Unwritten

yes people ive finally found the time to post ever since i reached washington dc two days ago!! well i have just one word to say. AMAZING.

This whole week i just experienced is certainly one of the best times of my life! dc is just BEAUTIFUL! the buildings, the food, the people, the weather (although i almost freezed to death yesterday. ehhe.) is simply ado-ra-ble. :D

well let me just extend my apologies for not posting up any pictures today. Rest assured i have taken LOTS! i have had to use two memory cards so far :D. i just have to wait till i get to my host family's house to upload them. i have SO MUCH though i dunno how im going to find the time and energy to fit them all in here :D

lets start off with the pre-departure orientation back in Malaysia. i did look forward to it, for the sole reason of meeting up with my fellow afs-ers. pretty fun it was, we all bonded a little extra than we previously had during the selection camp. So that was good. it was really great to meet such friendly faces once again :)

Then came the flight. Ah yes, the flight itself was an adventure of its own :D. 6 hour flight to shanghai by MAS. unfortunately we had to make a detour at the neighbouring airport in china (i cant remember the name at all!) because shanghai was apparently covered in mist ; thus making it difficult for the plane to land. So yes u can imagine the hullabaloo (?-dont ask :D) that happened once we reached shanghai airport. There we were thinking we could have a nice breakfast and do a lil bit of shopping as we were supposed to land at 6 in the morning and our next flight to san fran was only at 1. Alas, we reached shanghai at 11.30!!!! so we practically had to run (im not kidding) to the check in counters with our luggage. and the immigration forms were a pain. gosh we didnt even get to see the airport much. The flight to san fran was pretty interesting. No doubt it was a 13 hour flight but still cool :) i didnt really sit much cos my seat was at the inner egde of the aisle. REALLY stuffy and uncomfortable. So some of us just ended up gossiping and lepaking at the back of the airplane-near the toilets. i did shift then next to ariff, who was in his own world. lol. he ordered this starbucks coffee ( yes the serve starbucks on united airlines!) but it ended up abandoned on my table. haha. the in flight movie sucked big time by the way. Some real random movies most of which i never knew existed (sheesh). It was only ratatouille and rush hour 3 that i knew. this rat shit movie turned out to be complete well , shit :D i slept through it:D they only played rush hour 3 halfway. That too with jo sitting next to me. lol. he was laughing to himself like a maniac and real loud too :D the flight from san fran to dc was probably the least eventful. probably cos everyone was already bloody exhausted by then :D and it was only 5 hours. i slept through the whole thing.

FINALLY I WAS HERE! YAY!! as the plane touched down, i was just in awe of the fact that finally everything i had dreamed of before coming here was going to turn into reality in front of my own eyes!

Orientation here at dc was really good. the coordinators here are really nice and they did their best to make us comfortable during our stay here. I must say, the conference centre in which the orientation took place is amazing. The best part about it is the recreation room which has a pool table, foosball, arcade games, a piano much to my delight:), and a computer lab-i am posting from here:). Oh they hv this HUGE plasma screen tv too. awesome stuff. THE FOOD IS GREAT!! i tried mexican food day before yesterday-something called chicken fajitas and another bread like thingy with cheese in it-gosh it was effing good! and their breakfast in just mmmmmmm:D i tell you the food here is delish! i even got this chocolate box of truffles from aunty betty-wow, DELISH :D. and the cookies:D i dont even wanna start cos i wont stop guys :) and yes the pizza-wow the size of one large pizza is as big as a car tyre-again, i am NOT kidding!!! lol.

basically during the second day of orientation, we went to Galleaudet university-its the only university for the deaf in the world! O and by the way-i learnt the alphabet in sign language-how cool is that? not from the university though, i did it hands on by interacting with my four deaf friends i have with me here-they are part of my group of YES students as well. One of them is Tim choy, he blogs too. maybe you guys could go check his out-ill post the link up later. he's still typing out his post right now. i really do have an admiration for the deaf community. here in the united states they have set up their own community- and this university is a fine example of that. I really did love the tour of the place. it had so much history in its establishment as well and that was an eye-opener to me too. like the fact that the founder of the university was not deaf himself. he developed a passion for deaf culture-and this initiated the birth of the university. apologies cos i cant really remember his name. You might wanna google galleaudet university if u wanna find out more-i would but i have so much to type right now :D

we also went for a tour in dc. pretty amazing. Among other places,we went to the lincoln memorial. it was real cool. This was where martin luther king made his "i have a dream" speech. Those exact words were immortalised in stone writing in front of the memorial. the park surrounding the building were especially beautiful! we did go to the drugstore after that-we were on a budgeting exercise-three items for less than 10 bucks. I managed to get mine for around 4 dollars. i couldnt believe that the wet and wild lipgloss here cost only 2 bucks. HELL YEAH!! i also got a chapstick and some bubblegum. We then went to a place called cafe Asia-i shall not comment on the food. But it was real cool to hang out with each other there-it was our last night before everyone flew out to their separate destinations after all. we got bak, hanged in the rec room for a while and then headed to the boys' room for some light chit chatting-until we got kicked out by Sarah-lol. so we had to settle for a little girls' gossip session with Jodi. everyone else basically went to sleep after that-except for cheryl, sherilyn and myself-we stayed up the whole night just talking :D that was really good :). i love them :) :) :)

