Revisits.

I finished the final paper of my final exam for the past semester a few days ago, and finally went home after what seemed like forever. I don't remember a time when I wanted to go home so badly, be it during my days in Rembau or in Nilai.

In the days leading up to the exam, my thoughts were dominated by the potential excitement of the next semester. It's going to be a short semester, meaning that we'll be having seven weeks for lectures instead of fourteen. I'll also only be taking two subjects, so that means I will likely have a lot of spare time for other activities - and there will be a lot of those, I'm sure.

However, after the exam began, I started to yearn for home. Some things happened during this time that caused me great distress (although I believe my studying was fortunately not too greatly disrupted) and I realized that I needed to take a break from my university life. I'd gotten so engrossed in it that I'd forgotten that I had other lives outside of Manipal.

So after reaching home, I (finally) watched Frozen (which was amazing, by the way) and spent some quality time with my family. The next day I went with my sister to the city to renew my driver's license and to buy some books using my government-issued book vouchers. We ended up using up all of them plus a little extra cash to purchase eight books. My personal portion of that comprised of five novels. I'll probably finish reading them next year - not because I'm a slow reader, but because I'm not ten anymore and have other things to do besides sitting at home and reading books all day, every day.

That trip to the city took me back to my Foundation days at Nirwana College. Sometimes you just need to revisit the past to remove the clutter in your mind that was caused by the present, and the nostalgia from walking around those familiar streets and riding those familiar trains just seemed to have a calming effect on me. I couldn't remember how long it had been since I last went to KL by train and walked around the streets around Pasar Seni, but it must have been pretty long as I found myself feeling warm and fuzzy inside upon hearing a loud, lengthy car horn. You'd never find anything near to KL's hustle and bustle in Nilai.

I went further along memory lane as I went to the mosque behind my old school for Friday prayers. I could have walked for about 15 minutes to the one nearest to my house, but the pull of the mental and emotional calm I was bound to receive from revisiting the area near my former school was just too great and I ended up driving three to four kilometers to get there. Sure enough, being at that mosque brought back memories of my pre-Rembau secondary school days. They weren't the best years of my life, but I still had plenty of good times then.

Now I have two weeks left for my semester break, which I plan to spend well this time around - reading all those books would be good; I actually even finished one of them on the same day they were bought. Returning to old places for a couple of days was nice, and it certainly helped to unclutter  my mind. However, being only less than 20 years old, there are only so many experiences I can look back on to remind myself of the so-called good old days.

I am a forward-thinking person, and I generally try not to dwell too much on the past. However, I do believe that our past defines who we are, so whenever I do look back on my past, I try to learn from it. And I don't just mean my past mistakes and other painful memories; there's plenty to learn from the good times as well. Some people would rather not analyze their good memories too much, though, for fear of spoiling them. Can't really blame them for that, I suppose.

Yesterday made us who we are today, but today will make us who we are tomorrow. Going down memory lane for a while was nice and all, but I shouldn't stay on it for too long. After that good start to the holidays, here's hoping it will inspire me to be productive during these next two weeks before returning to the grind of life as a student in Nilai.

Either that or I'll end up being so bored that I'll find myself wishing that the short sem would go ahead and start already. Whatever works.