Reminiscing AND Updating - You get the best of both!

Thursday, December 25, 2008

tcelfer

I am currently in London. New Year is coming soon. I am getting older. I am now more exposed to ‘real life’ and away from the comfort safe zone called ‘Brunei’. To be honest, living in UK away from family for nearly four months have taught me a lot. It is more than living as an independent. In fact, I don’t really think going to a boarding school makes you act like an independent person. Being a boarder does not mean you have to cook your own food and that you have freedom to do whatever you want. (NO!) It just means you are living away from the ones you love.

Going to Shrewsbury School from Mondays to Saturdays, I have my ups and downs. There are waves of depression that I can overcome and hardly overcome. I am not kidding when I say I feel like I am in a big ocean trying to swim to the right island. There are sharks trying to rip me off and there has always been time when drowning feels like the right decision to make. But still I survive and my first term (Michaelmas Term) is now over.

Most importantly, you get to learn surviving in a new country with its new culture without family. It means learning to cope with friends with horrible attitude and accepting them who they are and always reminding yourself that you are not perfect and that you make silly mistakes too. It exposes you to different people with differing intellectuals that never cease to amaze you. It also means having to make friends who have different accents from yours, and accepting that you can’t always be friends with everybody. It makes you appreciate what you had and every little thing you have.

2009 means I am becoming older. 2009 means I will now have to go for a swim, again. 2009 means I will have to learn my mistakes in the past and make the most of my time and always never give up and always believe in myself. 2008 has been a crazy year for me. It was not the best year neither was it the worst year ever.

I am thankful for what I have and for what I don’t have. I don’t know why I bother blog ESPECIALLY when blog-hoppers and stalkers are on the rise, and when the grammatical-correct people would laugh when I make silly English grammatical errors. Well, maybe it is hope. Hope to find there are people out there who could understand me despite the English-silly-mistakes or idiotic upcoming posts. Hope to connect with people who could contribute something to what I have written/will write.

HAHAHA.

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I really like this post of mine way back THREE YEARS AGO. I know, vanity (but at the best place I think :P). Currently reminiscing the past, and clearly seeing the significant difference of the person who I am now, and before. The people I have met, and who have moved on or have different life path than I do now.

I think that a lot of people are on the same boat as I am in; the boat which we all wish to find that island where we can find ourselves. I have not been blogging for awhile as I thought about having my life and my thoughts well-hidden from public view. But hey, things change.. not that I am seeking attention or anything but I feel like I need a place where I can let out things that are currently in my mind, and perhaps a random visitor would have something constructive comment to write?

To update you on what has been going on since I last left you would be a difficult task. It has been two years since I wrote anything! Especially at this hour (it is currently 2.43 am in here-London) While yes, it is true I did a bit of writing on tumblr, but never actually updated on what is going with me (except the bit about doing summer school in LSE at tumblr: SHREEV)

Oh yes, London..... I am currently studying in King's College London actually doing Physics and Philosophy. As what has been suggested by my long-time ago post, I actually really did apply to study these subjects and I am currently doing it in London! I would like to think I did well in my A-level exams- thank God! :)

University has been quite a challenge I guess. It was a difficult start last year when I first started living in the university accommodation. My hope that my allowance would actually be increased did not come true so I did quite a lot of strict budgeting. You can say I have done a lot of swimming against the current and trying not to get drowned! (Yes...self-made metaphor which can be hugely lame or okay (It is really up to you to decide). I tried to look for part-time jobs but always failed. And now I am staying in a hugely subsidized accommodation since this year's March and I get to give myself a big break!

So far, I am still firmly believing in using the most of my time abroad for useful stuffs. In my first year, I did fencing (yes continuing it since boarding school) although I am not doing it due to my currently chaotic horrible time management skill! Anyhow, now I am in my second year I have been doing fundraising work for a charity KCL READ International in which I am the fundraising project leader. Not going to say, everything for me is smooth. I have my ups and downs not just in this charity work BUT in my studies, and other stuffs like friendship?

Like I said earlier, it is quite a big change for me. It is quite sad to have this realisation that the people who I think were among the best people I know are no longer here by my side . But I guess memory served as reminder to me that at least these people shaped my past years and possibly contributed to who I am right now, which I must say, not exactly...bad ;) Sometimes I wonder if it is me;

Do I change that people turn away from me?

Have we lost shared interests?

Did I do something wrong?

Or are we just playing along with fate - people come and leave at some point?

I was a bit under the weather today as really my x-mas cards charity sale was not what I was expecting, and also I was feeling a bit lonely. But a simple call to a friend just brightened up my days - put a smile on my face and motivate me to not give up. It just made me wonder about the 'past people' who I have not spoken to, in awhile. Perhaps I was never really the 'good friend'. Maybe I was (am?) consumed with myself that I forgot to value my friendship with people. I could not just blame 'the other side' even though there was a part of me who think that these 'past people' never valued my friendship anyway.

