Family, Friends and Money

Assalamualaikum

Ada masanya saya rasa kawan itu tak pernah dan tak mungkin akan jadi seperti keluarga kita. No matter how bff you claim you two are. No matter how just-like-sisters/brothers/siblings you claim you two are. Pada saya yang tinggal jauh dengan keluarga dan dekat dengan kawan-kawan, ya saya rasa kawan itu sangat dekat dengan saya. To the point that saya tak suka strangers buat tak elok pada kawan-kawan saya. Ya, saya sayang kawan saya. Tapi keluarga is in different league.

Saya jauh dari keluarga. And everytime saya balik cuti, I just can't wait to return to the comfort of my friends over here. Tapi saya masih tetap rasa kawan itu tak macam keluarga. Family accepts you as you are. Friends do too. Tapi entah kenapa tak sama. Takde justifikasi. Saya cuma rasa tak sama =p

Beberapa ketika dahulu, waktu saya check notification facebook, ada random question from friend exposed applications. Bertanya Which would you pick : A million dollars or a million friends. Saya instinctively jawab a million dollars :D. You can never have that many friends. Tengok dalam live kamu sekarang berapa banyak kawan yang kamu ada. Always ada tambahan tapi pun ada berkurangan. Always there are strangers that become your new friends and old friends that become strangers. Point is you can never keep up with a million friend. The affections can never be the same. Better get the million dollars and make the friends and people you have around you happy with it. I am just being realistic here.

So does Moshitta fall into the category of friends or family?

I do feel like he is more family.

Assalamualaikum

Memories

Assalamualaikum

Sebab tarikh bergelar 유학생 pun semakin hampir tamat, maka haruslah ada post berciri nostalgic, yes? Maka saya telah pilih my favorite memories of each of the four seasons.


Spring
Tak banyak boleh dicerita tentang musim bunga. Ya, bunga cantik. But, unfortunately I was always too busy with school sampai tak berapa ada masa jalan-jalan tengok bunga. Yes, Jejudo trip during early spring of 2005 was supposed to be fun, tapi considering saya tak tahu the value of sight-seeing dan ditambah pula dengan mabuk laut, maka it was less than memorable. Oh bukan, kami tak naik bot ke Jejudo, kami naik aeroplane. Tapi kami ke Udo naik bot. Jadi saya telah memilih favorite memory of spring as the one when I cycled all the way from Daerim to Yeoido with Jiji to watch sakura.


me in my red giordano sweater ketika ia masih baru.

Saya tak ada rancangan nak ke Yeoido langsung. Ya semua orang sibuk dengan sakura. It was after all, our first. Hari terakhir sebelum angin spring datang dan meniup habis semua bunga. Jiji ajak saya ke Yeoido petang tu. Saya tanya naik subway ke. Jiji kata tak. Naik basikal. Dia tahu jalan. Maka kami pun kayuh macam nak pengsan sampai Yeoido. Tapi tak sepengsan the time when we cycled from Daerim ke Kelin Gongwon sambil Dira membonceng di belakang lepas tu sesat. :D


Summer
Having trouble choosing between a fabulous day out with friends and summer vacation to Busan. So I picked both :D



my then-best-friend is my now-boyfriend. ehe

The day started out with me in a public-speaking contest. In Korean, yes. I was still full of excitement from the previous day's Chinmogae Bam. Malas berfikir apa itu Chinmogae Bam dalam bahasa Inggeris. Now come to think of it, I never really knew what Chinmogae Bam means. *look-up-endic.naver*. Ok the word chinmok means friendship, so Chinmogae Bam should be something like friendship night kan? I won 2nd place in the public-speaking contest so I got myself a cultural voucher worth ... can't remember how much was it worth. Then we went to Namdaemun to splurge on souvenirs. We were going back to Malaysia for our first time. Back then, kalau keluar mesti beramai-ramai secara meriah. I remember asking Moshitta a slightly provocative question when we were waiting for the train. I wonder if he remembers what. Then we went home, for a quick rest and went out again for movie. Each one of us paid 1000 won for the ticket and the rest are paid using the vouchers I won. Someone wasted the ticket by sleeping through the movie even when the sound of explosions were deafening. We watched The Island by the way. We got sort of lost on our way home and it was pretty late when we reached Linda's house. Others already slept so we had to knock hard. My cellphone ran out of credit *yes, I used credits back then* so I had to call using my international card phone number. Sort of ring ring card. Su opened the door and saved us.



shortly before the ride

Kami bercakap mengenai Busan sangat banyak. Memang berhasrat benar nak ke Busan sebelum habis belajar. Macam kalau tak pergi Busan tak boleh mengaku pernah duduk Korea lima tahun setengah. Tapi kami ialah kami di mana perancangan jarang-jarang masuk dalam buku. Macam bercuti di Port Dickson hari tu. Siap boleh sampai taman buaya yang tak ada buaya :D. Maka sama macam itu juga, 2 hari sebelum Hadi pulang cuti di Malaysia, saya bangun pagi call Moshitta dan bertanya jadi tak pergi Busan hari ni? Moshitta kata jadi. Lalu kami berdua bangun packing dan terus keluar ke Seoul Station. Jumpa Hadi sebab beliau baru balik dari Namdaemun. Took off ke Busan begitu sahaja. Full details ada dalam entry lain. Oh mujur ada tiket balik malam hari berikutnya, kalau tidak Hadi akan tertinggal flight balik Malaysia. Selepas vacation super fun ini, saya dan Moshitta menghadapi summer semester with management subjects yang horror. Talk about bersenang-senang dahulu bersusah-susah kemudian.


