Trip to Cameron Highlands!

College holidays are just different from high school ones. I have no idea why, though. It's already the last week of December, which means I'm 4 weeks into my semester holidays, but some good-for-nothing individual had to state the obvious i.e.,Good things never last. But in exactly 2 weeks I'll be starting college, which I have come to love, so hah, I win. Still, I've been spending way too much time during the holidays with a constant nagging feeling that I'm going to fail if i don't consistently stare at my books 24/7. Which kind of sucks, since that defeats the purpose of any holiday.

So, yes, one week before 2011 ends. So, I'm going to try and lose some blogging baggage, because I have a few things lined up for next year, and that I can't wait to try it out without having any old drafts to look into.

Like i mentioned in my previous post, I had such a busy week in college before the holiday even started, because KYUEM became the host for a leadership program, where a group of 16-18 year old teenagers from UK came to stay in the college's compound. I was one of the lucky few who got to experience and travel around a few places in Malaysia with them.

Pfft I made that sound as if I got to travel to Mt. Kinabalu.

We headed towards Cameron Highland first thing in the morning, and let me tell you, in this context, it really was the destination that mattered, and not the journey. If you have ever gone up the winding roads towards Cameron Highlands, you will definitely understand. At the risk of painting a gross picture in your mind, it's safe to say that some of us(excluding me, thank god) got a bit sick while on the bus.

All was well when we got off :) But Cameron Highlands is quite a bore if you go alone, so most of the time up there was spent fooling around. Haha.

A machine which helps in producing tea, for all you city folks.

Although the UK delegates arrived on Friday the week before, I never really had a chance to meet them because I was away for the weekend. So, it really was a bit difficult to mingle and start a conversation, especially when they are all generally very shy too! But a few of the senior delegates who came last year and happened to tag along this year, were more open to trying new things, especially food.

This, as a Malaysian, is our specialty. You can never go wrong with Malaysian food, I swear. Even in Cameron Highlands where truly authentic Malaysian cuisine is almost non-existent.

For every few miles, we would spot a stall which sells steamed sweet potatoes, which isn't really a Malaysian food per se( Our ancestors survived on potatoes back during the Japanese invasion, so that counts for something!). Anyway, the UK delegates haven't really tried it before, and they enjoyed it! :D

One of the weird things I found out about UK was, the ratio of citizens who drink and favour tea in the UK( which is a large amount),

to the number of tea plantations that UK actually has, which according to them, is really not that common.

Like I said, we fooled around on the slopes, and took so many photos, it looked as if we were the foreigners! -__-" Dahlah budak budak KYUEM, macam tak pernah nampak hutan, pfft since we practically live in a forest.

MashaAllah, this picture really shows the beauty of nature. The wind was so strong and calming, albeit not as cooling as before. I remembered the first thing I thought of when I saw the scenery above was, " damn, this would make a good place to study!" Serious nerd, I tell you.

By evening, we headed back to college. The ride down was smoother, and enjoyable, partly because everyone was sleeping! I was dead tired by the time we reached college, which was about 8.00 p.m, and though i try to make it a point to go for every event the college organises, I really was too exhausted to even contemplate going for the Christmas celebration that night.

Yes, my college had a Christmas celebration,

in November.

nearing the end; ( Of 2011, that is)

Today is the 22nd of December.

It is also exactly 364 days before every living thing on Earth perishes to the floor, if there is even one by that time.

That is, if you're a Mayan.

I was just browsing through the internet the other day, and I stumbled upon a link on Yahoo, about the Mayan prophecy that was brought to life by that apocalyptic movie, which came out last year(I think) that easily described the 'apparent' apocalypse as "well, hey, if you're filthy rich, and by rich I mean by the billions, you could easily survive God's apocalypse, no problem whatsoever". Lies, I tell you.

I kept on reading the theories these group of people have that could justify knowing the exact date of the dreaded apocalypse ie: A whole lot of BS to attract more tourists to Mexico, and increasing their annual revenue. (But hey, that's just me!) Come on, I respect their beliefs, but why would God set THE date, and let all of his creations know about it? We will all just fool around until, say, 1 month prior, when we repent for all our mistakes. What is there to life then?

Or so I thought.

It got me thinking, and this is not to say that I believe in the doomsday prophecy even for the slightest bit,but,

WHAT IF we do have only another year to live? What would I change? How will I spend my life? Why is my priority now even a priority to begin with? Who am I choosing to please?

As I saw the prophecy at a new perspective, it became clearer that maybe, it is there to remind us to reanalyze our very existence on Earth. If I had only a year to live, I can safely say that i would do a few things differently. A LOT differently. But that's the thing, no one will ever know how much time they will spend here before they die. SO, how one chooses to live his/her life, in this one chance that they get, is crucial to ensure a happiness that will continue beyond life here on Earth.

So, how do you choose to live? And what does it cost?

Where The Animals At?

I'm blaming the slow Internet connection for being away for far too long. That's logical, right?

End of semester holidays have officially started and loving every minute of it, except for the subconscious guilt I have every hour or so knowing each moment I spend on the TV could have been put to good use ie: Homework and such. I swear I'm going to get my act together, tomorrow.

The last week of my first semester in KYUEM( Can you believe it, it's already 1/4 semesters done!) was so jam packed with activities, it was both fun and super tiring. On Saturday, 19th of November, YK had a CSR event so after classes all 11 of us found ourselves heading towards KL where we spent a night in Lanson Place.

Arriving from KY, that place looked like a chunk of heaven. We registered ourselves, and went straight up to enjoy the bed.

It wasn't long before we all decided to take a road trip to KLCC since it was no nearby. We were all hungry, so we crashed the Little Penang Cafe, and ordered our food, and kept ordering, over and over again. And every time we assumed that whatever was on the table was all there was, plates kept coming. No one complained, so all was good. I have no pictures of us eating because I was too busy eating.

The entire night was spent eating dinner, attending a brief talk on the event that was to happen the next day, and a wonderful sleep.

TOO wonderful, we all overslept and woke up 15 minutes before checkout time.

The YK event was basically where us scholars became tour guides for a bunch of kids from the Yayasan Chow Kit( used to be known as Rumah Nur-Salam), and along with that, did some volunteering job around Zoo Negara, Taman Melawati. The ironic thing was, I live about 1km away from the zoo, yet I've never been to the zoo as a volunteer before.

We had breakfast as soon as we got there, and off we go cleaning cages and having fun at it.

This Nasi lemak was actually really satisfying.

My group was tasked to clean the turtle sanctuary , which was a bummer at first, because I thought we would've gotten something more challenging, but that was quickly overcame by how adorable and awkward-looking the turtles were.

We even got to feed it carrots and Papaya, although as turtles, they were generally never excited even when they saw the food.

And after all the cleaning up was done, I definitely gained a new found respect for all the rubbish collectors and the wonderful people who take their time and effort to sweep and rake leaves off the ground, all around us. Day in, day out, they do practically the same thing repeatedly, which keeps reminding me of this quote I read a few months ago, written by Helen Keller;

"The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker."

When you really come to ponder, you can have so many engineers, doctors, businessmen, politicians( Malaysia definitely has an abundant of this), but without this group of people, we might as well be living in junkyards. So, kudos to them!

Back to the Zoo event, I don't necessarily have any pictures of the kids that attended the other day, due to some terms and conditions which prevents me from uploading it online. Honestly,though, I couldn't find the time to take any pictures, because they were all extremely active for the most part( and can get distracted so easily), especially when it came to the ZooHunt. But, it was all for good fun, and there were no books around, so I was glad. :D

I miss college though.