As the sun sets in the west, ending yet another day, I’d like to say THANK YOU to everyone that has wished me so far. I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart and may Allah repay each and everyone of you. Today’s the last day of the semester so I had to attend the last of classes for this semester, which is both exciting and not at the same time because it means that finals… are… approaching!! I cannot believe that I made it this far considering how I went through this roller coaster of approximately four months.
*pauses for more than 2 hours thinking of what to say*
Okay that’s it. I have writer’s block. I cannot think of anything interesting to talk about because today was suspiciously ordinary. I went to class as usual, studied for a few hours, went to Target to buy some groceries, went home and played a little bit of Just Dance. That’s literally it.
Partially disappointed with myself but I guess this is something that would happen eventually and apparently it’s for this post I really wanted to make this post special in a way but sighhhh. What a mess. I wonder how people that are ‘real’ bloggers do this kind of stuff. Kudos to them huh?
I might as well leave it as is. I’m sorry for a terriblepost but let’s hope the next posts (my ordinary ones and my ‘birthday’ ones in the future) would be better. Thank you all for reading this far and accepting it :’)
To make up for it, here’s some photos/quotes that I have saved into my phone for some reason..
Wassalam ❤
p/s there’s a new jason mraz song and it’s so wholesome!
I’ve missed this blog A LOT! Lots have been happening over the last what- FOUR months?! I guess adapting to uni life does take a lot of time even though I’ve been in the States for the past two years. I was considering on writing a blog post on my birthday, as I always do, but you know what, I feel like writing NOW. Before I start ranting (I just finished writing and it ended up longer that what I usually write so feel free to leave if you’re in a rush, but do come back later haha), here are some photos, which some of you may have seen, of the hopefully last snowstorm here in Minnesota last Saturday.
east bank, umn
west bank, umn
you’re supposed to see a river but you can’t 😦
one car or two? hmm
the next morning after the snowstorm
collected snow. bigger than me woah
i think we had around 17″ of snow :O
Even though I mentioned that ‘lots have been happening’, it’s more of me trying to emotionally understand what’s going around. Oh and also about me trying to cope academically. I’m taking a couple, well four to be exact, classes that are pretty heavy with materials to understand. Since last semester didn’t put me in so much pressure (except for that ONE class), I started this semester expecting the same (I was still aware of the classes that I was about to take but I didn’t expect the same workload).
*sighs* I was definitely wrong.
Okay so, I consider myself, as a student, who usually can understand what I learn in class and during lectures. Therefore, I wouldn’t put in a lot of effort in studying outside of class unless it was two to three days before an exam because I was assuming I understood the subject. I guess I have changed. Now, I feel sad and disappointed at myself for being like this but I can barely understand my lectures. Also, I forgot to mention, that I got a part-time job earlier this semester and I work a couple hours during the weekdays so that drains some energy out of me.
So for the past four months, I was basically trying to balance myself between the classes that I was taking. At one instance, I’d do wellin an exam for this particular subject and at another, I’d have trouble doing well. It becomes worse when there’s two exams in one week plus a lab report that would be due on the same week. I can remember the days that I cried because I was too stressed out. I’m also still figuring out what ways are the best to study for me.
I just finished two midterms this week (with one more coming next Wednesday) and by far, this is the first time I felt confident doing both the exams (If I feel confident, it usually for one subject, not both). *cue inspirational music* I think a little over a week ago, I realized that I shouldn’t be leaving myself like this. My grades at that time were honestly not good (in my interpretation). Looking at my class schedule, I finish class at 3:20 pm and typically, I would go straight home because of my introversion. I sometimes ‘plan’ to study or whatnot when I get home, but it NEVER works. I’d end up wasting time and start studying/doing homework etc at night.
When I noticed those two exams were coming up, I decided to change my studying habits a bit. I did this by spending 2-3 hours after class at the library for studying. The old me would think that 2-3 hours isn’t a lot and you wouldn’t accomplish that much but that’s not true, old me. I definitely accomplished something. I would be able to finish one chapter of a subject, with thorough understanding (again, I still have parts that I don’t understand but it’s better than nothing).
I guess some of you may have realized this studying habit sooner than I did, but you and I have different paces. We’re all learning though. If you got something from this, then that’s cool. Anyways, I’d really like to keep up this habit for the upcoming exams and for future semester. So that’s a lesson learned for me 🙂
Before I go, I wanted to put up some pictures of when I went to a hippo campus concert two (two already??) months ago. I still look at these pictures and videos sometimes because I miss it so much haha. They’re pretty quiet after their tour ended and now I’m patiently waiting for their new music to come out….
ahhhh
😍
ahhhh 2
🙈
That’s all my friendsss. Thank you for reading this far. I appreciate it very much!
