The Amateur Writer

Time flies so fast. It felt as if it was just yesterday when I arrived in New Zealand and started my first year at Otago. Now that I’ve completed my first year, I feel that I have enough survival tips for prospective students out there who are about to venture onto this path this coming 2011.

If you find yourself preparing for this move then this guide is just for you!

Note: There will be areas that you will find useless if you’re a seasoned traveller but I will be doing this guide from a perspective of a person who have not moved out of her house + country, not even once. We’re talking about a pure noob right here. I will tell you things that I wish someone would tell me when I’m about to fly overseas.

I will cover these areas:

PAPERWORK and other things

Pre-Flight Preparations

Saying Goodbyes

Homesickness 101: How I cope with it.

Flatting

Yang’s Advice and Tips


This guide will be comprehensive, compact and friendly. I hope when you guys read this, it will feel as if you’re talking to me over coffee like friends.


UPDATE!

I’m so sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. Good news! I’m back in Malaysia for the summer and am having a fabulous time with the family and friends. Apologies to my friends who are reading this, I will be meeting you guys soon! So far I’ve only met up with the girls but Shaza is having her finals so we need to put the celebrations on hold at the mo. Looking forward to the Melacca roadtrip though!

The past 2 weeks had been a blur. Firstly, I’ve officially moved out of Toroa and moved into my new flat. I love the new place (my room is gorge!) and flatmate, Noms but I admit I missed my old room back in Toroa for the first few days. I was soooo homesick. I kicked myself for that because it was so stupid considering I had a hellish time living there (Outrageous Flat Drama!).

After spending a few days settling in at the new place, Noms left for Perth so I packed my bags and stayed at Natasya’s place for three days before catching my flight to Malaysia. A week prior to that my best friend, Shira decided to have a mini adventure in Auckland (ALONE!) and arranged her flight home same with mine. And so I met up with her during my transit at Auckland. Believe me seeing her face there holding up a sign with my name on it was like a prelude to coming home. Almost all of my homesickness went up in smoke when I hugged her. In fact, she caught the whole reunion on tape so we’ll see how it goes…maybe I’ll try to get it from her somehow. See la whether I’m very rajin. 

Eleven hours + infinite boredom later, I arrived in Malaysia. My senior once told me that you’ll get excited just from seeing the sign “Selamat Datang” at KLIA so I was anticipating that the whole flight there. I saw the sign alright but weird enough I felt numb and rushed to find my bags instead.

Finally I saw the family. I hugged my parents tight and grinned at my siblings. Then my mother launched into a conversation with Shira’s mom over my apparent weight gain and they made a few comments that annoyed me but whatevs really, I was just too excited to be home.

And so up until now, I have gotten over my jet lag and have finally assumed my original position as my family’s maid so all is well albeit very tiring. I will also be very busy writing the script for next year’s Malam Malaysia and working on my new guide. So I hope you guys hold on to this blog and be prepared for a crazy ride!