Friday, September 29, 2006

leaving on a jet plane...

My last night in Malaysia and looking back at 3 months worth of summer break, I can safely say that it wasn't an unexciting one.

For the past few days, I have been bidding good byes and farewells to my college-mates who were flying back way earlier; around this time tomorrow night, I will probably be already flying over the Straits of Malacca.

I would have thought that leaving Malaysia the third time round should have become easier on me but I guess Malaysia - for all its faults and shortcomings - still has a strong pull upon my psyche.

But, it doesn't help either that I've spent a week of Ramadhan back at home this year; after all, Malaysians do have a weakness and intense longing for their own foods.

Add that to the almost daily occurences of pasar malams during the fasting month in Malaysia and you will be hard pressed to completely pick yourself up and leave the country.

However, a comforting thought for me this time around was that my family have had the chance of travelling all the way to London, experiencing the city for themselves and visiting the places, sights and sounds familiar to me this summer.

And from that shared experience they now have, I am drawing my strength to cope with my inevitable departure to London.

But for what's its worth, it was an engaging 3 months back home - more so than usual.

And as my stay nears its end, I came to the following realizations...

It is a funny thing but during this summer break, I felt that I was slowly reciprocating the deeds, kindness and help that my parents and grandparents had done for me in the past.

I guess what I am trying to say is that there was a strong sense of 'giving back' or the need to 'look after' them and I felt compelled to be there for them as they had generously done for me.

Somehow, I think that this is what the phrase 'circle of life' is all about - literally that is.

That said, I pray for the strength to protect the ones I love, the ones I am close with and the ones who have contributed much to my life.

I wish to discover my aims and purpose in life in other people, especially in those that matters to me.

Finally, I would like to know or at the very least believe that my stay here in Malaysia for the past 3 months have manage to leave an imprint, induce some change or make a difference on someone or something.

After all, that is the best thing any person could hope for - the ability to affect change.

Facing the challenges of 3rd year, I say that this entry should not be read as the beginning of an end; rather it should be read as the beginning of something truly wonderful...

Hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri sendiri;
lebih baik hujan batu di negeri sendiri.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

looking back..

I came across this insightful and warmly meditative quotation during one of my bedtime readings last night:

I want to do the right thing, but often I don't know just what the right thing is. Every day I know I have come short of what I would like to have done. Yet as the years pass and I see the very world itself, with its oceans and mountains and plains, as something unfinished, a peculiar little satisfaction hunts out the corners of my heart.

As I look back on my second year, I am initially at loss to find the exact sentiments to describe what it meant to me and how much has it affected me.

In second year, your sense of wonderment or or naive enthusiasm have been somewhat lessen; you have grown hardy from your experiences, critical from your shortcomings, rigid from your daily routine and a little cynical from the things you encounter.

You find that you are less impressionable and slightly more jaded compared to your first year.

You would like to think that you have grown a bit wiser since your first year but you are constantly barraged with challenges that stretches the limits of your preseverance and patience that at times you felt like you have learnt nothing from your share of missed opportunities and recurring regrets in your first year.

But as you thought long and hard about it, you begin to realize that there were treassured moments in your second year.

The long nights you spent in the library completing the lab book or feverishly trying to finish reading a limited copy of a reference book and the tiring walk back home that you have to endure after that, the times when you are forced to improvise, keep your cool and learn new skills overnight during the Malaysian Night rehearsals, the deep talks you had either with your confidantes or newly found friends and openly sharing your fears and hopes over a tandoori chicken dinner.

When I think about it, the thing that stands out the most about my second year was how much networking I have done - how old friendships have been further substantiated and strengthened and how new ones are forged and maintained.

Several of the old relationships have moved on to a new level of understanding and respect whilst the new ones are striding cofidently ahead.

If there is one thing I would like to remember about my second year, it would the people I have met; the times I spent with them and the things I learnt from their interactions.

It is dissapointing to think that for some people, it is their inability to express and open up themselves to other people to be the thing that is holding them back in life.

I realized that one cannot be too fearful when one wishes to make first contact with others.

One should not think too much about not being able to say the right things or construct the proper sentences to verbalize those things because those kind of thoughts will always come to nag you no matter how good you think you are.

Indeed, I realized that you can make a mistake and the world does not come to an end. No more is this notion more beautifully captured than in the following quotation:

Sunsets and evening shadows find me regretful at tasks undone, but sleep and the dawn and the air of the morning touch me with refreshing hopes. Strange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don't worry about my destiny.

When you put it that way, you can go about your live, take the necessary risks and tread the less-traveled path with the innate knowledge that everything will be put right again - Insya-Allah.