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Yang Safia On Sunday, November 28, 2010
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!
Yang Safia On Friday, November 12, 2010
In the spirit of Potter mania, I have watched almost every parody of the famous boy wizard on Youtube. Now if you're a Gleek and you've watched the latest episode where Kurt goes to this all-boys school and the glee club there sang Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, the lead singer Blaine used to be in this musical about Harry Potter. He plays Harry.

Watch the first part here and the rest on its channel.



I find the whole musical to be very interesting. I love how they managed to incorporate everything we know about the books and made it funny in a non-offensive kinda way to the fans. I'll say this because I'm hardcore when it comes to Harry Potter.

If you like this video, watch the rest and keep an eye out for the actor who played Draco Malfoy. She (he?) was amazing!

I'm going to the Harry Potter premiere next week so I can't wait!! Since New Zealand is one of the very few countries to get to the 19th first in the world, I'll be catching it a lot sooner than other people. To my family, IN YO' FACE!! Mwahahaha!
Yang Safia On Sunday, November 7, 2010
Since I have a lot of free time, I've decided to treat you guys to an exclusive footage of my Great Southern Roadtrip Day 1!

Excuse the amateurish video editing. :)

(Make sure you choose 480p when the video plays to avoid pixellation and improve your viewing)

As you all know, we went to Catlins before setting off to our destination for the night, Te Anau where we went for a cruise at Doubtful Sound.



**You have to love my epic thumbnail shot! That's my sengsara face as I battle the strong wind.





Enjoy!
Yang Safia On Saturday, November 6, 2010
Hey guys! Sorry for being MIA for so long. Exams are over and I spent the last few days hanging out with friends, celebrating, cleaning my room and putting my stuff into boxes. Insyallah on the 15th I'll be moving out of Toroa and into my new flat. For some odd reason I'm kind of nervous but I'm sure it's going to be all good. Also I've been doing some shopping for the loved ones at home so it took a LOT of my time.

My mum has been pestering me about pictures of Dunedin during spring but I was too lazy to walk around and look for flowers. In fact I even told her that I didn't see that many flowers. Haha so malas! I woke up today and I had like a DUH! moment when I saw flowers around my house. So I warmed up the camera with taking a couple of shots of my room (I'm going to miss it!) and then the flowers lah.

I dedicate these pictures to my mum. Thank you for everything.




I'm shipping these stuff I don't need back to Malaysia









CHOCOLATES for the lovelies back home.


My dad and Aya are obsessed with this candy. I don't even know why.
See Abah? I already bought them!


I was at Cotton On the other day, buying birthday presents for Shira and Shaza. As I was paying, Tim made a donation and got me that bag. WIN!




Okay Ma, be prepared to have your mind blown!













Some of my friends have been dying to know what my house looked like. So this is it guys. It's a really beautiful bungalow house. I live on the upper floor.




I climb this everyday. And I'm still fat. Dang those chocolates, stop goda-ing me! >_<




This is a small walkway to the laundry room and Manawa











I felt bad for not making an effort to blog so I spent my night photoshop-ping the pictures I took. I hope you guys liked them.


I can't believe a year has passed and in 3 months time, I'm going to start my 2nd year at Otago. It still feels like I was this scared Shah Alam girl who moved out of her house+country for the first time, being away from family and leaving everything she knows about life in Malaysia and pursued a new one in New Zealand. I thank God everyday for making it such a smooth transition for me. Well there were a few hurdles but it was entirely inevitable and pretty much a part of the process. I met so many wonderful people, and of course some really bad ones too, over the course of one year that I can't just imagine how I would survive without them! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

I'm looking forward to next year with living at a new place, working with the new OMSA committee and learn more stuff. (BTW, I'm taking Greek Mythology next year and I AM PSYCHED!)

But at the moment I am excited to go HOOOOOOME!!

PS: Just planned the roadtrip with the girls yesterday over Skype. Destination CONFIRMED! MELAKA IS THE PLACE TO BE FOR US!

We considered the likelihood of our moms flipping out with the destinations we chose like Terrengganu ( Monsoon season, takut tsunami =_=), Johor (My aunt is not going to be at home) and Genting (I WAS SOOO INTO THIS IDEA BUT I JUST HAVE A FEELING THEY WONT LET US GO. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't like us driving up the hill like that.) so at the end we decided on a safe place like Melaka. Besides there's the whole history and culture stuff going on there and we have a lot of connections so it's going to be just amazing. I can't wait!