Anyhow, I am facing it with maturity now (I hope). I would never rely on people though - I would still want to be that guy who some commented as being 'independent' and 'not emotionally driven but rational'. Though at times, I might have gone off the track but it is all up to me for who I wish to be identified with. On the other hand, I would do my best to value people for who they are, not just talking about friends here, but my family, associates and the authorities.

I learn that a simple greeting, or simply asking how the person is can make a difference in their mood feelings. I learn that if people treated you like shit, they never deserve your attention in the beginning.

About two weeks to New Year 2012 and all I can say is wow. My experience so far has never ceased to amuse, please, anger, amazed, etc me.

Long time ago, I signed up for tumblr, thinking it was really simple.

But I abandoned it a lot of times. Take this analogy (or simile) if tumblr is a girlfriend, you can very much think she is stupid. How can a girl still accept a guy who dumps her many times + sleeps with another girl who btw still exist?

I don't know if you understand me. I surely can understand myself until one day, some guy ask me to rephrase everything I said. Damn you.

Anyway, I present to you...

http://shreev.tumblr.com

Questions

Questions are dangerous.

Can we think of something when questions crop up and they just complicate everything? Take the closest to you, say school. How many times have you thought about something and loving your own idea? Until a time when your teacher says, ‘But have you thought about...?’ And you thought, ‘Oh no...’

But does an act of ignorance is better than questioning what there is to know? For now, I think knowing is better than being ignorant.

So let us stop being ignorant. :)

p.s. I am thinking of reinventing a new blog, to write about my travelling experiences and stuffs happening..

20 pounds and 2 pounds

This is sort of a response to Nadia's blog. I'd like to comment on her blog but too bad there is no comment box.

well, it sort of occurred to me too, except it was dark at night and i was on the way from Pancras International Station (from my trip to France). I was stopped by this beggar who asked me if I was a Muslim. I said, 'yes' and he immediately talked about his problem and that his family had no money. All he asked was money from me. All the time his voice was shaking and needy. And all the time, I was suspicious of his intention and his voice. 'Is this needy voice real?' Never mind it, I was willing to give few pounds except when I checked my wallet in front of him, I found out that I only had £20! And mind you, the only money I had on sight.

Under pressure (because it was late and i really wanna go back to Brunei Hall and of course his persisting 'please'), I gave it to him. But I still don't know what he did exactly with the money when he left. My immediate mental reaction was calling myself an idiot.

The next thing happened was sort of unfortunate. With my luggage, I went inside the Bus 205 'Mile End' hoping the bus could bring me straight to Brunei Hall. But the road seemed unfamiliar to me and blurry and it felt like this was not right. I asked someone in the bus and he told me that 'this is not going to Paddington(where Bhall is).' And shit, the bus really was going to somewhere place called 'Mile End'. I had to go out of the bus and 'fortunately' within few minutes I got into the right bus.

But it didn't feel like the right bus because my oyster was apparently insufficient. I looked for spare change or at least two pounds which could pay for this one trip to Brunei Hall. BUT NO! I had no money at all! I was a bit worried and I did not exactly want to be stranded on unfamiliar road at late night. So while I was still searching for money in my bag, the bus moved towards Paddington. But all these time, I still could not find any money in my bag and I FELT embarrassed in front of the fellow passengers who looked at me blankly. Come on, I was alone and surely I looked like a kid who need help? It was so tempting to ask for change from the passengers there because the bus driver kept on looking and asking me if I had money while looking pissed off. But in the end, yes I found the two pounds that abled me to pay the bus trip to Paddington.

Perhaps, thinking that giving money to beggars was never a right thing to do. 'How can we actually know these people are really honest?' And after the unfortunate event, I kinda hate myself giving the beggar my only money I had (in view and easily reached) left when I in fact almost begged for it in the bus!

But then, it felt like a new experience. Like I was taking over the body of a beggar and all I felt was not just sympathy from the television watching news about hunger. I was in it. I was the guy who wanted to beg and needy. And all the while I was searching for money in my bag, I felt hatred to those who simply looked at me without offering to help. I could beg but I could not bear the thought of being ignored and thought of as some sort of con. Because I knew it could hurt me. I mean, come on, I am just doing my A levels here, hello?

But lucky me, I found my two pounds to pay and I could do the same thing to, cold staring at the fellow passengers of bus no. 205.

SHITTEST THE SHITTEST BREAK EVER.

I hate this winter holiday. It sucks. And I hate New Year and the next day after that. And 2010 will be full of hate. Great.......

Sometimes it feels good to actually make yourself feel inferior and others to see how inferior you are. Then you will see who enjoy watching you...suffer, and then you know that you are all alone...