The Unspeakable Words

Watching the 3 minutes video of my exchange program that looks more like a vacation video will certainly leave you wondering.

“Did she even go to the university?”

Yes, I did.

The main building was 10 minutes’ walk from my house, but most of my tutorials and lectures were held at Building 5 which require me 20 minutes’ walk. Building 5 is near to the library and Haymarket. A library with a sleeping corner, a game room with ps4, Wii and Xbox and lots of desktops and Macs to be used, how cool is that? I like the printing system which requires students to top up credit in their student’s card and just tap them when you wanted to print. The printers are everywhere and easily accessible. There are lots of cool places in the university for you to chill and study. There are also pantries at each building for you to heat up your foods. Too many cool stuff to be explained. See it yourself in these videos.

. Oh wait, did I tell you they have unlimited Wifi access *grins*?

As the semester started, I had ambivalent feelings about the education system, how strict the lecturers might be and my biggest concern was… where do I fit for the group assignments? After the hassle of being rejected into few subjects, I ended up registering for four subjects = 12 hours per week = 24 credit points. They are Global Operations and Supply Chain Management, Human Resource, Business Statistics and Fundamentals of Business Finance. For the first two weeks, I went to all the lectures and tutorials. Just as in the movies, during the lectures, most of them will be using MacBook to take notes (play games, scroll their social media, etc.) and there I go with pens and a book. The following weeks, I only attended the tutorials cause… err… I don’t like to attend lectures which I can’t focus on, so I rather do something else. That’s just my kind of thing. Not a good example – please go to the lectures. However, I attended most of the finance’s lectures because I can watch them anywhere and whenever I wanted since they were online lectures. I like the system where they entirely leave it to the students to decide to go or not to go to the lectures and tutorials. However, do remember to attend the quizzes, tests, and examinations as well as submit the assignments. One day when I was in the statistics tutorial class listening to the tutor, there came a few girls in the class. They submitted their assignments and directly walked out. I could only grin quietly and imagine doing that back in my home university – not a good idea indeed. I can’t lie that even with four subjects, they were heavy, and the stress was quite unbearable sometimes.

I remember feeling so tired, and all I wanted was to give up. Reading journals articles, doing research on companies, correct citation, no plagiarism, free grammar error and academic writing gave me anxiety. I felt like I wasn’t good enough throughout the semester. However, my biggest concerned was released after the third week because I managed to put myself into a group for each subject except for business statistics because there weren’t any group assignment. For GOSCM, my group consist of me, two local guys (Lachie and Brandon), a Chinese lady(Bowie), and a Philippines girl(Bianca). For HRM, I grouped up with an Australian guy (Robert), one Indonesian girl(Filli), one American lady(Sofia) and two Italian ladies (Claire and Theodora). Lastly, I teamed up with two Chinese guys which I never met for my finance assignment since we only communicated and discussed it through Facebook and Google Sheets. Believe it or not, we obtained 19/20 for our group assignment, not bad huh? I had a great time working with all of them since we managed to get quite good results for our group assignments. Lucky me? Maybe. I think I had fun and toured more than I remember studying. Insecurities kept haunting me till my last exam paper which was HRM paper. After every paper, I prayed that the lecturers will understand my horrible handwriting and understand my words. I remember crying, calling Umi,  and telling her that I screwed my last paper. Alhamdulillah, when my results were out, I achieved good results but well, I think I can do better, but Alhamdulillah again.

So my kind of daily routine when I went to classes were dropping by at Woolies/Coles to get some baking stuff and went back home if I decided not to tour around. I spent lots of my time baking and cooking. Never knew that I have passion in baking so much. I tried baking and making chocolate cake, rainbow cake, cookies, bread pudding, peach cobbler, donut, and onde-onde. The best part about baking there in Australia was having housemates who voluntary eat your cakes/cookies even if they turned out bad. Honestly, before going to Australia, cooking wasn’t my thing at all. But I started cooking since Thursday was my day to cook for the whole house. Every single day was chicken day except when seafood was super cheap. Oh believe it or not, I consumed rice in Sydney more than I eat rice in Malaysia. Thanks to Kak Farah, Kak Abie, Kak Mira and Arifah for accepting all my horrible dishes and fed me with good foods. My housemates are the Mara scholars, and all of them are studying engineering. On weekends, I always end up at Amirah’s house in Kingsford. Thanks to Amirah's housemates for accepting me there every weekend. I spent most of my weekends with Daus, Caen, Haziqah, Gala, Hassni and Hafiz. These people are beyond awesome and I'm glad that  I am given the chance to meet them. Sometimes, I did dessert hunting with Faris and Amirah - the reason behind me being fat.


