Alhamdulillah.
I submitted my dissertation yesterday at 5AM-ish yesterday, and I'm officially done with my Master's! Feels like time flew so fast.
The time given to write the dissertation was certainly not just used to write, as per normal procrastinating students do. Had my mum, brother and sister-in-law come to visit for 2 weeks, where we travelled around London and had an average of 20,000 steps daily probably. Had bad food poisoning and threw up a lot. Had my friend Azlinah visiting for one week in the middle of her work trip from Amsterdam, where we also went to see the Stonehenge and the Roman Baths by bus. Listened to Tun Mahathir's talk while he was here in London. Moved all my stuff from my student accommodation to my cousin Widad's place while she goes back to Malaysia during the summer break. Went to Taylor Swift's The Eras concert with Paramore as the opening act and Travis Kelce making a surprise appearance, cried a lot when she first came in and started singing, cried a bit during Paramore's set too given the songs were those I listened to a lot in 2022 during hard times. I don't think my 2022 self would have believed that she would be able to listen to Paramore and Taylor Swift live. Kept up with the Olympics, and was very proud of our Malaysian athletes, although it was very hard to focus back into working on my dissertation because of this. Impulsively volunteered for free to take care of a department mate's cat for a week at her flat, will miss cuddling with the cat named Vladimir hahah. Will miss the hours spent until night at the LSE library, trying to force myself to write and to stop being distracted.
Before that, there was the end of classes, the last of assignments and exams. Kind of bombed my exams, and really made me realize I suck at memorizing stuff and getting instructions right. Kept up very closely with the pro-Palestine encampment done at my campus, as my flatmate was an active participant sleeping in the camps. It was also great that they did jemaah prayers at the campsite inside the building, so I got to experience joining in the prayers which was done in public at the centre of the LSE area. Went on trips, to Cambridge University with Khairin, a fellow Malaysian Master's student, and to Cotswolds with Anjali, a coursemate from India whom I bonded with from sharing of mental health issues haha.
Distractions, so much distractions. From season 4 of Bridgerton, which I ended up only watching halfway, to binge-reading all 8 of their books. Watched The Boys, a dark satirical show of superheroes being evil people, but also stopped at the latest Season 4 mid-way. Read a lot of other books - The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson which was very entertaining, Yellowface by R. F. Kuang that I finished quite fast because it was fun to read too, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar which was very depressing and made me reflect on life a lot, Sophie Kinsella's The Burnout which had all the great elements of her other books, and Tunku Halim's A Malaysian Restaurant in London which was very mehh. Watched Deadpool vs Wolverine halfway. As I'm also volunteering for an NGO in monitoring racial postings online by Malaysian politicians, Twitter/X has been very, very, very distracting.
I'm going back to Malaysia next week and will start working the week after! Quite fast, I know. I thought I would be spending time just to take a break and jalan-jalan more haha but there's no company to do it with, and I think I would get bored quite fast not doing anything. The interview and salary negotiation went well, alhamdulillah, am glad to join a place in which I had written as one of my dream places to work even when applying for the LSE Master's and in my scholarship essays. However, I know that life can be unpredictable, having gone through layoffs previously within 2 months of working, or getting depressive symptoms in another previous workplace, and working under an abusive supervisor in another workplace haha, so I'm trying to not get my hopes up but will just pray that it will be a good place, insyaAllah. I guess one of the reasons why I decided to start work early was because there was the possibility of me wanting to do a PhD in the future, and that the job opportunity is a one year contract, thus making it possible if I want to start the PhD by October next year. However, Allah is the best planner. I'll just go with the flow as of now, who knows, the interest in wanting to study further is not that strong to be honest. I.. don't believe I have a strong want and "why" in wanting to do a PhD, nor the right intentions.
Will I miss London? I don't know. Malaysia seems a bit scary as of now, with new cases of people especially women getting murdered more frequently. I guess I'll miss the freedom of being able to travel here alone safely, without having to ask for permission, and getting to places easily by foot and public transport. I feel like I'll look back fondly at memories of most of the time spent by myself, the travels, of trying to take care of myself, of solo eating, and just trying to navigate myself this 1 year of being in a foreign country with strangers whilst trying to experience new things.
As per usual with no commitments as of now, there is the sense of emptiness, and a fear of .. being bored and not doing anything, believing that I should be doing something useful. I want to change this mindset. Being bored, being at peace is a privilege. I am not in a life-threatening situation, living with dread and anxiety from an unsafe environment around harmful and toxic people. There are people living in war-torn countries, where there is no moment of peace. These are things I should not take for granted. I have been provided with so many blessings by Allah, and the least I could do is to not.. mess around, be ungrateful, and sengaja cari pasal look for trouble chasing for excitement zzz. Focus on the little things.
Had a period in which I re-read my old messages from 2022 aka The Year I Want to Forget. The feelings of anxiety, of being trapped, and not being able to see any bright future was relived for a while. Looking back, I don't believe there are enough Alhamdulillahs I could recite to thank Allah for picking me up and getting me out of the hopelessness and the negative situations I was in.
So I guess that's it. I always see this exercise of blog writing similar to the Pensieve in Harry Potter haha, taking out the information and storing it outside so it doesn't clutter my mind, and so that it materializes in physical form in case my memory of experiences and feelings fade away.
Wishing everyone to be safe, happy and in peace.
Assalamualaikum.
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