Missing home!!

Yesterday was Alha Eid and it was the first time since I got to China that I started missing home. All this time I had been busy with school homework and getting around my campus without getting lost ( Thank Allah that He has given me a good sense of direction). I had been too occupied with new people, new surroundings to realize that I won't be able to see my homeland for quite sometime.
I  hate feeling homesick. All night, I had stayed up trying to download songs from my country and all day, I stared at the pictures I took with  my family, friends and colleagues.
All I have to say is no matter where you go, how beautiful that certain place is, how perfect your life is, there is no place like home.
I wish my loved ones a healthy life and hope to God that I can see them soon.
Till then, I shall do my best to succeed in reaching my goal, Insha Allah!
:D

October....

This month seems to be the worst month ever for me. I have gone through so much, though it may not seem much, it certainly has made me think that something is wrong with me. Let me just list out the events that have occurred in October.
1. 7 day school
After allowing us a 7 day holiday, my school decided to make our lives more fulfilling by making us attend school for 7 days. Not your ideal way of making things more happening.
2. Tests
The 7 day school attending rule wasn't enough. They decided to test us with surprise exams.
3. Curse involving tests
I think it's safe to say that I am cursed for everyday that we had an exam I fell ill. The last two times we had exams I was either hurling or shivering and sniffling.
4. Losing prized possessions
This must have the hardest thing I had to deal with aside from being left at the wrong city. I managed to let my iPhone get stolen. Yes, my most expensive gadget that I treated like a baby got stolen and it really feels as if someone just chopped up my heart and put it in a grinder. I moped around in bed for a day mourning over my yet-to-be-paid-but-stolen phone. Aside form losing my beloved phone, I have lost nearly all of my contacts and I have no way of contacting my friends Ran and Robin from Changsha. I owe them both a lot and I have been planning on keeping in touch with them. I have not written down the number in anything else so I have no idea what I am going to do to find them. They are extremely important to me.
5. Free gates
Free gates ditched me. Making it highly difficult for me to communicate with people back home.
6. Imam Anwar Awlaki assassinated.
Well, he was assassinated or terminated more likely on the 30 of September but I learned about this tonight. Inna Lilla Wa Inna Ilaihi Raajioon.. He was one of the best scholars of our times. His lectures inspired me and filled me with fear and awe over Allah. He was one of the few men who had it in them to help our generation understand Islam better. His lectures were easy to understand and assured me that I am following the right path. May Allah bless him.
7. Yamapi & Ryo Leaving NEWS
I totally can't get why groups break up. First it was KAT TUN and now it's NEWS. I am devastated over the  news and I don't think I can get over this easily. I can understand why Ryo had to leave.  No one can juggle two different groups. He is human and he needs to rest and stuff. But I cant fathom the reason why Pi had to leave NEWS. I think he is following Jin's footsteps and let me tell you that I am disappointed in him. I thought him to be a better leader than this. I mean come on, they spent 8 years together and now he has to leave them?? Why??? I know everyone has their reasons but I find it difficult to accept this decision Pi made.
8. Realizing that Hanyu is difficult
Difficult is undermining. I am now not confident on how I will do.Learning Chinese is hard and from the batch who came here before me, I have been hearing not very inspiring stories. They have told me that they understand none of their lectures and one of them is already planning on leaving the scholarship. I am now getting nervous and worried on how I will do in the future.


Things have not turned out well for me this month. Everything that can go wrong has happened and I am sure more are to come. But I am not one to give up. Sure, I lose confidence in myself and get depressed and worry over how my studies will be in the future. But I have not reached the point where I will want to give up and go back home. I have enough strength left in me to study hard and work hard to improve the language. It is not going to be easy but it will be much more difficult for me to go back home without trying my best.

I haven't told my parents about losing the phone. They surely will kill me. I used my own money to buy the phone so it wont be that hard. On the other hand, it is much more harder to accept that it was stolen because I spent so much money on it. But life goes on, material things come and go and there is no point in getting attached to them. My iPhone wont be any help to me when I am dead and buried inside the ground waiting for judgement day. We, the Muslims have lost a great asset to our Muslim community but angry backlash will not fix this. We must honor Imam's death by believing in our one true God, and staying true to our Muslim beliefs.

About boy bands breaking up, I just hope Shinee doesn't add their names to the disbanded groups.

Life goes on so Shall I! I shall buy a very cheap phone and try to find a way to find Ran and Robin's  number. I shall do my best to study and communicate in Chinese. I shall pray 5 times a day and remember my Kind Merciful God 24/7. I shall enjoy life to the fullest supporting disbanded groups and solo artists. ^_^

My DeterPInation!!! :D

It's been a tough couple of days but I seem to have gotten used to living in China. For now. I have no idea what will spring up next and it's kind of exhilarating to expect something to totally rock your world upside down. I guess this is what they call adrenaline rush :P

I have started my Chinese lessons and let me tell you, it feels as if I am going to a vocal class each morning. The first day I attended class, I wanted to back out. Chinese Mandrin is DIFFICULT!!! This, coming from someone who has tackled Japanese may be surprising. I find Japanese as easy as pie against Chinese. The difficulty that I am facing is that Chinese use 4 different tones and each tone of a syllable has a different meaning. Hence if I pronounced a word in a different tone I might end up swearing instead of complimenting. Since I am from a country which uses a low tone of voice, it is painful ( I mean when I say painful) to use four different tones which are higher than the one that I normally use. I wanted to give up then and there.

