Climbing.

I climbed Broga Hill this morning, the second time I've ever done so. I went with a number of my old Rembau batchmates the first time; this time, however, I went alone.

I’m used to doing things alone. I like going for solo walks and solo drives. I like it when I’m home alone. I like eating alone at restaurants. When I was in France, there were many times when I found myself traveling alone, and I enjoyed that too.

I’m not saying I’m antisocial. I do, of course, enjoy good company. I’ve heard it said that it’s better to have good company than to have none at all. But it’s also true that being alone is better than being with bad company. Sometimes I just like to be by myself instead of being with other people just for the sake of being with someone. I actually happen to enjoy my own company, thank you very much.

There was a time when the word ‘introvert’ would make me cringe, because I just kept seeing it pop up everywhere. It was almost as if being introverted was cool all of a sudden, and everyone wanted to get in on it. The word still has difficulty forming in my mouth, and I wish there were other words I could use, but the fact remains that it’s also a concise, yet accurate, description of who I am.

As I climbed Broga this morning, I noticed that I was possibly the only one there doing it by myself (except possibly this one foreigner I later passed on my way back down). I saw couples, families, and groups of friends, climbing, chatting, laughing, taking pictures, and generally enjoying themselves. The only problem for me was that there were far too many of them – I barely took time to stop and enjoy the excellent view on any of the four peaks as the presence of the crowds made me uncomfortable.

When I told one of my housemates I was planning to climb Broga by myself, he didn’t think it was a good idea, for reasons of safety (he couldn't have come; he had class this morning). It was a valid concern, of course, but I figured that if anything were to happen to me while I was up there (and nothing did happen, thankfully enough), it was safe to assume that there would be plenty of people there to see it, and at least a few of them would be kind enough to help me out.

When I reached the final peak, 1312 feet above sea level, I walked right past the overcrowded clearing on top of it and found a secluded rock to sit on and rest. The view wasn’t as great as it would have been from the actual peak, but it was a lot more peaceful. And it was peace that I came to Broga for, much more than the view or the climbing.

There’s just something I find therapeutic about staring into the distance after a climb, and if the whole climbing thing wasn’t so physically demanding and time-consuming I would probably do it more often. There was a hiking trail on the hill behind my first house in Nilai, and I used to climb it, sit on a rock near the edge of a cliff and just gaze into the horizon to clear my thoughts. It wasn’t as high or as challenging a climb as Broga, but it did the trick.

It would be nice if I could scale higher peaks, like the many mountains we have here in this country, in the future, though doing so would probably mean having to go with other people for safety reasons. That would mean losing out on the part I like the most about climbing, namely reaching the top, looking out onto the horizon and not talking to anyone. It would be quite something to look down from the peak of Mount Kinabalu and not have that moment of serenity pierced by the voice of another human being.

But I guess people were made to live together for a reason. Adam (a. s.) did feel lonely all by himself in Paradise, after all. Having my peace interrupted by another person every now and then is probably better than it never being interrupted at all.

Results.

Donald Trump was announced as the 45th President of the United States yesterday. People were calling it a surprise, but it wasn't really for me. Not because I have an in-depth knowledge of American politics or anything like that; it was more of a hunch. And anyway, after Leicester City winning the Premier League, Portugal winning the Euros, and Brexit all happened earlier this year, nothing should really be a surprise anymore.

(Incidentally, I read somewhere that if you'd put a £5 bet on Leicester City, Brexit and Trump, you would have won £15 million. It's been a crazy year.)

I had the luxury of being able to follow the results live yesterday (my Master's proposal is still yet to be approved due to administrative issues), and I have to say I got stressed when the final results were announced. I decided to get off Facebook for the rest of the day (though I did accidentally go on once later out of habit) to avoid the inevitable barrage of negativity, and de-stressed myself with a bit of PES, football with some local kids, and then dinner with my new housemates.

I think I would still have been stressed had Hillary Clinton won instead of Trump. Both candidates are flawed (to put it lightly) in their own ways, and the outlook would have been bleak whatever the outcome of the election. If I'd had to vote, I don't think I would have been able to bring myself to vote for either of them. As it is, I'm glad I'm not a US citizen.

For the past 18 months, I've been keeping an eye on the US election through talk show segments on YouTube, mainly for entertainment purposes. There was, of course, the whole getting-updated-on-current-events thing, but I frankly wouldn't have paid so much attention to the election if it following it hadn't also been so entertaining. Laughter is good for my mental health, and as someone who likes to keep mentally healthy, I try to get it whenever I can.

I do, of course, get the importance of keeping up with the world, regardless of whether it's presented in an entertaining format or not. I do read the news, and I do get concerned with the stuff that's going on. There's always something happening, good or bad. There's always something to talk about, always something to discuss.

The problem with talking about current events, though, is that there's always so much negativity involved. There's so much hate, anger, sadness. So many problems are out there in the world, and so many people getting upset over them. All this emotion is understandable, of course, and sometimes even necessary. You can feel what you want over what you want, but please don't drag me into it. There's already too much negativity as it is, and I don't want to be a part of it.

