the short wanderer

Very much overdue that I actually thought I would never end up publishing this anyway, but why not? There's probably gonna be a time where I'd want to go back and look at this again in the future anyway - Dear 2021, It has been an absolute adventure to have met you, experienced things with you, and learnt so much along your side. Now that you are leaving, it just feels that I am doing injustice to not bid you proper goodbye.  In all honesty, it does really feel like it was only yesterday I stepped into a Popular bookstore in town, bought a notebook for my 2021 journal and wrote down my 2021's 'New Year Resolutions' in one of the first few pages. Now that I am looking at it, I have to say, I wasn't being ambitious enough on the day I had came up with these resolutions. In fact, I had only written a list of three things I want to achieve in 2021 in particular! Let me just try to backtrack where was I - mentally and physically - when I had written these down. Oh! H

Period pain sucks. Oh well, any kind of pain sucks I guess. But as it is notoriously known/perceived (please don't quote me on this isk isk), women get extra 'sensitive' during their menstruation period so here's a random note from an annoyed version of me as I went through the so-called period of hormonal imbalance last month lol - I had literally just put the rice on the stove, when my stomach had a random muscle cramp attack. "Well, forget about cooking then" I said to myself in frustration while waiting in the kitchen for my rice to cook and the pain to (hopefully) subside. It did went away after a while, but I couldn't risk another cramp in the kitchen so I went back to my room after putting the rice in a container. When I was back in the room, and low-key wishing someone can cook for me instead, my heart suddenly whispered, "It must be hard to struggle with an illness (especially a chronic one) and having to get someone else to take care of you.

Saw this note in my online drive and since it has been the most stressful week of the year thus far, I think it's the best timing to pull this 2021 archive out. TW (trigger warning): suicide - read at your own risk, and please seek help if you think you need mental health support  Spend all your time waiting  For that second chance For a break that would make it okay There's always one reason To feel not good enough And it's hard at the end of the day I need some distraction Oh beautiful release Memory seeps from my veins Let me be empty And weightless and maybe I'll find some peace tonight In the arms of an angel Fly away from here From this dark cold hotel room And the endlessness that you fear You are pulled From the wreckage Of your silent reverie You're in the arms of the angel May you find Some comfort there So tired of the straight line And everywhere you turn There's vultures and thieves at your back And the storm keeps on twisting You keep on building t

A post from @thegoodquote appeared as I was scrolling my Instagram feed the other day. It says, "Ways To Put Yourself First in 2022" and listed 9 different things you can practise to do so. The second last one on the list caught my attention;  "At the end of the day, share 3 things that you are grateful for, or write them down on a piece of paper" This practice of journalling gratitude is something I was almost consistently doing at the end of 2021. I have a note in my phone entitled 'Gratitude Journal' where I would just list down things I was grateful for on a particular date. For example, when we went to Cotswold at the end of October, we were chatting with a group of Japanese students who were in awe when they found out I'm studying in UCL. "You must be clever!", one of them said to me. I should have probably responded more politely, but I remember frowning and being so puzzled since my sister and her friend (who were with me) go to LSE an

I have a confession to make. Towards the end of 2021, I had been thinking about "shutting down" this blog. For some reason, I wanted to stop writing here, or at least make it private instead of a public page. But weirdly enough, the more I insisted on shutting it down towards the last days of 2021, the more I couldn't resist the temptation to write. I have drafts of posts accumulating either in my phone's notes app (including the most recent post I published), or just thoughts lingering in mind. I take note of almost every single random musing that comes across my mind every day, so I guess you can only imagine how exhaustive the list of drafts would be. To be honest, I don't have much to update on this blog. I think I've mentioned somewhere or to someone that my life has felt rather stagnant for the past year. But one of the major changes I have experienced for the last few months is that... I'm back in the UK, currently pursuing a childhood dream I'v

For the past one year or so I think I've been making a lot of modifications to my prayers. By prayers I mean, the du'a I make every time after solah. It's a good thing I guess. If I have been reciting the same prayer for the past 24 years of my life, it may become more of a routine kind of thing, and it tends to get more and more meaningless as time passes. My du'a, unsurprisingly, would reflect something I am in need of or at least, something I desire or have a slight interest in at that particular moment.  Some of the du'as that I've started making recently are very basic stuff. Being away from home, I've always struggled with praying on time or even just praying in general. Winter months sucks; it makes you feel like staying in your bed being nicely wrapped in your duvet every morning. I lost count of the days I would just wake up and it's freezing cold, and I would just blatantly ask "God, do I need to pray? Why do I need to? Huhu" and slow

A TED video about anxiety disorder popped up on my YouTube homepage when I was randomly scrolling for something to watch while sipping coffee for breakfast. The speaker, Dr Jen Gunter started the short video with "We live in a culture that doesn't take mental health issue seriously". All of the sudden, I had this flashback of one of my first meetings with my undergraduate Personal Tutor back in 2017. We were discussing about my practice essay when she asked me if I was by any chance dyslexic - because she mentioned my essay seem to indicate a writing of a person with dyslexia. Taken aback, I answered no, or at least, not that I know of. None of my family members ever really think about getting a diagnosis from a psychologist so I guess even if I was to be dyslexic, I would not even knew it. Back in high school, my Physics teacher once advised me to get a diagnosis and consultation about my (chronic) sleeping disorder, but neither me nor my family took it seriously. I gues

I've been rather quiet here lately, but my brain barely shuts itself up for the past year though (especially for the past month - I have a constant inner monologue that I myself couldn't control!). I have a lot to write, but time constraint means my thoughts are also constrained within the space of my mind. But God has been kind enough today to grant me some time and space to be here , so here we go! As my gap year is coming to an end, I might as well write another post to wrap it up (you can read the first part somewhere among the recent posts lol - only if you want to, of course). In the previous post, I talked about my internship in TFM (in which I feel the length of the post is not doing justice to the amount of experience and knowledge I have gained during my 6-month "tenure"), my first ever fundraising experience, and I shared a list of books I have read for the first half of 2021. Sometimes I find myself staring blankly at random spaces in my room, thinking to

I went to sleep yesterday thinking that tomorrow is just going to be another day, that tomorrow is just another day - what difference would it make? Being 22 years old or 23 years old based on my IC, no significant changes would happen I guess. But when I woke up to the news of the death of Siti Sarah, one of the famous Malaysian singers whose songs I grew up with, it hit me that, it's not just another day. It's another day I actually  get to live, another day I get to be with my family, another day I get to do good to others, another day I get to explore life possibilities, another day I get to dream about my yet to come future. The day has been melancholic I would say. I am still haunted and surrounded the guilt of saying whatever crossed my mind before I slept last night. For the past year, I definitely have not been on top of my patience-and-gratitude game. Living in the present without thinking too much about the past and the future is something I constantly struggle with