Here I am in a foreign country, where I am stared at as if a booger is hanging down my nose, discriminated because I cover my hair, with no friends and no one I can talk to. Now, the language that I have to learn seems more difficult to me than any other thing I have faced. I didn't want to continue. I wanted to pack up my bags and just come home. But then I read this article, a nikki entry of a certain someone and I realised that I don't want to give up on my dream. I had seemingly forgotten that in order to touch the rose you must face the thorn.This was mine. I gained strength from that entry and my determination has build up. Now, I feel that if I put as much effort as I possibly can, I can succeed.It all depends on your dream and how much you want to achieve it. This determination has helped me overlook the fact that some people do not accept me. That I have to be me no matter what and that is all that matters. I haven't changed and people here have seen that and are more friendly and accepting towards me. I guess that since we are all from various countries with different lifestyles it's kind of hard to accept something that is different.

Today in class, I came to know that there are so many different languages out there. But all those different languages are used to express the same feeling throughout the world. LOVE.There is no one out there in this world who feels differently and hence it has made me realize that I was too quick to jump into conclusions that no one liked me. :D

Everyone voted that my language is the most difficult :P

I am truly grateful to that entry that he made. He sure is full of wisdom for someone so hot :P

Thank you Yamapi for helping me realize how important my dreams are.. :)

Through wind & rain!!!

After excrutiatingly hot days it has finally coolled down in Wuhan. I think freezing down would be more appropriate. Though it is not winter yet it is damned cold out here. For two days, all I hear is the howling wind and pitter patter of rain. It got so windy that the electricity had gone off last night. Unfortunately, I was not home and I was enjoying a hot meal at the Mac

After shopping for the next day, I went back to find a building with no lights on and I was carrying heavy bags with me. I could not stay down at the lobby with bottles of yogurt so I decided to walk up 10 flights of stairs. You could say I was a soulless shell when I finished climbing 10 flights of stairs. After dumping everything on my bed, I got down stairs. Half way down I realized I was wearing slippers.I had no strength left in me to go back up and change so for 2 hours last night, I had to walk in the dead cold.

This morning it was as freezing and  it was raining as well... For the first time, I saw smoke coming out from my mouth everytime I took a  breath. I have never experienced such cold weather before and it must seem extremely childish but I had the time of my life exhaling and inhaling and seeing the smoke form. Though it is dead cold, I can't help but admire the beauty of a cold autumn day!

finally!!!!!

I'm in China!!!!! It still feels unreal and from time to time, I wait to think whether it's real or a dream.  The journey though was tough. I can't believe I am here happily typing this down..

I have been in China for more than a week now but it feels like a long time and the things I've had to face has made me realize that travelling is more difficult and dangerous than one thinks. 6 Maldivians including me got the opportunity to come to China. The trip we took was long and tiring but it didn't seem like that since we were together and had fun. Aside from a long lost cousin of mine, I knew no one but we bonded quickly and got along well. We even celebrated my birthday at Burger King in Malaysia airport.Yeah, my 22nd birthday was celebrated with me being airborne for more than hours. But it was fun.

After staying at the Malaysian Airport for 3 hours, we took a 6 hour flight to Beijing.Huda and I slept through out the flight and I even missed the opportunity to watch Pirates of the Caribbean on one of the coolest planes I've been on. After reaching Beijing, we were separated,the two who had to study at Beijing was taken to their respective universities by our embassy and we had to wait for the CSC to come pick us up. the ride to out dorm took 30 minutes but we had to wait for 2 hours with no place to sit outside the dorm whilst the collected our documents. The whole night was tiring enough but huda, rifu and Shareef wasted no time the next morning. We went exploring and lost ourselves in the mall. IT was fabulous but very very expensive. That  didn't stop me from buying something from the House of Etude and lunching at Grandma's house!

But our fun had consequences.When we got back Rifu had missed her train to Shanghai and had to pay for her ticket and Shareef nearly missed his. Huda and I were to leave the following morning with mine in the morning. When I reached the train station, I was the only Maldivian and the Chinese people were all staring at me. One girl had even gathered up courage to ask me to take a photo with her. I didn't mind much but the Africans with me were appalled. I could understand where their curiosity was coming from so I didn't mind.I mean they have never seen a brown colored girl covering her hair. I had to travel 18 hours on a train and it was hard. The toilets here are not that clean and it is a big problem. After a grueling train ride I get off to a building only to find out that it was abandoned. There I was, out on the street with a Mozambique man 5:00 in the morning. I started to panic after seeing the building but the guy I was with was as cool as a cucumber. He kept saying that someone will 'open' the place at 6:00. I started panicking, got out on the street and flapped my hands like a crazy person. A taxi driver stopped but he didn't speak English but he had customers who were going to the same place as us. However, they didn't speak much English so we just followed them to another university building. Even then, my heart didn't calm down.I walked up and down and by this time students started coming to the university. When they saw us they ran as if we would gobble them up. After an hour waiting there, my life saver came. She was the only one who approached us. I took the opportunity to show her my Admission letter and she told me, to my horror, that I was in the wrong university.To make matters worse, she told me I was at the wrong city. She took me to the Administrative building, helped me acquire a sim to call the embassy.If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here. I met Matt, who deals with the CSC students and he confirmed my worst nightmare. However, he got me a friend named Ran who kept all her plans and helped me get a train ticket to the correct city and fed me. I had by then not eaten for more than 20 hours and didn't even realise it. With her helping me to the train station and showing me where I have to go and Matt writing down the address in Chinese for me, I managed to get to my university.The journey has been long winding and very very difficult and scary. But I had finally made it.The university is HUGE!! and  very very beautiful. I think we can fit two Male' in the campus alone!!!! :D