Well u can imagine the emotions that were going on when we had to say goodbye to each other this morning at four. you see everyone else except for five of us were leaving to the airport to be on their respective flights-i am being picked up by my darling MaryAnn's host mom since my own wont be able to pick me up. Its still all good though-cant wait to go to penn :D. gosh after spending just one week with each other- we became family especially some of the ones which i gradually got closer to-wai quai, danial, MaryAnn, Cheryl, Sherilyn, Cristabel, irham, ariff, faiz, jo andrew, albert, & michael :D. I couldnt control the tears pouring down my face as we say goodbye:):):)....oh well it is saaaad but then again-we will meet each other in six months :)

well i guess thats about it- i actually do have more to post about but i think i shall save all that for when i have pictures. Some of the stuff explain themselves better through the pictures so i wont waste my time aimlessly typing everything :D

LOVE YOU DARLINGS! -missing my family, darling kareena & precious luck soo much :D:D:D

Also missing my dearest sha, chuen, eli, JD and gee!

if you guys are reading this, miss you guys loads!

haha okay okay so its not 2 hours to my flight. its 2 hours to my orientation in PJ. im soooo excited right now. lol. i mean, its really exciting im going and all but im kind of dreading the looooooooooooooooooooong flight. flight's on tuesday btw. 40.5 hours in total y'all!! crazaayy. we stop in shanghai and san fran before going to dc. shieet. sweet but TIRING!

anyhoots, i gotto rush, last min packing :)

aaaaaa, shall post when i get there!

mwah.

packing. always hated it. now i hate it even more. I mean sure, you'd think its easy. got all your stuff right in front of you. All you gotto do is stuff it all in the suitcase. NOT easy!!!!

lol.

ive been bitten by the lazy bug. damn =p

love you. scream if you want to cos i do.

happy new year to nearest, dearest and of course, the not so dear.

While many people have gone and posted their resolution lists on their blogs bearing over like 50 new year resolutions, im going to be human and have only 5 on mine. Like hello? seriously? 50? u must be outta your mind.

so what're my new year resolutions? here you go.

1. Shut my big fat mouth when im told to do so in future.

2. De-stress myself. Im currently at the brink of my sanity.

3. Learn to laugh at myself.

4. appreciate the things i have been blessed with. I often take them for granted.

5. Learn to let go. Its not that hard, i heard, issit?

well then there you go. Now that was short and sweet aint it? lol. no offense people but to those of you with like 100 resolutions on your list, add just one more that reads this:

BE SHORT AND SWEET WITH MY RESOLUTIONS NEXT YEAR AROUND!

lol.

first of all, a loud birthday shoutout to my girl, rachel chang.

this girl here, has stuck with me as far back as i can remember. LOVE her to bits, if you're reading this, have a BLAST dearie =D

anyway, ignore the weird heading. dont ask why. just do as i tell you.

im talking to my foster mom as we speak. on msn. how cool is that? pretty neat i must say. Im really looking forward to my stay in the US. I just know im sure as hell gonna miss my fam back here. i teared, literally teared thinking about it yesterday. Oh yes i did.

BUT hey, im off to where there's SNOW! and utter brilliance besides natural wonders of a place halfway around the world!

u know, amidst all this excitement, something else is bugging me. Something stupid yet completely relevant.

And u know what? i have to go now because the ARSE of a brother of mine is bugging me to get off the comp.

TO hell with sibling rivalry, sometimes its less stressful to GIVE UP.

tormenting.

EXCITING.

hee.

out yo.

lol. couldnt think of anything to put up there really since today's post is going to b a delightful combination of crappy and well...heheh, not so crappy....yeah..i just looove that song....lol, the travis barker remix especially...just brilliant...

-why is it that however much u try to convince yourself that u can and will somehow push through, despite all the pain u've been through,u find yourself sinking even deeper??

-why is it that when sometimes things are going great for you, you still punch the wall every morning, screaming in frustration because you suddenly become aware that your blessed present was brought upon by your painful, shameless past??


-why is it that you find yourself being so cruel to yourself and the people around you consciously but not deliberately??

-why is it that when you look for silver key, you find a gold one instead, and you're still not happy??

- why is it that sometimes we feel that the WHOLE WORLD HAS BECOME A BITCH and we appear to be the only compassionate and sane beings left on earth when in reality, it is the other way around??

WHY???

you know what, if you're going to keep asking yourself these questions every single day knowing that the answers aint just gonna jump out from behind the door and announce that they've arrived, u are gonna someday end up one miserable and lonesome sucker.

seriously.

i just realised that today as i was talking to sashvin. I am going through some personal issues at the moment and i poured it all out to him. He's a great person i must say. He was able to make me wake up and face reality just like that. And the answer he gave me was able to answer all the questions above. He's right, people become miserable because they take things for granted.

yeah yeah i know what you're thinking. Ive heard that one before. But seriously, think about it. A person who sees the world as it is and dosent stop to contemplate the what ifs of life would..

-be happy that god has given him the strengh to at least push through and move on with their lives.

-be thankful that her present is indeed blessed and not care two hoots about her past as its godamn over anyway.

-take the time to apologise and caution himself not to make the same mistake by hurting anyone else in future instead of merely beating himself up for words and actions that cannot be taken back.

-yell with joy even if she found a bronze key because after all, all keys perform the same function at the end of the day.

-feel comforted that whoever the bitch is in reality, there still are people out there who care and look out for one another, regardless of the circumstances.

you know, its easy to say one thing, and even easier to promise yourself that you will do it or it will happen.

but seriously, its horribly difficult to stay happy while you're doing it. Thats the hard part about life.

Maybe we should all take sashvin's simple answer seriously. Maybe then we'll all be happier.

you know, i think im beginning to feel just that.