and shorts or something. Like 'ew don't you feel hot in THAT?!'. I mean I come from Malaysia, where it's summer all year around. Doodz, please. Some girls even went walking around in their bikinis as if this is a freaking beach or something. We have a river people float on, but not a sandy beach! So now everybody has to wear everything long-sleeve and all covered up, I FINALLY FIT IN! Hahahahaha.
Speaking of snow, I've tweeted this but in my pop culture class, the professor (my FAVORITE professor this semester) asked everyone in the class to predict when Eau Claire will receive it's first inch of snow. And since my name starts with A, I had to go first. This was still back in October I believe, and I hadn't seen snow yet at the time so I was freaking out I mean it could be snowing the next day for all I know?!?! So I just randomly pick a date. December 10th. And as the class list goes on, everybody else started to pick dates in the range of November 25 - November 30th and making me feel dumber than Karen in Mean Girls. I was way off! But then, plot twist! It snowed (14 inch, to be exact) on the 9th of December!!!!! Since I was the closest, I got the prize :) :) :) :) Which was this ball of chocolate. The professor even went on to explain that you have to smash the ball on the table and only then the chocolate ball will open up. "I like it because you can be violent with it." Sigh I wish I have her as my professor every semester, seriously! She's also a HUGE fan of Harry Potter and by huge I mean she has tattoo(es?) of Harry Potter, and her car's plate number is MUGGLE7. I kid you not. She is awesome. In previous semesters she even asked students to sort of analyze Harry Potter movies but JUST MY LUCK, she decided to break the tradition and chose other movie instead. Oh well.
I don't think I ever showed how/what the prize looks like so here it is just for my blog reader(s)! Lolol
Okay since I'm doing highlights I might as well add one more. Representing Malaysia in the International Folk Fair!!
It was SO much fun and we sold nasi lemak and teh tarik and it was a hit! We played batu seremban and listen to patriotic Malaysian songs (yes Negaraku included) and I was reminded more of home, in a depressing way but I got over it. But yesh you never really appreciate your country until you're literally more than 10 000 miles away and you're the minority and you feel so united with other Malaysians :')
So yeah that's basically my life in a nutshell, so far. I probably should update my blog more
often so that I don't have this, 6-month gap and feel like I have SO MUCH to write but feel like I have nothing to write at the same time.
Till next time, goodbye! May you all have a wonderful 2013!!
ps; I'm pretty devastated I didn't reach my goal to read 50 books in 2012 :( Only 23! Ugh. Gonna set the same goal this year! Fingers crossed!
No comments:
Post a Comment