Since I'm already in Australia, I need to figure out on how to gain money so that I could travel around. The money I got from my scholars were only enough for my monthly expenses. So I decided to get a job. After 987654321 times applying on Jora, Seek, and Gumtree, I finally obtained a casual job with Cleanse and Benefits (http://cleansewithbenefits.com.au/). I worked for a beautiful British lady, Hepzabeth. I usually went to her house, helped her trim the soaps, make boxes, put stickers on and many more things. I earned enough to travel after my examinations. I also did Christmas part time at an online florist (https://bloomex.com.au/) for ten days, after all the trips to cover back extra spending and save for shopping session. Boxing day was the best day to shopping. 

Days after finals

My last examination date was on 21st November 2015. I already had my holidays planned out. I had also bought all the flights tickets earlier. Flying off to Adelaide on 23rd, going to Melbourne on 28th, back to Sydney on 1st Dec and lastly flying off again to Brisbane on 6th for 4 days and going to Gold Coast on 8th Dec. My flight back to Malaysia will be on 1st January 2016 because I wanted to see the fireworks. Sadly, few days before my last exam, I got to know that my grandpa wasn’t that well. He was admitted to the hospital. To go home and burn my journey or to stay?  After discussing with my mum (the doctor confirmed that my grandpa’s condition wasn’t that bad or critical), umi advised me to stay since changing my ticket will cost me as much as I was to stay.

I had a great time in Adelaide, thanks to Amirah’s friends for bringing us around. We went to lots of nice places such as the pink lake, cherry picking farm, cool places in South Australia and lots more. Melbourne was fun too. You can see the first video which I attached to see my holiday journey in this post.Gold Coast (Movie World) was errr.. a nightmare because after the first ride, I felt super dizzy and vomited. I had to take panadol and rest for few hours before I could go on the next ride - such a waste. At Brisbane, I got kind of tired and bored of visiting historic buildings so we decided not to. But I can't deny that the views were beyond amazing.

Umi told me that she was going to Tokyet’s house because he was not well. I told her I’m was going to sleep. Before I closed my eyes, I quietly promised myself to visit him directly after reaching Penang and I want to take care of him until he gets well. I just can’t explain how close I was with my grandpa. Suddenly (around 9.40 Malaysian time, 12.40 Australian time), I received a call from Umi. I opened my eyes and grabbed my phone. There she was crying saying “Tokyet dah takda!” I was stunned for at least a minute, literally stunned. And there I went crying non-stop for the next 4.5 hours. Even if I took the earliest flight the next day, I wouldn’t be able to reach back on time. After subuh prayer, I fell asleep for a few hours. I kept calling Umi and I requested to see my late grandpa. Al-Fatihah. Sadly, that was the last time I saw him for around 30 seconds on Skype, breathless. For two days, I always ended up crying out of a sudden for lots of time. I don’t know how to thanks all these friends I met in Sydney for being there and trying their best to comfort me even when some of them were already back in Malaysia.

After a few days, I decided to go out even I can't get my mind off what happened. So I decided to watch the New Year fireworks with some of the Malaysians there. We watched the fireworks at Cremorne Point. The view is beyond idyllic. I had the chance to witness the most beautiful sunset on my last night in Sydney. As I see the fireworks, I remember how I used to go and watch fireworks back in Penang with my grandpa. The next day, thanks to my Hassni, Kak Wani, Acap, Nina and Ilman for sending me off to Penang. The next thing was realizing that I was on the plane flying back to Malaysia.

