Homesick has never become real until I studied afield in Sunway College. Not having even vicarious wistful feel when my seniors complained how they missed home in 2013, I’ve already yearning for return in November 2014, when the semester break was one week away.
As I kept saying to myself, “Come on! It is just a month away”, I was separated from that day, ruthlessly, by semester exam–excruciation before extrication? This was exasperated when my high school mates who enroll in Malaysian Matriculation kept posting the photos at home, showing how free they were to enjoy the sensations, ranging from gastronomical to shopping, in Butterworth, a place where we lived for 18 years. We? Drudging hard for our exam. Complaining hard to our books. Lol.
No worries. These fellows would return to their semester 2 when we return home. They would then seethe on our “Sunway A-Levels Revenge”, on theater since 4 December, Thursday. After a quick computation on packing time and all possible convivial moments on Thursday, I swiftly grabbed an Aeroline ticket dated 5 Dec.
So comes the day of return, after being a bon vivant on the day before, packing and checking things in my room. Time to say goodbye to Sunway!
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Thankfully, the traffic was smooth that it took almost 5 hours to reach Penang Queensbay mall, a station of dropping for Aeroline (a.k.a. Aeroport). To my delight, I was welcomed home, not only by my parents and sister, but also my cousin, my aunt, and two friends (Kin Aun and Ivan)–they were attending a workshop on Longevitology running from 2nd to 7th of the month (which I haplessly missed it). The effusion of family and friend love, concocted exquisitely in an event, turned out as a “welcome back” chant for me.
6/12/14-3/1/15
Holiday mood on! Or is it? I have SAT to prepare, and therefore gonna make this holiday month fecund one. Notwithstanding, who says I shouldn’t go nuts and indulge myself for a day or two with my family, and some of my friends here? Let’s go cranky, for we won’t have such chance in the following year.
With Family
In the 20 facts about me, which garnered supports from users of social media worldwide, I explicitly mentioned that I am “easily tempted by food”. What’s more–my family knows this well. Hence in the entire December I was cloyed and satiated with these gastronomical sensation, especially “Dim Sum” (which means “snack” in Cantonese language), a cuisine that offers motley of Cantonese food (each of small portion, as the appellation suggests) and hardly attainable in Sunway (at least not in walking distance). Others like Penang Fried “Kuey Teow”, or Penang prawn noodles are attainable here, but none of which offers better taste than those in Penang.
(Note: for things pertaining food, my mum’s cooking is enough for my sensation (I’m not an epicure as some may imagine). Although I know cooking (rice-cooker based, as usual) but hey, how can I possibly outplay my mum with N years antecedent in experience?)
How about loafing in shopping mall? Though Pyramid is near the College, but loafing is never mainstream for me. We’d yearn for this, but it requires a bountiful amount of time from us, which we students couldn’t afford. Furthermore, this is an adjunct to the gastronomical experience aforementioned–we are likely to be finding treaties nearby.
Hence, as a Penang “expatriate”, there’s no better way to spend time with family than by satiating ourselves with food and travels, even though it’s just within the islands. This is because after being in KL for half a year, I just couldn’t resist the temptation of savouring food and viewing beaches that are exclusively available in Penang, the heart of tourism in Malaysia.
Hanging around in Butterworth–even just within the vicinity of my home, is gratifying as well. I had always been enjoying looking at the sunset in front of my home before moving into Sunway, where the sun always perches himself perfectly above the automobile shop, forming a beautiful spectrum between orange and red. How could I miss it?
And most adventurously, I was on steering wheel again! Practice, practice, practice-I’m glad that my skills hasn’t waned significantly; after all, there’s no difference between inferior and inferior 😛
With friends
First is the Toastmasters friends in Bagan Ajam Toastmastrs Club (BATMC)–namely the BATmen. It worth noting to see some juniors from my high school joining due to the club’s organising of Youth Leadership Programme. The club has grown rosier!
Especially enjoying was the Christmas party: the frenzy members and guests donned themselves in Christmas costume, and sang Christmas song in remixed version.
Now it’s less serious–namely the football and countdown session.
Playing football is never my interest, but meeting friends is. Thus football became ancillary to my interest in meeting my ex classmates in Form 5–namely 5SA1/2013. Derided by friends for my gauche, losing control of ball for my ineptitude, etc, these were soon forgotten but supplanted by our outing session with brunch at “7 Village” store, savouring “Kuey Tiao” soup together.
The countdown, with fewer people, brought more condensed mirth of celebration. Succeeding the dinner was the elaborated chatty session, where guys and girls rhapsodizing on rumours, lives in colleges, and the most cryptic topic common to us (which I shall not disclose here). This voluble session soon turned into a baccahanal one: a bottle of apple cidar each when the 12am brink was near. “No no no we missed the new year point!” yelped one of us when we heard the repetitive thud of fireworks, and viewed their glistening sparks. We, did as if nothing happened, and mentally adjusted our time to 23:59:50 and chanted “Ten! Nine! Eight!…One!” and opened the lid of another cidar. Unfortunately, we failed to open one of the lid, so we were “compelled” to repeat the same procedure, enter the time tunnel, and reverse our watch to 11:59 pm again.
A special meeting, seemingly subordinate to many but significant to me, was with Kin Aun. With his return from IMO camp prior to my visit, we delved into mathematical discussions again, exultantly solving problems after my long stop in Olympiad.
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Owh, back to school. While the government school students had one week extra holiday (to grapple the flood and post-flood rescue), Sunway college students had no luck but to return classes on 6th. Vicissitude, right? Nevertheless, I’d appreciate what I enjoyed in this month-long holiday, and make this as motivation to move forward in my studies (or looking forward to celebrate CNY?)
anzoteh96 