A Bite of Experience.

HELLO!!!!! 

....To anyone who is still faithfully checking this blog to see if I've really died or not. 

I was gonna wait till I start a new blog. Yes again. But as we learned in Journalism 101, news isn't news if its not FRESSSHHHH. Hence, I will blog here anyway. Without pictures I warn you. 

ITS MY FIRST WEEK OF UNI!!!!! Oh yes and I AM in Melbourne if any of you are wondering where I disappeared to suddenly and silently like the fox on the night of the fool moon. Don't correct that. The story of how I ended up here from where I started out is indeed a testimony of how incredibly AMAZING beyond WORDS God is! I mean, I never imagined this would happen!

But anyways. I have newer stories than that. So if you're really interested, you can always ask me and I'll fill you in another time. 

Back to Uni. I'mdoingaBachelorofArtsmajoringinSociologyandyesIchangedcourseasIgraduatedwitha

DiplomainMassCommpriortocominghere. So now you know. I have four subjects this semester (they call them units here) which are: 

• Intro to Sociology 
  
• Intro to Philosophy
  
• History of Ideas....and.... 
• Intercultural Communications.  

I absolutely LOVE my units! I came here with a ton of worries that I may not be smart enough for Uni or I may end up as that stereotyped little asian girl in the corner of the classroom who has no clue of what on earth goes on in class. I even thought I'd be friendless for the whole semester! But God is good to me and I'm just a silly worry wart coz this week has been fantastic! 

Even though its just been a week of introduction to the topics we're gonna cover, I found that the ideas that we discuss in each of the classes are things that I have always loved daydreaming about and unfortunately was never quite appreciated by the majority of the people I was surrounded with back home. But now... wow. There exists a whole lecture hall of students around my age who crave such knowledge as well! I love the learning environment here, everyone's just really independent and sensible and really wanting to learn. Its so different from high school and college and I half wish that I just came straight to Uni after homeschooling coz it would have saved me a lot of unnecessary drama. I finally feel at home here. Like I fit in and I'm not the weird "deep/emo" one anymore coz it seems that what's considered "deep/emo" back where I come from, is completely normal over here! 

The cool but slightly daunting bit is that we don't have exams in our course for this sem. So everything is an essay, a presentation, or a reflective journal. Which is heaps better coz we'd really get something outta it but that also means no crapping my way through like how I did in college. Shh. Don't tell my mom. The quality of education here is 100 times better than I've ever experienced la. Best part is, I don't feel as intimidated as I thought I would because no one judges. It is such a relief to be part of a community that lets you be you at your level and applauds you when you excel. I realize I picked up a lot of negative and judgmental habits from the learning environment back home that I have to quit if I'm ever going to experience new things. 

Yes I still have my "lah's" even though I make the effort to form my sentences properly over here. I've gotten comments like,"wow you're English is pretty good!" and I'm like,"Uh.. coz its the only language I've ever known to speak?" 

Today in the Intercultural Comm tute, we had everyone take turns to tell the class a bit about their ethnic background and experience with diverse culture. It was so interesting really. We had a girl from Denmark who grew up in the U.S, a girl who's parents were directly from China but moved to Malaysia and made her in Australia. Haha. Another girl lived in Australia her whole life but takes frequent trips to see her mom who lives in Istanbul. And another girl who's from Japan. And then there's Christina Soh and I who are both from Malaysia but even then we're different because I hardly know much about the Chinese culture and my mom is Singaporean Chindian which also contributes to the fact that we were brought up to speak proper English (as proper as my mom could insist on. hahaha) and we eat more Indian food than Chinese food because dad's always away traveling and he's the only real 'Chinaman' in our family. 

I have never said so much about my family's cultural background before! I think coming from a country like Malaysia that's so diverse in culture, we just take these things forgranted sometimes and don't think much about it till we're actually asked for an explanation. I also realized we're real special being Malaysians for that same reason because it really is so much easier to adapt to all sorts of other cultures around us. I pulled out a few experiences from my trips to Indonesia and Thailand for story-telling-sake, but truth be told, I really did feel quite at home when I was there. Very much like how I do over here. (Echoing the promo video of The Plan '09 conference that's on next month in Melaka... "Malaysians DO make GREAT missionaries!!!" Our upbringing is cross-cultural training itself and I really suggest that we think good and hard about such a "coincidence" and the reason for it. Hmm?) 

I live in a little suburb called Hawthorn which is little but bustling with activity because its only 15 minutes away from the city. Hawthorn is perfect. All the shops are stretched along one main road, that's Glenferrie Road and is only 15 minutes-walk from my house. That includes the train station, the bank, the cafe's, the grocers, the post office, the boutiques, the library and bookshops, all sorts. My Uni is just a 10-minute walk from my house so I come home frequently between classes to cook lunch for myself and sometimes for a friend if I make one that day. =) 

I've been here for a month already and its been good although I did have to get used to the slight change of lifestyle here though. Lots of walking, toughing out the cold weather, hand-carrying heavy groceries home myself, relying on public transport. Stuff like that. The public transport system here is SO impressive. So no complaints. Just that its a little sad knowing I won't get to drive for 2 and a half years. 

Okay. I have to go. Class is in 25 minutes and I don't wanna run there with a stomach full of meatballs. The weather is lovely today and its calling out for a good stroll. I will story you on church and other things when I next decide to blog. Whenever that will be. 

Happy Friday and don't throw food at people. It's rude.