the short wanderer

Aku tak merancang nak tulis panjang. Cerita ni cerita sebulan yang lalu. Kisah yang bermula pada tanggal 10 Jun 2018 jam 1330 tengah hari... " Don't leave me, " Adlina bersuara dari dalam selimut. ' I wish, Adlina, I wish .' Sejujurnya aku memang not in the mood to go. Kadang-kadang aku harap aku boleh tunda benda ni dan balik rumah macam orang lain. But, I don't see myself taking that as a choice...huh Dalam aku menguatkan diri untuk melangkah pergi tu pun, aku tak mampu nak bertahan lama. Dalam perjalanan dari Victoria Station ke Chichester, aku menangis sendiri dalam gerabak keretapi yang sememangnya tak kosong. Tak ada orang yang nampak, tapi aku rasa orang lain boleh je dengar. Ada aku kisah? Waktu tu,  I just can't be bothered.  Aku bertolak jam 1433 petang dari stesen, kira-kira baru sejam selepas aku keluar dari rumah tapi, aku dah mula rindu semua orang, terutamanya roommate kesayangan aku yang aku tinggalkan keseorangan di Gower Stre...

"Are you born in Britain?" my Romanian teacher once asked me. "Is English your first language?" asked my British friend, Alex, a friend I made from my summer school. "Did you go to any English tuition class?" asked Ong, my internship colleague. Disclaimer:  do not put a high expectation on me! I can assure you that my English is not that good... well, the fact that I had to repeat my IELTS last time is one of the proofs hehe But I just feel like looking back at how I get to speak in English, (though not really fluently, just enough to be able to have a conversation with other people) given the fact that I am such a kampung girl and English is undoubtedly something very, very foreign to me. My family speak full Malay at home. My dad speaks Perak dialect in his hometown, while my mum speaks Javanese with her family. So maybe for the sake of simplicity, all of us have been using standard Malay as our first language despite living in Terenggan...

“Archaeology is about everything.” – Mark Roberts, 11.06.2018 Memandangkan tak ramai orang buat course ni (setahu aku), mungkin orang tertanya-tanya apa yang ada dalam archaeology degree ni sebenarnya.  Bila lecturer aku cakap ‘everything’, memang dia maksudkan  everything .  Maaf kalau agak bias sebab besar kemungkinan aku akan kongsi daripada perspektif seorang pelajar UCL, instead of pelajar arkeologi secara amnya huehue Arkeologi ni, nak dipendekkan cerita, nak kaji cara hidup orang zaman dulu. Tapi, cara nak mengkaji tu sangatlah luas, therefore this subject is very, very interdisciplinary.   Hmm jadi, arkeologi ni, pasal apa sebenarnya?  1.        It is about history , politics , and economics Kalau nak faham orang, kita kena cuba letak diri kita kat tempat orang tu kan? Macam itulah arkeologi. Kalau nak tahu macam mana dan kenapa certain things happened in the past , kita kena ta...

I keep waking up in a foreign town Beneath the obstacles trying to put me down The voices that heal me were once around Have I completely lost the fading sound? I walked to see in life, what’s fair? I stopped while thinking I got time to spare But I halted too much yet I don’t really stare To find the answer to what do I have to care So many good people I do admire But is there even one that I really aspire? The hunch leaves myself being unsure And let me live my life like it never matter I laugh, I cry, and I try to run Yet I always end up standing at the edge I know, I might fall down anytime But I still can’t trade a word of pledge There are times the sea gets too rough I can’t swim; drowned amidst the wreaths They always told me “I need to be tough” But not about the struggles I'll face till my last breath Sometimes I  feel like life has been great Then I wish it becomes finer and better But reckless me; life lifts and ...

"Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson." Thanks dear Holmes, I really appreciate your word of encouragement (as my post introduction hahaha jk). During my first year, I joined an ongoing volunteering programme in UCL, with an organisation named UCL Special Collections, Archive and Records for five months (used to be known as SCAR but has been recently called as UCL Special Collections). We were initially allowed to apply for five roles out of 11 roles offered in the organisation. Long story short, I was given the opportunity to work with my supervisor Elizabeth Lawes, whom I frankly call Liz, who is in charge of the Poetry Store, Little Magazines, and Alternative Press collection sorting team. What motivated me to start volunteering? It was just because   I have a natural desire in venturing out into something new, really. And I have this habit of keeping myself occupied hehe Oh yeah, some background of the collection we worked on... 'Poetry Sto...

"She has discovered (partially? fully?) ways on how to love and treasure herself #loveyourself" To be honest, I was taken for a loop. There are so much things that I think I am yet to discover, and my first thought on her statement about me was that it is a bit overrated XD Nonetheless, I tried to look back on the things I have done, I have seen, and I have went through, and there might be a very small piece of insight that I can remind, not other people, but my own self. (Disclaimer: these are not the tips to love yourself, thanks in advance if you can bear that in mind eheh) 1. I said no to attachment Best friend is a term that used to be invisible from the story of my life. I tried hard to avoid myself from being too attached to anyone. Why? Oh, people come and go, and I don't know who will stay until the last mile of the way (ecece). I knew I wasn’t strong enough to handle heartbreaks, so as they say ‘prevention is better than cure’, I tried to limit ...

"I don't mind not waking up tomorrow" A small thought, though seems very short but can't be more compelling enough to let her sense hit the ground. She had it in her head every single night; those days, and for once she didn't even have the courage to stand up on her own. Empty spaces fill me up with holes Distant faces with no place left to go She was lying on bed, preparing herself to sleep. She tried, but she just couldn't, so she ended up staring at the ceiling. The room was a bit too quiet; she couldn't help from not letting all sorts of problems that existed around her came into her mind, definitely was not helping in any way to help her getting some rest. There wasn't any peace amidst the silence, and her thoughts wandered too far that she came to one point when she told herself, she really don't mind not waking up tomorrow, because she just can't bear the pain of living anymore. Everything was just so painful, and she could...

Another day, another anthropological question: "How does a material culture perspective enrich our understanding of social life?" The sphere of a social life is like an ecosystem; it comprises and also requires the interaction of human beings with their surroundings. In studying the biological relationship in an ecosystem, the physical environment should not be seen as a separate entity from the organisms. That is how social life should also be viewed from a material culture perspective; social relations do not merely encompass human-human interactions, instead it involves a series of interconnected system between human and objects. Hence, the significance of material culture perspective in anthropological studies is indispensable as it involves analysis of domain of things, or objects, which are endlessly diverse (Tilley 2006:3). This diversity is the aspect of material culture that has appeared to be most appealing to anthropologist in understanding the uni...