However, I keep thinking, if it wasn't for Allah, I might not have made it this far.He saved me, sent me people to take care of me and gave me enough strength to think clearly and deal with an unfathomably difficult situation. I am scared to think of the what ifs and I am so thankful that He gave me this opportunity. The chance to prove that I have it in me to make the best of an intricate environment.  I thank Him for making me who I am.

All I can say is don't freak out and never give up. If you give up then that's the end and you would be enveloped in darkness which will make it even more tricky to get yourself out of a problem. Never think that nothing bad will happen to you because you never know what sort of sticky mess you will have to face!

Waving buh bye!!!

I'll be leaving to China for my studies on the 1st of September..
It still feels unreal to me... as if this is a dream..
I don't know when I will grasp the fact that I am actually leaving...
I am going through a whirl of emotions.. anxiety, happiness, excitement, sadness, and more...
I can't explain it..
I have been waiting for a way out, to explore the world, to see beyond what I believed was my  limit. I have always had this dream to go out of my country to explore and broaden my mind. I believe that by observing other people's lifestyles, you get to appreciate more about life and you are able to live life to the fullest. I am happy that Allah granted me this opportunity but it does make me sad when I think about the life that I have to leave behind. My family, all my precious sea of friends and the comfortable route that I have been taking for a very long time. The biggest regret I will have is the amount of things I will miss when I am gone. I will miss watching my brother grow up, my cousins going to the school for the first time, my best friends getting married and having kids and all that. The only that comforts me is that this is how I want my life to progress. I choose this path to further mold myself. Hehehe I might not make sense but I have this real strong feeling that this is what I am destined to do. Create an open mind. Become one with all these different people with different backgrounds and colorful cultures. It might seem that I am painting a mere rainbow here but I do know that this journey would not only contain rainbows and butterflies. Hardship will be there and I have faith in myself, Insha Allah, I will become stronger after this...

For all those who believed in me when I didn't, thank you so much for not giving up on me. Though  I may not shed tears and wave like a maniac bellowing "buh bye",please do know that I will be weeping inside. I hope you will understand why I will do this Insha Allah. :)

Resigning!!!

Yesterday was my last day at work. Since I am going to go to China for studies I had to quit my current working place. To be quite honest, I despise my work place and some of the people there. Some of them were hard to get along to and some of them just simply had a grudge against me. This is normal since nearly everyone experiences stuff like this at a work environment. I tried my best to get along with them and I did but the work I did was and still is unsuitable for me. I wasn't that passionate about it and simply put, I was glad to get away from that place. However, nearly all of my co-workers organised a farewell for me. They were there wishing me good luck and cheering me on. It surprised me as well as made me happy. At that moment I came to the realization that I am very lucky to have been working there. Good or bad, they taught me lessons and I think the experience I had there with the people will make me stronger in the future. I thank them all from the bottom of my heart for I am truly glad to have worked there, met these unique people and got time to get used to people with different background, lifestyles and ethics. I am happy to have the opportunity to move on and I think the future will be bright if you have faith and hope guiding you. Things that don't please you or things that you hate will happen and nothing can stop that. We just have to learn to move on and deal with these certain situations head on. That is what life is all about. In my opinion. :) Thank you all!!!!

ORIGAMI!!!

I've always had a fascination for origami. It completely gets me obsessed. I find it very interesting. With tiny bits of paper you get to create something artistic and cool. This year, when Japan was struck by the terrible earthquake  and tsunami, I felt helpless. Japan is a country that I respect, admire and love. They have done so much for the world and especially my country. I wanted to do something to help raise money. I heard about the story of Sadako, the girl who had leukemia after the bombing of Hiroshima. The 1000 cranes inspired me and since it is a belief of Japanese I tried folding as much cranes as I could. I sold them and donated all the money to our Japan fund and this situation brought back the interest of origami. Though it took me a while due to procrastination, I managed to finish a 3D swan. This got me thinking. Origami doesn't only interest me, it helps me relax and release stress. I recommend this technique to all. Though it is time consuming and somewhat useless to many people, I believe that it helps me. Origami has taught me to appreciate the little stuff that no one think matters and it has taught me patience. I shall continue on making art with origami and my next battle is to make a peacock. It is quite the challenge! I can't wait to begin!!!