Autumn


not in the picture because i am the person taking it

Picnic at Eulwang Beach autumn of 2005. Selain suka pergi theme park tapi tak main, saya juga suka aktiviti piknik. We had chicken barbecues and sandwiches. Main bunga api tepi pantai. Tapi macam datang dan makan ayam bakar di tepi pantai pun ada. Sebab there was not much to do. By the time kami sampai dah petang sangat. Dan ok serius sejuk amat. It was autumn dan angin memang di paras tak payah cakap. This is partly memorable sebab how laughable it was kot. I remember ada anjing besar walked near our picnic spot. Dan semua orang cuak it would grab the chicken.


Winter


turning twenty

Semua orang tahu tragedi ini lah bukan? Our graduation trip was on my birthday. Had piles of presents. Tapi tragedi di puncak Intermediate Course memang tak dilupakan. Being pulled down, half-crying by Ham Seonsaeng pada malam birthday. Ham Seonsaeng tanya pada saya, bila saya turun bawah adakah saya nak naik balik. Saya kata tak mahu. Dia tanya habis tu saya nak buat apa. Saya kata saya mahu get back to those who talked me into taking the skilift. Tapi, it was snowing lah malam itu. Semenjak itu, saya tak pernah pakai kasut ski lagi. Though I think I am pretty good at it. Theoretically.

I am going to miss many things.

Assalamualaikum

Graduation

Assalamualaikum

Hari ini saya picked up my graduation robe/gown. Potong mana-mana yang tidak berkenaan. Ambil awal just because I hate being left with the big-sized ones. Tapi lepas sampai rumah baru saya perasan, mereka bagi saya saiz paling besar. Do I look big? Maka esok akan berjalan dengan sabar ke sekolah untuk tukar. Selain itu, akan ke kedutaan untuk hantar surat tuntutan elaun tamat pengajian.

3 hari lagi. Boleh berasa gembira dan bangga dengan diri sendiri sebab survived. Farini tak pernah duduk dalam jangkamasa begini panjang kat Korea tahu. Paling lama pun 5 bulan. I almost survived 6 months. Dan kebanyakan masanya alone. Tahniah tahniah.

Graduation Day saya pada 25hb. Jangan datang membawa coklat. I kind of grew out of it already kot. Ya saya masih makan aiskrim coklat, biskut coklat, wafer coklat, roti coklat, hot chocolate etc. tapi dah tak berapa makan coklat sajer. Sangat jarang berasa nak makan coklat. I remember my Ferrero Rocher sat for weeks on my desk when at last I gave it to Ardini during her visit. Sebab I didn't even feel like eating it. Kalau datang bawak lah bunga sejambak besar, atau novel The Road (kah? can't remember the title but anyway the new novel from John Connolly), atau Inkspell atau Inkdeath atau earphone Apple. Ok pandai demand :D

Eh telah realized, though I am kind of a coffee addict lately, saya masih tak makan coffee/mocha-flavored things.

Assalamualaikum

Sorting Day

Assalamualaikum

Disebabkan hari ini telah penat disebabkan hari semalam (?) maka saya mengumumkan hari ini sebagai Sorting Day. Sorting Day tak memerlukan kekuatan fizikal umpama Laundry Day tetapi hanya memerlukan kekuatan hati untuk membuang aset-aset yang tiada berguna lagi. We all love to keep sampah kan? Saying they are valuable reminders of some memories. Well, it's not about 'valuable reminders of some memories' anymore, it's about bringing with you what worth bringing. Saya dengan yakinnya tak berasa nak pay 40k won for every 20kg of entah tak tau apa. So time to go.

How come cincin semua more or less the same? Last time I went into Tiffany & Co. dengan Noni. Membawa muka konfiden kami-orang-kaya dan browsed through their collections of rings. And tried too. Tapi mungkin Tiffany & Co. bukan my type so I'm definitely not paying 6.1kk won for a typical ring. What made it that expensive again?

Ok mari get going with throwing away things.

Assalamualaikum

=p

Assalamualaikum

Approximately 10 p.m today. On the phone. Regardless of the controversial cellphone bill.

pphoenix : awak tengah buat apa tu?
Moshitta : tengok raja lawak.
pphoenix : lambat lagi la nak online ek?
Moshitta : aah.
pphoenix : uh. baik awak cakap siapa lagi penting. saya ke raja lawak.
Moshitta : raja lawak.

Ok. Saya dan Moshitta memang rajin membuat drama kami sendiri. Sekarang akan menunggu beliau habis menonton televisyen. Tapi perut lapar.

Assalamualaikum

=(

Assalamualaikum

I always find it hard to go to sleep when something crowds my mind. Random stuff : I prefer cream spaghetti to tomato-sauced ones and I prefer sponge cake with chocolate rice around the side to rich, elegant, Secret-Recipe-liked ones.

Have I told you? I think finding a job is like finding your soulmate. The status of the company or the pay don't really matter. As long as you like it. Because there will always be time when things got tough, and still the thing that keeps you going is your passion on it. But after failing interviews, I keep questioning myself, was I meant to do this from the start? What if I like engineering but I was not meant to do it. Maybe I'm better off doing something else, though I can't imagine something else that I would be good at. Or even like doing at all.
I am being negative, am I not?

You'll understand how it feels when you are 24 years old, fighting for job and surrounded by people who are still struggling for their grades.

Sigh.

Maybe I am really just good at answering questions on exam papers.

Assalamualaikum