Wassalam ❤
p/s recently found a musician + youtuber. i like his style of music. check him out 😀
I haven’t been updating because nothing interesting has been happening for the past couple of months except for what I’m going to write about (and also a trip which I may or may not talk about. we’ll see).
So, a month ago, while I was watching tv, I saw an advertisement about a musical at Ordway Theater in St. Paul. I’m usually not interested in musicals, especially since I have never been to one before, but this one seemed to catch my attention. Why? Because it’s from a classic movie that I LOVED watching as a kid. I even watched the movie again earlier this year. Oh wait. I haven’t even told you the title of the musical so you must be wondering (unless you’re the group of people who I know about this already haha). Tadaaa…
We still have a VHS tape of this movie back at home. Oh, how the time flies.
I arrived at the venue around 6:30 pm, an hour early because it’s a new place and I don’t want to be late. The moment I stepped in, I felt a different vibe, in a good way. The lobby was so posh. (This is my first time stepping into a nice theater, dan and phil tour not included, so for the people who are used to theaters, i’m sorry you had to read this 😬. Also, I have never been exposed to theaters and live musicals when I was young so this is totally brand new for me). I also felt a teeny bit awkward because nearly everyone that came, came with their family or at least they had company. I came alone. I kind of wanted to ask my friends to come along but it’s a couple of weeks into the finals and I didn’t want to take uptheir time.
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Anyway, when it started, I became so excited. The songs that they performed just made me have childhood flashbacks and made me so happy. Also, the fact that it was live just was so refreshingto me. I did sing along to the songs (inside my head of course) though not all. My top favorites were definitely “Hard Knock Life”, “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here” and “Tomorrow”. They added some humor to the characters, especially to Mrs. Hannigan, that was pretty hilarious.
Since this is my first musical that I watched, it just amazes how well the performers act and sing (yeah i know, they should be good at that or else, it’s not going to be a good one). The energy, the confidence. It makes me wish I had that. And also I thought, it must feel good and relieving to just sing (or scream) your heart out without annoying anyone haha. Nevertheless, I genuinely enjoyed it from the start to the end and it was definitely nice to take a break from reality. (Seriously, my friend told me that the chem eng midterm results are already out exactly after I got home just now and I am NOT ready to face it).
So yeah, my 👏 first 👏 musical. Definitely a great experience 🙂 I don’t know if anyone near me lives near St. Paul, Minnesota but I absolutely recommend watching it whether or not you have watched the original movie! The link for tickets is here. Just to give some sense on the musical, here’s a scene from the movie:
Wassalam ❤
p/s I feel like it’s a must now to add in ‘p/s’es in my posts and also insert a music video that I have enjoyed lately. Here’s one:
I’m finishing up my 6th week here since classes started and I had my first midterm last week. I’ve only gotten one of the results back but alhamdulillah, they were satisfactory even though it was pretty hectic during the exam.
Anyways, immediately after my exams, I joined a trip that my senior invited to Duluth, Minnesota. Just for the weekend. To recall, we left on Friday night and came back Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t long but I had so much fun, seriously. It’s not usual of me to join trips with new people but I had the instinct to go and I did. I thought it was going to be awkward (considering that I’m one of ‘those’ people), but the conversations that we had during the trip was simply casual and didn’t make me feel uncomfortable at all.
We stayed at a Malaysian family’s house during the trip and omg, they reminded me so much of my parents and home!! They were so friendly too! On Saturday night, Uncle Nik and Aunty Nani invited us to join a potluckat their Islamic Center and we had our dinner there. Honestly, for the past two years of me living in the US, I have never been to muslim gatherings because it took two buses to go there, which is sad. But yeah, it was fun and I talked to a couple of locals there.
If you want to look at photos, please do click on this link. It’ll take you to my Google Photos album —> this link
Also, if you’re in the mood for being sentimental, play this song 😂:
Switching gears, I was having a snack this evening and my mind kind of wandered to a place where I thought about everything that has been going on for the past month. And I came to a conclusion that I will never want to take things for granted. Ever since the beginning of my study in the US, I have always been confronted with the fact that there is something (this ‘something’ is my secret haha) that I can never get, no matter how much I want it. And yeah, even until now, it’s still in my head.
I have my reasons for doing so and somehow, these reasons kind of make up on how I go through life here? Ugh, it’s so hard to explain without giving away the details but I hope you get the point. Even though I’m not on the road of getting what I want, these reasons smoothen my journey, although there are the ups and downs. Is that clearer? idk.
Anyway, I’m going to stop here. Toodles!
