I think that I can relate to this (refer to the picture above), a lot. In fact, I've seen a lot of my friends do amazing things once they're willing to break out of their comfort zones. It's not easy, but it's worth it. If we're staying in our comfort zones, we'll become stagnant in a way, right? Even Cassey Ho (my favourite pilates instructor) said, "Make yourself feel uncomfortable, every day," (something like that haha).
In my past experience, I've tried a lot of new things, challenging myself, and that's when I discovered my passion. If I didn't try, I wouldn't discover it. You know what they say, don't wait for opportunity, create it. Whenever I feel the urge to do something so bad, I'll visualize the whole thing in my head and find the opportunity to get what I want. Trust me, it works. I have this strong feeling, deep inside, there's this voice telling me that I'm going to seize it and the only way to make it becomes reality is by acting upon it.
I don't know what's going on with me lately, is it because of the intoxicating latte I sipped, oral presentation that I think I aced it (insyaAllah), being able to do the opening of a dance performance or ... the fact that for the first time I answered this extrovert vs introvert quiz in class just now, I scored - EXTROVERT. That quiz's result is invalid, for sure. It's Buzzfeed, y'all. I'm certain that 70% of me is leaning towards INTROVERT lol. But the quiz's result somehow changes my perception. I could try to leave my comfort zones. I should try overcoming my fears. I don't have social anxiety, I'm just socially awkward. I think too much about what I say and how it affects me or them. I rely on my extroverted company (note: I call them extrovert because they're the opposite of the word 'awkward') too much. I let them feel superior over me by letting them do all the talking/meeting other people and I hide behind their back just because I can. It's easier to let the thoughts flew by rather than expressing them in words. I'm stuck in my own comfort zone for years.
Until one day, one of my extroverted companies made fun of me being socially awkward. Of course it hurts like hell. I shed some tears in the bathroom and went out like I didn't feel affected by those words. I'm too comfortable being quiet so much that I've let my guard down in front of them. The truth is, I hate being awkward. But I can't help it.
These days, I have no idea what's gotten into me, but somehow everyday, there would always be strangers smiling at me and guess what? It's infectious. I could wear a smile and talk to the barista without looking at my feet (the atmosphere was less awkward). Baby steps. I don't want to hide behind the privilege of being an introvert just to avoid social interactions where ......... amazing things might just happen.
My favourite sight. This photo was captured by me at Windmills, Perhentian island.
I'm exhausted. But I'm not complaining. I feel so happy to see the dancing (representing latin dance) and swimming (swim lesson) emojis at my timetable. Can't you see how excited I am by mere sight of the emojis?
And oh, in swimming lesson, I'm proud to say that in our slot, I'm the most advanced learner obviously because I know the basic of swimming (not the technique, though). I'm a kampung girl. My Ayah would take my siblings and I to swim at the sea, river and waterfall since we were practically toddlers. We learned how to swim naturally. We played around a lot, for sure. I would compete with my brothers on who-can-hold-the-breath-under-water-for-the-longest-time-win game. My big brother would show me how to act like a starfish underwater saying that in order to it, he has to apply one of the Physics principles (I didn't even begin to learn Physics back then). I remember letting my body float and let the river took me where it wants to. And I guess that's how I taught myself how to back float. Playing dead was my way of self-taught how to front float. So, entering this swimming lesson helps me a lot in learning the right technique. You know, those breast stroke thingy. All this time I just simply move my hands and legs however I want them to be as long as I float and able to move lol and that's what I called swimming.
I guess that explains why I'm so attached to water activities, so much that I plan with my friends for annual trip to islands. Please don't be too alarmed with my sudden updates of my blog. haha. I just feel this urge to blog some random things. I have no idea why. pms kot.
For some reasons, I'm currently in the mood of blogging, so here we go. Last year, Yah, KayKay, Ain and me went to Perhentian island during semester break. We became friends during pre U USM foundation year. We thought of making the trip for our batch friends but um, not everyone is interested I guess. So I invited my sister and cousin whereas KayKay invited her sister. That's that. The place was beautiful even though we were not satisfied with the accommodation but meh, let bygones be bygones.
So this year, I uploaded a throwback photo of our trip, without expecting any upcoming island trip. Then Yah commented and suggested us to go to the island again. I brought our Whatsapp group 'came back to live' lol and called it 'Ke Pulau Ke Kita 2.0' and invited more friends. Ain suggested Kapas island. Then we're like, "Why not? So let's do this". Yah is an amazing leader, negotiator and communicator haha so she did all the talking to the trip package agent. Few weeks passed, then we've reached Kapas island for a 3D2N trip. I was so ecstatic. There's nothing more pleasing than being able to feast my eyes on the blue blue seawater and swimming like there's no tomorrow.
We departed to Kapas island at Marang jetty. Oh right, Kapas island is located at Terengganu, of course. Terengganu has wonderful beaches and islands. One of the reasons why I'm proud to be anak Terengganu.
This is the place where we stay for 2 nights. Highly recommended. The food is delish. The room is clean and comfy.
The girls named this as 'stairway to heaven'.
One of the best attractions, in my personal opinion, is how we can go to the other side of the island by climbing the stairs. As a self-claimed wanderer, I got excited whenever I saw the stairs because it makes me wonder how's the beach going to look like on the other side. While they were so into capturing photos and all, I could not wait to climb the stairs to get to the other sides. On our 1st day, after settling down, unpacking those bags, we went to discover those beautiful beaches and have a memorable girls talk.
