2010—A Year For Remembrance

As far as I concern, 2010 has just drifted away from everyone of us, and here I should write a long post on my priceless experiences and wonderful memories, with lots of first-times and a sudden change to the next segment of life. 2010 was filled with emotions that I hardly experienced in the past eighteen years of life, be it happy, down, excited, disappointed, sad or many more that couldn’t put into words. 2010 is the year I met lots of great people, who inspired me and guided me through thin and thick, gave me tonnes of advices to boost up my confidence when I was down with rejections and failures faced. I would try my best to put everything in sequences starting from the very first month to the last month of 2010, revealing the crests and troughs of my wonderful life in 2010. 

January 2010, indicated the end of my 5 years secondary school life, and that was the time when I bumped into ReCom, an educational platform where people there aka ReComers guided me a lot and shed light on my questions which baffled me for quite a long period of time. I spent a few weeks of my holidays reading threads after threads in ReCom regarding Pre-University programmes, scholarships and courses that I was interested in, as well as anything that caught my attention including discussions in vast realms of Economics, Maths and Physics such as astronomy and actuarial science. From such discussions threads, I gained numerous knowledge and at the same time improved my English writing skills by posting questions and opinions. 

February 2010, I bumped into lots of awesome ReComers and started to spam the House of Spammers thread. I started to chat with everyone there and found out that each of them has unique personality that amazed me so much, that I’m still in touch with them until now. We even chatted via MSN until late night everyday, and became nocturnal creatures. For the first time, I managed to keep myself awake until 5am, which was totally abnormal! But still it was a totally awesome experience for getting to know them (BB aka ultimate pig, Leo leo aka piglet, Vani, Yoon Voon aka Restl3ss, Henry the puppy, Eugene, Nicola, Cheryl, Annie, Nicholas aka evil twin, Glassy the Big Sister, See Hua the phantom, Youngyew the high priest and many more!) You guys added spices to my life and thanks for being a part of my wonderful life in 2010! :D 

March 2010, a month full with suspense and miracles that I enjoyed very much though. I was really busy with scholarships applications, till I hardly breathed throughout the few weeks. Here I engrossed myself spending most of my time submissively answering various questions asked in ReCom to share all my knowledge on Pre-U programmes and scholarships, since I dig out and read through most of those threads there. Anticipations and high hopes from everyone around me were put upon the scholarships applications, that I prayed so frequently for countless times everyday just to hope that I would be given rare opportunities to attend interviews. I applied to more than 10 scholarships institutions, but rejected by most of them as the competition from my batch was extremely stiff. This condition was exacerbated by the sudden emergence of A+ as the new exam grade, technically signifying 90 marks and above. Definitely a month which I will remember for ages! =D 

April 2010, a month full with desperations and disappointments due to various rejections of scholarships applications, new plans, experiences and achievements attained—car licence! Here was the first time I drove a car around, took the first and the last car driving test, and passed it successfully. *Proud* :p Other than that, I faced lots of emotional downturn and gratefully enough, my friends were always there to pull me up from further dejection, mainly ReComers. Glassy aka Yizhen was also there to give me advices that I wouldn’t dare to forget, and every single one of them was so inspiring! The impacts were so massive that each of the advices boost up my confidence level even more, to attend the next interview! I attended two interviews in this month alone—JPA and BNM. I couldn’t forget those moment to be frank, and never will! 

May 2010, a month full with greatest rejection and miracles at the same time, a month that changed my whole life ever since, a month that gave me a whole new experience studying in Form 6 at SMK Seri Serdang. This was the month when I attained my offers for Form 6 and Diploma in Electrical Engineering in UTM. I contemplated over and over again on my Diploma offer, and even wrote a long post regarding my dilemma of whether or not to accept the offer in ReCom. Fortunately a senior, SmileHoe, appeared and cleared up all my doubts and questions, recommended me to take up the risk to study A-Levels at MCKL. Until now I still have to compliment him to appear on the right time when I need someone like him the most. Besides, I attended Form 6 classes for over a month not that I was planning to stay but rather, just to spend my time wisely. At least I can gain something out of it, which I really did, at the same time expanded my social network. May 2010, was also the month that God had bestowed His blessings to me, giving me the greatest miracle that changed my life ever since. BNM has accepted me finally as one of their scholars, indicating the end of my misery for over the past few months, and the beginning of my whole new life. Thank God and BNM for granting me such a great opportunity to pursue my dream course in the land of my dreams—UK.

June to October 2010, I officially shifted myself to a whole new segment of life—college life. That was when I started my accommodation in Casa Subang during weekdays, just to reduce my parents’ burden for they need to send me to college early in the morning to avoid the traffic congestion, if I were to stay at home. Since buses were provided for Casa residents, so it’s fine for me. However, I was required to spend at least 30 minutes on two-back-flow trips each day, and I thought that it was such a wastage of time, which I could have otherwise buried myself in books. These were the months when I started to attune myself to a whole new foreign environment, to make changes in my life which I had become accustomed to. I started to get to know all my friends, be they as classmates, collegemates, JPA scholars (since they are staying at Casa as well) and bank scholars from other colleges. All of these are the new community around me, and I really enjoyed having everyone around me. I finally officially started my college life after 6 months of rotting at home. Everything was so foreign to me, that everyday seemed to be a whole new day that I anticipated so much, hoping that I can gain some new knowledge and meet some new friends, which I did after all. I started to get myself involved actively in Taylor’s Christian Fellowship society, attend prayers meeting every morning at 7.40am near SAM garden, and attend weekly CF gathering on Friday after classes. Here, I get myself closer to Him through prayers, worships and Bible verses. Praise the Lord! =D 

