The Amateur Writer

Dunedin has been having awesome weather lately but honestly, of all days to be crappy is on market day. It was sooooo cold!! And we stayed out there from 8AM till 4PM!

I don't speak of it often on this blog because I believe it is obvious. It is unquestionable. But time has come when external forces try to ridicule our prophet, Muhammad (pbuh) once again. That is unforgivable. Over the past few days my social media have been flooded with videos and articles defending Islam and Muhammad (pbuh). I am proud of my fellow Muslims. I admire the integrity that we all have in order to stand for what is right, to defend our prophet and faith. Rather than violently retaliate, we have taken an approach to educate instead. We have lived up to our faith's namesake, ISLAM which means peace.

This quote by Karen Armstrong on Compassion in Islam:

"It's a time of fitnah and trial.But Muslims in the past have always used these period of difficulty as a spiritual opportunity.They rack their brains of thought creatively how to bring the compassionate and the deep lessons of the Quran to a violent and trouble world.And that's our duty in this world,to make the compassionate voice of Islam speak loudly ..If every single one of us did that,we could drown the voice of extremism and do our best to work for a peaceful,just and sustainable world."

An example of such compassionate approach:

I need to record this.

 As the title suggests, I'm down to my last month as an undergraduate. It feels very surreal actually. I'm swamped with assignments but oddly enough it's not really stressing me out. Like most people I'm really familiar with that feeling where you're so close to the end and you're so busy with finishing up all your projects and in your head you're like, "I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS TO BE OVER!" I know I was like that back in high school but not so much right now.

So what did I do today?

I went to class. I had a two hour lecture of which I totally spaced out. Advanced TESOL man. It's one of those classes that you don't have to think much. At least not in the nearest FUTURE!!! But I was really concerned about my project that's due in a week. After the lecture I went straight to my Greek Mythology lecture which is just opposite my Advanced TESOL lecture. That was just an hour and it was chill. I was trying not to think about the Greek test in a week as well. Right after that, I went to grab lunch and went to see my lecturer to talk about my project. Then I went to grab coffee to take for Digital Lit's lecture. The lecture was awesome as usual. The class debated about a virtual rape case, quite heatedly.

At this point, my room is half packed away in boxes. I'm quite excited to go home but at the same time, I'm going to miss my life here. The freedom to do anything whenever I want. No worry in the world except things concerning myself. For the past three years, I was fortunate to be as selfish as possible. I worked on myself without a concern in the world. But I really do feel it's time to go home because for how long can you live alone? I feel like my time is slowly running out to spend time with my family especially with my parents so...home is where I need to be.

I'm savouring everything right now. I'm going to miss New Zealand badly. Besides people have kept asking me when I'm coming back. And all I can say now is "Not in the near future."

Maybe I could be like this lady my mother met on a plane on the way back to Malaysia where she visited NZ after 30 years. I could visit NZ again and possibly show my future children how I lived as an undergraduate. That would be amazing.

Marbecks is one of my favourite shops ever in Dunedin! I can never not pop in if I'm going to town. The store combines two of my favourite things, cafes and bookshops! I don't know whether Marbecks is just a Dunedin thing or it's actually a franchise. I've never seen it in other NZ cities though. So it could be just a Dunedin thing.

There are two entrances, one to the cafe and the other to the book store section. Nothing too complex, they're literally next to each other. :P



 I'll be honest, I don't usually hang out at Marbecks' cafe but I just like the option of having a cafe inside the bookshop. I've only been there like three times. And boy...I was not happy. But more on that later. Let's just savour the awesome interior first!




















So if you just turn to the left side of the store, you'll see the actual bookstore. I LOOOOOOOOVE books at Marbecks. I always get this feeling that they have a lot of uncommon books and they carry cool book versions that you can't find in normal bookstores. I don't really buy books here because I don't get student discount but as you can see from the pictures, there was a clearance sale going on so this would be the time to get some books! (I didn't get any by the way =_=) Usually I just browse around and get ideas on what's out there.






Marbecks also carry a lot of fandom items like offical band tees and movie figurines. So you can see why I love this shop. It's almost like my nerd heaven.






After awhile the staff got pretty suspicious why I was taking pictures (I don't blame them). I was slightly offended why they would even question me (I don't blame them but I just don't expect from Marbecks' staff to act like this is all) but then I saw a sign in between the shelves that they recently had somebody stole a bunch of their books. Sooo...after finding that out, I pretty much brushed it away. Overall they're really helpful and friendly.


















PS: I'm sorry this blog has been all about reviews lately. It's just I need to catch up with all the reviews I'm doing and I haven't been socializing enough to actually have any interesting stuff to report in. Hope this would suffice for now. Ta!