I can live here forever.
I don't care even if my skin was tan, I felt so happy. I just couldn't stop swimming even when it was 12 pm.
How can you look at this crystal clear water and not believe?
Day 2 is the day we went snorkelling. Oh well, the day I anticipated the most. We had 2 snorkelling trips which were from 10 am - 12 pm and 3 pm - 5 pm. On our first snorkelling point, Jane hesitated to go into the water mainly because it was her first time so she felt quite insecure and all. Then we all went snorkelling without her and when I approached KayKay and Syafa, they told me..
KK: Do you feel something sharp penetrating your feet?
S: Yeah, it feels as if the seawater is somewhat sharp like needles.
W: Nope, I don't feel anything. Perhaps it's because I'm wearing socks.
Then, I felt this deep sting on my two hands. Yeah, it's true, the seawater was 'sharp'. There were like a bunch of little needles in the seawater. It hurts. I even got some scratches but I ignored them and dunked my head into the water to see those fish and corals. When we got into the boat,
S: Those foreigners were saying that there were a lot of baby jellyfish in the water.
W: What? I really thought that the seawater was literally ... sharp. I had no idea that it was because of baby jellyfish all this time.
Yeap, those babies stung us. Ain got a lot of rashes after that but they were harmless, so Alhamdulillah everything's good.
Yah, the cat lover, kept questioning how did those cats get to be in this island? Did someone took them here from the mainland or what?
An unexpected thing happened on our 2nd night there. That night, we were so exhausted after two trips of snorkelling, hence we went to hit the sack early. Then at 12 am, all of us were awoken by the eerie sound of harsh wind. It was so creepy. It sounded like a bunch of girls went gaga and screaming their lungs out. Hajar went to grab our swimming outfits, hanging on the veranda. I was so scared to even help her so I just closed my eyes and recite prayer quietly. We tried to sleep, praying that everything would be fine tomorrow. It makes me realize that as a servant, whenever things get rough and we need something to hold onto, we would always turn to Allah. The words, "O Allah" would reflexively escape from our mouths whenever we face hardship, don't we? As a firm believer of Allah, we pray to Allah for protection. Then it makes me wonder, what would an atheist do or say in this similar situation when he/she doesn't even believe in higher power? The next morning, we went to search for the remaining outifts that Hajar couldn't manage to grab. I lost my favourite black shawl. Yes, I mourned for the lost of my new, favourite shawl. So devastating, I told you. It's black. It's black.
On our last day, we went rock climbing and hiking. The journey took 3 hours. It was quite challenging. The rock could be sharp, wet and slippery. And the final hiking to get to see the view as the photo above was so steep. I freaked out a bit while trying to keep it cool. haha. The trails were rough, our staminas were running empty but Alhamdulillah we did it. You know the drill, life's a climb but the view is great.
Team Ke Pulau Ke Kita 2.0
Thank you for making it happen.
I couldn't thank God enough for letting me meet this amazing bunch.
And of course, I edited a video to keep these precious moment forever. The footages are all from my Note 2 phone, Yah's SJ Cam and Hajar's iPhone so I'm kinda proud of the outcome despite the fact that I'm not using my camera. Enjoy!
Hello there, I'm on my 5th week of 5th semester. Life's good. I've always had this hunch that if I tell my plan/goal to my friends, I might just somehow not going to be able to hit that goal. Jinx? I don't know. But I'm a person who holds to her words (at least I'm trying to). I'm not going to say things that I'm not going to do. Because ones who keep saying they're going to do this and that and then ending up not doing anything about it are my pet peeves. Mann, if you can't do it, don't throw your words carelessly saying that you're going to do it. Heh.
Today I'm just going to share my progress, I guess. No matter how skinny my friends think I am, I don't feel skinny nor fat. I embrace my body. The thing is, my family members label me as somewhat fat. Yeah I'm the tallest (among the girls) and my figure is quite huge compared to them. But I'm sick of them telling me I'm fat whenever I took a selfie, exposing my chubby cheeks. Sure, I have the biggest appetite, but well my height is 162 cm and they barely reach 160 cm. Of course I need more energy aka carbo. I don't want to go back to being skinny when I was 12 when my height was 160 cm and my weight was .... 39 kg (I'm 50 kg now). Heck no. I suppose they're not going to stop saying I'm fat until I lose 10 kg (which I won't unless I suffer from some illness or depression). So yeah, I stop feeding them with my attention. In other words, they can say what they want, but I'm too busy trying to impress myself by breaking my own records. This semester, I took Latin dance class and swimming clinic to fill up my free time. I have to attend the dance class twice a week and swimming lesson once a week. So if I'm not dancing, I'll be doing Pilates. If I'm not swimming, I'll be hitting my running shoes. I used to walk (literally just WALK) around USM at least twice a week on previous semester. I'm proud of myself because now I can feel my progress of being able to jog + run + walk around USM now. At first it was a torture to jog uphill (if you've been to USM, you'll probably know how the route is like), but yesterday, for the first time, I could feel the progress of my body based on how long I could sustain the 'pain'. Now, everyday, I would always anticipate to end my day by working out just so I could indulge the blissful feeling of the first sip of water, night shower and the first bite of my dinner afterwards. I just want to feel stronger and healthier each day. Say no to being lazy bum. Haha. Keep your mouth shut and JUST DO IT.