Orientation week was 5 months ago. It was from 20th till 24th July 2015.

I had mixed feelings on the very first day. Scared, excited, anxious and everything. The very first session I attended was the Grand Welcoming Ceremony. Throughout the week, I only attended a few more sessions such as campus tour and the library tour. The orientation week is indeed very different from what I had in UTM. I somehow prefer the one in UTS because you can choose the sessions you wanted to attend according to your preferability. I can conclude that the attendees of each session were highly interested in the content discussed. Unlike the one in UTM, where you need to attend each session from early morning to late night - healthy or sick, interested or not interested, sleepy or awake.

During the orientation week, I decided to go to Featherdale Wildlife Park with Mega. We took a train from Central and a bus to get there. The whole journey took around 1 hour and 30 minutes. Since we had the student card, we only paid $23. The excitement of seeing koala bears and feeding kangaroos were indescribable. We are very lucky to reach there early, so there weren't many people around yet. I experienced feeding and hugging(which is almost impossible unless you bribe them) the kangaroos. The kangaroo food costs $2 each. There are many other animals there including the penguin. At Featherdale, you are allowed to touch and take pictures with the koala in the display. Wallabies are jumping around everywhere, and you can feed, take pictures, hug and kiss the kangaroos in their cage.

How bad could it be flying off to another country on "Malam Raya"?

Well, not that bad until AirAsia keep playing all the Raya hits and you accidentally burnt your "Baju Raya" later on when you reached Sydney.

The moment I boarded the plane to KL, I could already hear the Raya hits over and over again. I boarded the plane to Sydney around 11 PM and imagined waiting there, mainly listening to the Raya song on repeat for at least 45 minutes before it took off. I had dinner/supper/breakfast around 1 hour after that.

"What are you going to do tomorrow?"

"What are you going to eat?"

"ARE YOU EVEN GOING TO BE SAFE?"

How do you expect me to sleep throughout the whole journey with thousands of questions haunting?

Surreal but there I was on DK222 somewhere in the sky heading to Australia for my very first time.

It was around 7.00 AM Malaysian Time and 9.00 AM Australian Time, the plane touched down at the airport. When the co-pilot was announcing "The temperature outside is currently 6 degree, ..." , I got quite excited. However, due to the traffic we only managed to get off the plane around 45 minutes later. And did I mention about the Raya hits once again? 

All the airport procedures took me around 4 long hours. Then, I managed to hop on the free shuttle that dropped me somewhere in the city (I don't even know where was I being dropped). Then I stopped a taxi by the roadside and hopped in. After few minutes, there I was in front of a house, pulling in a massive 30kg bag with a 7kg hand luggage and a backpack. Since my housemate was out that time, so she left me a key somewhere that I am not telling you. By the time I was at my house, it was already around 2 PM.

So I was in a hurry trying to get ready to go to Amirah's house (She just flew to OZ 2 days before I do). Believe it or not, when I was ironing my skirt, I accidentally burnt it. I felt so down, sad and frustrated. At that moment, all I want was to spend my whole day in the house, eating Maggi and contemplating on how I celebrated my Raya. I sat there asking myself, "WHAT AM I GONNA DO NOW? MY RAYA SKIRT IS RUINED!"

However I realised, this is not how I planned to celebrate my Eid. It is better late than never. So I decided to fix the burnt by sewing, packed everything else and head out to the bus station. It felt so good when a local guy wished me "Selamat Hari Raya," in Malay while I was walking to the bus station. Then I realised, I don't even have the freaking OPAL card that I need to use to travel on public transportation. At last after asking few people, I end up at a store that have the card. Alhamdulillah. I hope on my first bus ride in Sydney. I was totally relying on google maps.

I reached Amirah's house around 4.45 PM. Then she offered me some food. I just realised then that my last meal(a piece of pineapple pie) was around 6.00 AM that morning. The "super cold" chicken and beef rendang were super delicious or is it just me being so hungry?

Since it is already dark starting at 5 PM, we did nothing much. Amirah's friend and I went to a halal food store nearby to have our dinner.

