I Miss

Nice, France, 2007.

I miss France.

I miss speaking in French.

I miss waking up 30 minutes before class starts and still be on time for it.

I miss the 15 minutes' walk to school. I miss walking in the cold.

I miss wearing winter clothes. I miss having a reason to wear them.

I miss cooking. I miss my cooking. I miss cooking for other people. I miss cooking for myself. I miss taking photos of the food that I cook.

I miss grocery shopping at Carrefour. I miss taking the bus to Carrefour. I miss the 10 minutes' bus ride to Carrefour. I miss running for the bus with my heavy groceries that usually weigh at least 7 to 12 kg. I miss the 25 minutes' walk from the bus stop to my hostel, stopping at times because the groceries were too heavy.

I miss taking bus no. 4 to town. I miss taking bus no. 4 to the train station. I miss taking bus no. 4 to buy chicken from the halal boucherie. I miss making mistakes with the change and have them return me the extra change I'm always giving them.

I miss my hostel neighbours. I miss my classmates. I miss my classes. I miss my teachers. I miss my friends. I miss chatting with them in their rooms.

I miss having to go to school, do school work, do group projects, do my laundry, cook, grocery shop, clean my room, have at least 7 hours of sleep a day and still have the time to travel.

I miss not having to worry about grades but still get good grades anyway.

I miss taking photos of everything.

I miss the beautiful sunset I see every evening from my hostel window. I miss looking at the sky which never seemed to end from my hostel window. I miss taking photos of it.

I miss my bed. I miss snuggling under my comforter because the central heater was not working properly. I miss having to collect new sheets every 15 days and change them. I miss the cheery orange pillow cover that I bought for 2 euros.

I miss everyone who has been nice to me one way or another.

I miss France.

I've never missed being here a single day I was there.

You Know You're Graduating When...

You receive "designer" invitation cards to talks and job applications - got one in the mail today from Citibank. MAP seems to be the in-thing for companies nowadays; even the civil service has one.

"Hi, I'm Siti and I'm working at Citibank." Haha.

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Catch me and my lovely friends on Arts Central, 17 Sept, 10 pm.

Ramadhan Mubarak

Here it comes yet again,
A month of devotion and reflection;
Will we pass the tests and earn our gain?
Or fail to even grasp the notion?

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School

I have been trying to improve my photo-taking skills of people, simply because I'm terrible in people-photography. It's difficult to capture the naturalness, for the lack of a better word, of people on camera. It's even harder to do it with a point-and-shoot digital camera. Thank goodness for lovely friends who are sporting enough to pose for you in your school campus. :)

Life

Jame'Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque

Tomorrow will mark the beginning of my 3rd week of school. Many would know that I missed my first week for some filming in Brunei, so I've only been in school officially for a week. People warned me that there would be nothing to do or see in Brunei - shops close early, there's no nightlife and that Bruneians are generally boring people. With such low expectations, how could their wonderful hospitability, beautiful mosques and eating places that close at 1 am not be a pleasant surprise? Perhaps it's me or perhaps it's the idea of being overseas that makes me feel blessed no matter the circumstances. I was blessed to have the opportunity to be a guest in such a homely country and to have the experience of being a part of the media industry. More friendships were forged in yet another foreign country. Even then, one thing that I regretted would be that I didn't get the time and chance to enter their grand mosques and take more architectural photos.

Life has to go on, as usual, with my readings of which their thickness can be measured by the inches, learning a new language - Italian, and my long overdue internship and community service reports. Not forgetting the 2 articles I owe my editor! Well, let's hope I clear my backlog of work and get through this semester, alive and well.

A presto,
Syuhada. :)