Thoughts and Illusions

I’m just shouting out all my congratulations to all my friends back in Brunei who have just received their A Level results today especially those who have succeeded well. You’re another step ahead and I’m looking forward to see you guys here! I’ve seen them all. Your results, I mean. Trust me, it was the first thing I did when I woke up early this morning. To those who didn’t succeed, I know how it feels like to be down there. What’s more important is to never give up in life especially to something that you’ve always believed in. Have a little faith in you. It’s not the end, you know. I know it just seems easy for me to just say it but the truth is there.

I miss the times when my name was on the results list among my friends’ and I really envy them for that and the fact that they’re not going to school anymore. I’ve still got five months to go before I can break free from the school life here. Oh, and things are starting to get stressful. I have three courseworks this week. Not to mention the preps. And today, I went to Leeds to attend the university open day. Went to meet up with my sister at the train station upon my arrival and we had breakfast at Subway. I’m starting to love the Veggie Patty. It just tastes so good! Anyway I was being very casual about coming to the university and I was pretty much surprised when the admission tutor mentioned the word “interview”. I didn’t prepare a thing for it and yeah, thank God it was just an informal one-to-one interview rather than having a jury of panels. Yeah, as usual, they basically asked me about all the interesting stuffs I’ve mentioned in my personal statements. I guess it all went pretty well. At least, I hope.

Have you ever experienced sleepwalking before?

Well, I have recently. I went down to London last weekend for the Exeat a.k.a. Coach Weekend holiday. Being the furthest school away from London among our batch, we were still the first to arrive. But before I continue with my sleepwalking experience, let me just describe how the holiday actually went. It was full of surprises, really - especially to those who were celebrating their birthdays in January; Milin, Eric, Farisa, Wafiy and Fiizah. They are all my juniors. There were many unexpected gifts and surprising presents secretly prepared by the rest of the juniors. To be quite honest, I envy the unity that all my juniors have in common. Seeing the joy and happy faces from one corner makes me feel somehow elated.

So anyway, we didn’t really do much on the first day (Friday) other than hanging out at the cafeteria and catch up with things while having some rests after the long train journeys. It was fun. I finally got to see my bestfriend, Xera. It’s been awhile, you know. The last time we met was in October during the Raya celebration because she went back home in December. All of us actually conquered the V.I.P. corner in the area - just like we did during Christmas holiday. Yeah, the only thing we were depriving from was internet. The wireless connection “DORA” wasn’t available anymore. We still could connect to the internet by means of a LAN connection but suffer the speed severity and firewall blockages.

I stayed up all night talking to Kimy. A lot of things to catch up (Yeah, right~ LOL). I don’t know how she did it but she could stay up without having to force herself to stay awake. As for me, I needed a sip of a caffeinated drink but I didn’t have any that night yet. And I already struggled trying to keep myself awake while she was talking to me and everytime I laid my head on my arms on the table, she would just tickle me. That was how I survived that night until the morning came. I felt dizzy then the next day I felt like dreaming.

I stayed up again the next night. Now that was more than 40 hours I had been depriving from sleep since Friday and I broke my forty-hours-wake-time record during last Christmas. We went to Starbucks earlier in the evening and I got myself a Mocha Frapuccino. I really needed some caffeine this time and it lasted for a good few hours before I made another cup of coffee in the hall during midnight. And I still struggled. At around 4am, this was when I got so fatigue and my subconscious mind was seriously craving for a bed. The last time I remembered was lying my head on the table at the cafeteria with Kimy next to me, probably doing the same thing and I fell to sleep. When I woke up a few hours later, I was really surprised to find myself lying down on my bed. FYI, it was a bunk bed and mine was the top one in the boys transit room.

It was so weird. I didn’t even remember leaving the cafeteria but what I did remember was climbing the bed and then lay down on my back. That was it. I thought that was a dream. I was really clueless when I woke up and I suddenly felt so bad because I must’ve left Kimy all alone in the cafeteria. So yeah, I quickly had my shower and ran out to the cafeteria to check up on her. I was glad to find she was still there, although still with her head lying on the table. I thought she was still sleeping. Yeah, there I was begging for an apology. Well at least she’s beaten my record =p She stayed awake for more than 48 hours and I’m amazed. How did she do it? Without the need of caffeinated drink to keep her awake? Wow.

Anyway, let’s focus more about what happened over the weekend rather than having me mumbling about myself. Well, the birthday bash. They didn’t expect it at all. It just seemed like a casual day. Although not everything went as planned but it actually turned out much better than what we had anticipated. We first had our lunch at a Malaysian restaurant. There were about twenty of us. The meal was awesome. I ordered my favourite food, “Sweet & Sour Chicken” and it tasted so good. I’ve been craving so much for it. We then headed back to the hall by foot. Later in the evening, we all gathered at the back of the cafeteria, the V.I.P. place, and gave all of the January-born peeps a surprise chocolate cake and each received birthday presents. I can see how they went speechless upon receiving them.

Such a great weekend. Even with a great ending too. We, the Shrewsbury and Oswestry peeps, were supposed to catch a train at 4pm yesterday and we headed out to the bus station by 3.30pm. We waited for about 15-20mins before the bus to arrive. That was the last bus to catch if we were going to make it. So we gave hugs and said goodbyes and what happened was the bus actually ran off without us.

We were like, “That is not funny..”

The Origin of Kampung Keriam

Interesting. I never actually knew anything much about my kampung before. I’m quite surprised, really. I’ve lived there all my life without knowing its history. Well, maybe I was the ignorant one to learn about its past knowing how much I dislike history subject when I was in secondary school. Or maybe I didn’t spend much time in kampung since I went to school in Bandar ever since pre-school, hence, why I never really got the chance to learn much about my kampung.

Do I know how to speak Tutong language anyway? I’d be embarrassed if I don’t. In fact, I do know how to but still awkward with the pronounciations. I can make simple sentences out of the language and name some items using the dialect. It’s kind of strange when you can fully understand a language but not being able to speak in the language itself. Well, that’s my case. My grandmother would sometimes speak to me in Tutong language and I would just then reply in normal Brunei dialect. From one point of view, it does seem weird when two people speak different dialects to each other, doesn’t it?

There you go.

I miss my kampung and I especially miss being home and I miss the people especially the family.

The promised, long-awaited ambigram request is finally here. It is a reflection type. So here you go, Emma. I hope you like it =)

p/s: emma, i’d like to sincerely apologize for the long delay.

Al-Fatihah to my dearest cousin, Allahyarhamah Norafiqah Hanani Bte Haji Roslan (1992-2007), who has passed away this evening at 9.00pm (Brunei time). Semoga rohnya dicucuri rahmat. Amin. Take a brief moment to recite the doa, please.

AL-FATIHAH

Amin.