That was my first day in Sydney. Yup my very first day. Alhamdulillah I was saved and I would like to thanks google maps for making my journey possible. And yes, I was travelling alone.

Till the next post. 

Opportunities are indeed everywhere, it is either you work hard to grab them or you just don't. You just can't utter your wishes from your mouth and hoping someone will come and give them to you. That is definitely not how life works. Stop dreaming mates, WAKE UP!

I started searching for all the opportunities UTM could offer me starting from those days before I entered UTM - right after UPU results were released. Right after I decided to stay in UTM (you could read my last post about this), umi (my mom) would constantly remind me on getting more details about UTM exchange program opportunity.

After the mid semester holidays of my 1st semester, I already start gaining more and more information on exchange program actively through the website. After discussing with my mum, I deciding on choosing Australia (I prefer UK tho, but the exchange rate make me think zillion of times). 

Before I even go to UTM International - based on the information on the website, these are some initiatives I took. The deadline for the application was in the first week of 2nd semester.

Firstly, I surveyed on UTM partner universities in Australia. I chose University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Then my mum and I started counting the expected living cost. After we realised that staying in campus would be freaking expensive, we decided to search for other accommodation alternatives and Malaysian Hall was the best offer that time. I emailed Malaysian Hall to get more info on the fees and rental for the living cost calculation. We also look up on the transportation costing. I still remember one fine day after class, my mum called me telling me that if I were to stay in Malaysia Hall, I need to take bus numbered 372 to university everyday. (She googled and street viewed everything - cause I have the coolest mum).We intended to minimize every expenses as possible. Then, I looked through the potential subjects those could be credit transferred - this includes finding, comparing and listing the similar subjects as well as printing out the subject outlines. I created my program proposal (is was a requirement back then) and filled up the application form after feeling quite satisfied with everything.

Then, I went to the UTM International.

Since everything was almost done, I went to UTM to clear up my doubts on several issues such as: 

Can I still apply if I don't even have any result yet and the deadline is before my 1st semester's result?

Yes, you could but you need to send to UTM International your result as soon as you get it.

Do I need IELTS or it would be consider enough as 'successfully completed no less than the equivalent of one year full-time study taught in English' if I am applying now but I'm going on my 3rd Semester?

IELTS is an English requirement depending on the exchange university (In my case, i don't need too). If I am applying for my 3rd semester I am eligible to be considered as completed no less than the equivalent of one year full-time study taught in English.

How much would I get from UTM?

Up to RM10 000 depending on the country. (I don't get that much tho XD)

I also reconfirm on the steps needed before and after submitting the application form. 

1) Meet up with Academic Advisor

I was lucky enough, my academic advisor, Mr Shah was indeed very helpful. The moment I told him my plan in applying for exchange program, he helped me tonnes throughout the process.

2) Confirm the subjects with the subject coordinators

So after the Semester 1 finals, Mr Shah helped me out with this process. From one lecturer to another, we tried getting subject verification for credit transfer purpose. After getting some confirmation, then we proceeded with the application process.

3) Recommendation from Academic Advisor

Then, I gave the application form to Mr Shah. Sadly, it was already time for me to go back to my hometown, so it would be hard for me tho to continue the process. He helped me again by giving it straight to the faculty for the next step after filling up the recommendation part. I told him that I will try to come back after my conference to take the form back after dean approval.

4) Approval from Dean

When I was at the conference, I received a call from UTM International that they received my application form but it was incomplete because the attachments weren't there. Obviously, because I was suppose to go back to UTM, get the form from my faculty, compile it with the attachments and send the complete form to UTM International. So, I told the officers the miscommunication issue, so I send the attachments when I entered my 2nd semester.

5) Application review / Interview by UTM International

The next thing I knew was my application was already being approved by UTM International and the status was 'waiting for confirmation from UTS'. I skipped the interview part because there were not many applicants. 

6) Wait confirmation from UTS

Then I received email from UTS asking me to proceed with online application. I proceeded with the application and waited for months before getting the offer letter (I received these almost at the end of Semester 2). 

P/S: I will continue the story starting from the day I received the offer letter - pretty soon. XD