Wassalam ❤
p/s *fangirl mode* i snagged a ticket to a hippo campus concert in st. paul on feb 17 next year! was a bit disappointed that i couldn’t get the vip tickets but that’s okay. i’m still hyped though! if you happen to go too, let me know on tumblr!
Feeling a lot better now, mainly because classes have started for a couple of days now and I’m aware of how they’ll be. So since I’ve nothing to do tonight, I thought why not put up the photos that I took at the State Fair last Saturday? It’s kind of a big thing here and I’ve been encouraged to go there a couple of days before that (even an uber driver talked about it). It was my first time there and there were SO many people! (feel free to go over the pictures, or click them, to see my captions haha)
soooo many ppl
self-explanatory 😁
v soft
one of the places that the sign ‘mn state fair’ was photo friendly 😅
cows
very big cow 🐄
cow being milked? 🥛
yum! 😋
$16 per bucket 😚
went on the skyride, was very peaceful
view from above
view from above 2
cc dad
kept trying to get the picture of the signboard but people kept passing by and this is the most suitable one i got 😂
view from above 3
not sure what these are for though
I’m a total newbie so I don’t quite know what the state fair is for? (Is it held every month? year? well, yeah I gotta make some research about that). But just a little input that I can give is that there were so many different things there. Like… cattle/goats/sheeps/horses barns, displays of large vehicles, varieties of food (of course~), some fair rides and there was an international bazaar. It’s pretty big, physically, to be honest.
(found this on twitter) so close yet so far though 💆
Anyways, it was tiring, hot but a nice experience. After going to the state fair, I also found out that hippo campus was performing the last two days (!!!). I was hyped but I couldn’t go.
So yeah, that was fun. I had fun. Did you have fun (reading my post)? I hope you did hehe.
Okay, see you soon!
Wassalam ❤
p/s brief shoutout to my mum for her **th birthday! Thanks for being there for me (even when I fangirl) and I hope you’ll always be blessed by Allah 💖💖💖 Love you xx
Summer break has (almost) passed… i have already arrived in Minnesota, now getting ready and familiarizing myself for the coming semester (no more ‘quarters’ huh). I couldn’t agree more that new places never fail to cease me. The buildings and even the atmosphere are significantly different.
However, i have had some doubts and worries about how my life would be when i get here. Even during the summer, they’ve lingered throughout my mind. I’m not going into details as it shouldn’t be yours to dwell on. But yeah, it’s no simple problem. The only thing i can hope for is that Allah gives me the strength to go through this.
Looking at a different perspective, ‘with every hardship comes ease’. (‘With’ is highlighted due to the fact hardship does not come with itself). Despite going through such situations, Allah has met me with people, in this case, friends, who genuinely care about me and wellbeing and that is not something to take granted for. That is the ‘ease’ that somehow enlightens me though not much, a little.
(Also, the freebies that i have been getting during orientation and, unexpectedly, from Target, cheered me up a bit haha)
Classes haven’t even started but i can already feel the challenges that I’ve yet to encounter (Am i overthinking? Probs yes but i just needed to vent a little 😉). Let’s just hope for the best, shall we?
I’m feeling tremendously happy today 😀 . And it’s not because of a ‘very important’ reason at all haha. Sooo, around two weeks ago, one of my favorite youtubers released his new merch. And no, it’s not dan and phil (they did release some merch for spring but it didn’t make me feel as excited as this). So, you know how I’m like, I bought some ngeeee. And they arrived just now…
Here they are!!! (For some reason I wanted to write ‘Here are they!’ haha)
My first impression was, OHMYGOSH THESE LOOK SO PRETTY (especially when you look really closely to them) and THEY REALLY ARE. I don’t know if I’m exaggerating but again, they really arepretty. One of the reasons why I was really into buying them was because of this video that pj did:
You can obviously see how much effort he put into his merch that it actually turned out well. You can feel the quality of his pins even by touching it. (anyway, casually sliding this in, i also ‘coincidentally’ bought another pin from doodlecats which is very cute :B but you can see the difference in the quality of the pin compared to pj’s).
As an avid viewer of youtube, such as moi, there’s this strange feeling of appreciation. One way is by pj showing his appreciation by doing the best he can to make good merch and another way is by me, a viewer, appreciating his appreciation by buying his merch. (omg what have i just written??? )
Anyway, I know I’m being veryparticular and meticulous and even very specific about these kind of stuff and it’s just because that’s who I am. Some people might not even care about such stuff but hey, I can’t avoid it 🙂 .
Don’t you feel good about yourself why you buy something that actually makes you feel happy?
I really wanted to make this post special in a way but sighhhh. What a mess. I wonder how people that are ‘real’ bloggers do this kind of stuff. Kudos to them huh?
