College

I really thought I had deleted this blog. But I hadn't. And I haven't written for over a year. So, here goes!

28 June 2015 / The day she moved to Kuala Lumpur was a rush. With a suitcase full of clothes, bedsheets, keepsakes from home and other essentials, the 16-year-old girl from Ipoh moved to Brickfields, KL. It was her first actual home away from home, and with a small spark of adventure she hoped for the best.

3 September 2015 / Two months later she looks back at that day she moved and sees how that 'small spark' has kindled into a great fire. So many additions have been made to her life: Friends to treasure, Polaroids to keep, memories rendered to her mental collection of life stories. God has been faithful. He has been faithful indeed.


Adventures worth telling
I didn't know what to anticipate when I moved to KL. Even though I considered this capital city my second home, it was really nothing more than my birthplace, place of residence for the first 2 years of my life and that frequent destination of weekend getaways every few months. It still came across to me as that metropolitan city in which a girl like me would find herself feeling alienated, and perhaps slightly lost. 

But in viewing the college transition under a more positive light, I saw KL as a city with gems both visible and hidden. The visible gems were those big shopping malls, city attractions and kopitiams to explore. The hidden gems were the lifelong friends I would make, the little adventures I would plot onto my map of memories, and all the tiny things that would make KL to me a beautiful home-away-from-home. It was up to me to discover those gems. 

(Yes, I am primarily here to study and get good grades. But grades I'm happy with don't qualify for a good college experience if all I remember are textbook pages committed to photographic memory, making imaginary friends in the library and staying shut up in my room with study goals in mind. That's not college. That's a waste of opportunity.)


Anyway, college took off gracefully for me. My first dinner in KL was in McDonald's Nu Sentral where I had a chicken fold-over, which was only so-so. But the food didn't matter in light of the new friends I made. I'd go back to McDonald's Nu Sentral everyday just to be reminded of that feeling of sweet anticipation about the 18 months to come. I could only imagine what was in store for me.


2 months + 5 days down the road, here I am entitled to boast that I am extremely happy with how college has been so far. I have great housemates for whom I am so thankful for. I've met special people I'll definitely stay close with for a long time to come. I have so many new friends who, by the end of 18 months, I will lovingly call my college family. Among a myriad of other mini-adventures and tiny experiences, I have tried Krispy Kreme (Original Glaze) and I've brought someone out for his first ever McFlurry. I have so many funny stories to tell (hehe) and so much food to tell other salivating people about. 

And yet, that's just the beginning. 2 months is only 1/9 of the 18 months I'll be here for, and it's only a tiny fraction of the rest of the time we have after college to spend together. I could say with confidence that I would go back and live these 2 months again and again, but I know that the 16 months before me hold greater treasures that I cannot wait to discover. And I'm really looking forward to what's to come.

Buuuuuut nevertheless, Ipoh is still home. That city (which people still call a 'town') is 2 hours away from where I am now, and that's where my heart still is - cheesy as it sounds. Even though my family and friends in Ipoh always say I look like I'm having such a great time in college and that it looks like I don't miss home at all, that's a complete lie.


I miss home, and there are nights that go by where I think of how it felt to always have dinner on the table every night, to sit - even in silence - in the car with my family, to spend full Sundays with those MYF weirdos I grew up with, to take the shortcut through that small taman from CGMC to Jusco, to eat at the same places for breakfast everyday without getting tired, to hear the word 'Paris' and think of Hakka Mee instead of France. I miss going to school every morning, carpooling, sitting in classrooms alongside hilarious classmates that I hope I'll never fall out of contact with, poking fun at the same people about the same things and making the same jokes and same puns that never get old. 

I still love you Ipoh. Always, always, you will be home. 

But KL is home away from home lah. And it's a really good home away from home.

Blessings 
I am immeasurably blessed by my Heavenly Father, and He has left me simply awed beyond words at what He has done in my life. All disappointments and all low moments in my life He justifies. Although sometimes the seas of our lives seem to be raging against us and we struggle to keep our eyes above the waves, at the end of it all we come to realise by His grace that everything falls into place. Everything happens for a reason, and when they come together, we see that beautiful result that only God can make work.

So I've learnt that in everything and in every circumstance, remember Joshua 1:9 - "Haven't I commanded you: Be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

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