For the first few months of college life, I met with lots of friends and seniors from the previous intakes, be it CAL students, SAM students, CPU students and ADP students. Though I just knew them for over a few months, but still I think they are all friendly bunch of people, totally unlike what my friends I knew in Form 6 said. They used to criticize Taylor’s students so much, and said that most of them were spoil brats, which is ostensibly false. Gradually, I came to a point that I would be just another lifeless, hopeless, lonely kid without my friends around. For these few months, I carried out mundane schedule everyday, buried myself within tonnes of books studying for upcoming tests. Every weekday at 6:15am, I had to wake up and prepare myself for college, just to catch up a bus to Taylor’s at 6:55am. Classes started at 8am and ended at 3/4pm every day. It was indeed a very tiring schedule, and I took quite a few months just to get used to it. Besides, these were the months that I came to realisation that, Further Maths was tough and required me to do lots of studies. I used to be so excited over Further Maths, and I still am, despite the extreme toughness of it which was hardly able to be bear by others. 

November 2010, a very hectic month I would say due to the upcoming Semester 1 Exam. A thought was trickled through my mind that I needed to struggle very hard on my FM exam as it was the only chance besides A2 trial and actual exam. I had to ace my FM exam since I would be using my Semester 1 FM result for universities applications later (AS exam doesn’t have FM papers). I even prepared emotionally, that I rather fail my other subjects just to attain the A for FM, though I would have tried my very best not to fail them. I studied day and night, buried myself inside the books and notes the lecturers had given me, just with the hopes that I would ace the exam so that I didn’t let everyone down, be it my sponsor, parents or my friends. I spent most of my time staying back in the library everyday, just to study for the exam. I even plotted a study timetable for myself, and forced myself into maximum nerd mode. In all of these struggles however, I got to meet lots of SAM students who spent most of their time studying inside the library since their final was around the corner too. Despite having to study for exams, they were quite approachable and friendly to me. Though I just knew them for a few weeks, but still they were an awesome bunch of people whom I would love to keep in touch with for ages to come. 

Inside the library, I had the opportunity to know my intake friends, who were studying for Semester 1 exam as well, especially during the exam weeks. We got to know each other better, and spent our time studying together inside the library. When we were hungry, we walked to nearby Asia Cafe just to buy the famous AC Waffle with chocolate and peanut butter flavour, as well as soy bean milk sold in front of Asia Cafe. It was an awesome moment that I would definitely be missing much, and would like to maintain for the next one and a half years in college. Just want to tell, you guys ROCKS!!! =D After staying back at the library until 6:30pm, I had to go back to Casa reluctantly just to catch the second last bus (last bus back to Casa was at 9pm). I preferred to study inside the library, in fact very much than in Casa. I couldn’t really study inside my apartment unit, so I had to go all the way down to study room to bury myself again inside notes and stuffs.

December 2010—the last month of the year 2010, was the month when I sat for my exams and gratefully enough, everything went well. I did well for most of my papers, except FM 2 (Mechanics). I didn’t know why, perhaps I was just too tired and panic at the same time, to think critically and logically inside the exam hall. I literally screwed up FM 2 Exam, and was emotionally down for the entire day after the exam. Again, my friends were around to console me and boost up my confidence level, and said that I still had another chance to buck it up with FM 1 Exam on the next day. I started to study FM 1 diligently, just to ensure that my efforts for these few weeks didn’t go in vain. After the exam was over, the days that I had longed for finally arrived. My holidays were started immediately after the exam ended, and that was when I started to rust at home, again. My mom planned a two-day family trip to Genting Highland, just to pleasure us the three siblings. We had loads of fun indeed throughout the trip, thanks mom and dad. =D Before the Genting trip, I was being told that Semester 1 result had been posted up in Student Portal website, and from there I knew that I had finally achieved my dream. It was indeed the best Christmas present ever for me, though it was the only one. 

Thank God that I have attained straight As for my Semester 1 exam, which in fact very out of my expectation since I literally screwed up my FM 2 exam. For He knew that I struggled very hard for FM, thus granted me the rewards that I had been craving for since ages. Other than that, I had my Christmas staying at home this year, celebrating with my family. Though I was the only one celebrating Christmas in my family(yes I’m the only Christian), still mom cooked lots of scrumptious food such as spaghetti, roasted chicken and mushroom soup for us. Thanks mom! :D Besides, me and my family had a family trip to Malacca from 27-29 December. It’d been ages since my last time visit to Malacca, and I finally gotten the chance to try the best delicacies of Malacca such as chicken rice balls, durian cendol and laksa. Never knew that Malacca has such appetizing food, I would definitely visit it again next time. (I missed the chance to try out sate celup, which I’d try it out next time! =p) 

That’s it, the whole wonderful 2010 experiences and stories! Surely 2011 would be a greater year ahead, so here it goes! Happy New Year everyone! May you have a great, prosperous blessed year ahead, and many great awesome things coming your way! =D