Of Strength

Study group today is at 11am and I’m already having a headache from the combination of lack of sleep and working yesterday. At least the Red Bull air race is finished, so I won’t hear them plane buzzing above my head anymore.

On another note, talked to dad on Saturday and he said that Jennifer’s wedding had been postponed to June. Which means I’ll miss it. Well then, I won’t be able to go to any of my cousin’s wedding on my dad’s side because I ran out of cousins. And I was so excited about going as well. Sigh.

They had really enjoyed their trip to London, without me like usual. So unfortunate that I happen to have exams at the time and still have 2 more papers to go before I finish my 2nd year of uni. They got me a Harrods bag and a T-shirt that says, “My mother went to London and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”. I’m sooo gonna wear it and take pictures. Hahaha.

Yesterday at work, David asked me if I see my family in Malaysia often.

I said I see them at least once a year, so its not too bad.

Then he said if it were him, he didn’t think he’d be able to do it, living so far apart from his family all the time. He’d be too homesick to concentrate. He said that he admired me for doing what I’m doing, living so far away from my family.

That really got me thinking, am I really strong to be able to live 4000 miles away from home? Am I really strong to be working and studying at the same time?

I look back at the time when I was 17, freshly done with SPM in Malaysia. I had no idea where I wanted to go, but my parents got me to enrol in college in Perth. Perth wasn’t foreign to me, I’d been there many times and I had 2 uncles living in Perth at the time.

I knew I didn’t want to leave my friends behind, but there was no way I was going to be able to get a good uni education in Malaysia if I stayed behind. Part of me felt so sad that I would be leaving everything behind: family, familiarity, friends, and everything I knew for the shor 17 years of my life.

Part of me felt liberated, I was going to start over in a new place, hopefully I could and I would do well in this new environment. I knew there were going to be challenges ahead of me, but I was game.

Now, here I am. Close to 3 years later and halfway thru my uni degree. 3 years seem like such a short period of time, but I remember every single tear shed, every drop of sweat, every laughter with friends and every single good time.

I’ve made countless new friends and have kept in touch with most of them. I love them to bits and I am certainly glad that I did come here.

Thinking back to the time in 2003 where I was so uncertain about coming, I’m glad that I had the strength to come. I had the strength to presevere thru all the hardships in life and coming out of them a better person. Like the saying goes, “What doesn’t break you, only makes your stronger”.

I am living proof of that statement.