One of the things I want most in this life is simply to be happy. I realize I can't be happy all the time, but it's something I always aspire to be and strive towards becoming. Happiness should be more than just an emotion, which is temporary and fleeting - it should be an underlying state that you always revert to. Whatever it is you're going through, you can rest easy knowing that soon it'll be over and you'll be happy again.

It may be intelligent to to be able to think about big, important things and talk about them, but it's wise to know what's big and important to you and just focus on that. Trying to know everything about everything is great and all, but it's also exhausting. No matter how wonderful you think your mind is, you shouldn't overwork it.

I've never been one to publicly offer my thoughts on trending topics, because most of the time I can't be bothered to look up too much about something that will soon come to pass anyway. It's funny how everyone on social media at the moment is suddenly an expert on US politics as well as its effects on the global economy. Just like how not too long ago everyone was suddenly an expert on Islamic law and jurisdiction.

It's great to have opinions, as it shows that you have a functioning brain, but quite frankly no one cares. Your voice is just one of millions (billions?), and what you think doesn't really matter unless you're somebody important. That's just how it is.

Sometimes it's just better to keep what you think to yourself, especially if the environment is as toxic at is right now. Whatever has happened, has happened, and there's nothing more we can do about it. Focus on the present, keep your sanity, and look ahead to the future. There's still more to come, and you'll never move forward if you're still stuck in reverse.

Waiting.

I do not like waiting. It's just one of those things in life that you kind of just accept and can sometimes do nothing about, but that doesn't make the act of waiting any less unenjoyable. We've all done our fair share of waiting throughout our lives, of course, as have I, and I like to consider myself a person who's quite good at it. Unlike other things I'm good at, however, waiting is something that I would much prefer to avoid doing whenever possible.

Linguistically speaking, waiting is a verb, or a word that indicates an action. I find that to be a bit paradoxical really, because, in my case anyway, waiting usually involves me doing precisely nothing. I have that ability to simply zone out and literally not think about or do anything, and this particular ability is my regular go-to whenever I find that I am forced to wait for something. It's quite handy when I don't feel like wasting my phone battery through aimless scrolling on social media or playing the one mobile game that I have.

I've been trained from an early age to remain vigilant in the face of an extended period of waiting. Looking back now, the time I used to spend waiting for my mother or either of my grandfathers to come pick me up from school might not have been all that lengthy, but back then it seemed like forever. My sister and I used to find comfort in Billy Joel's "The Longest Time", although years later I discovered that the context of the song was quite different from what we used it for.

I incidentally just read about Arsenal, the football club I support, employing an Austrian 'gridlock consultancy firm' to design a new queuing system to reduce waiting times on match days. The fact that such a service even exists is actually sort of amazing to me, but I guess it makes complete sense. People specialize in everything these days, and due to supply and demand, the fact that a lot of people, like me, don't like waiting, there was always going to be someone finding some way to make money from addressing that.

Having said that, though, waiting is just part of life; there's only so much you can do to speed things up, but most of the time it's impossible to eliminate the wait altogether. The world today, among other things, is characterized by its need for instantaneousness; everything has to be done now, now, now. It's a viewpoint I personally agree with, as I don't really see why something that can be done quickly, well, isn't being done quickly. However, I do accept that there is always a certain amount of waiting that needs to be done - I just always prefer that it's as small an amount as possible.

Sometimes, though, there's really nothing you can do to reduce your waiting time. I'm currently waiting for the proposal for my Master's project to be approved before I can properly start with my research, and I've been told that the approval process typically takes a month, though mine might just be able to be completed slightly sooner. This was last week, so I have potentially three more weeks in which I have no choice but to wait.

I could, of course, get started on my reading, which is what my supervisors have advised me to do. It would at least be better than simply doing nothing. With me being me, however, exactly no relevant reading has been done. I've pretty much been doing what I usually do when I'm waiting for something, which is basically nothing.

I guess I've been hardwired since young to do nothing while waiting for something, but it's a habit I'm trying to break. I intend on being at least a little productive this week, if only so I can tell my supervisors that I've actually been doing something besides watching YouTube videos all day. Rambling about the act of waiting is one way to get the juices flowing, in any case.

Warming Up.

I left home for Nilai this morning to get a reference form from my former lecturer, which I needed in order to complete my application for my MPhil program. I'd actually hoped she could just scan it and email it to me so I could just send it to the university I was applying at online, which is what I was doing with another reference form from another former lecturer. As it happened, she insisted that I come get it from her in person, and sure enough, I received it sealed within an envelope.

What that entailed was that I was going to have to physically deliver the envelope to the university, so I figured I might as well just print out the other reference form and deliver that along with it. The only problem was that it took until almost lunchtime for my other lecturer to send me that other form, so by the time I'd received and printed it out, I wasn't gonna make it to the university in time to catch the staff there before they went out for lunch. I was just going to have to wait until after lunch to go there.

While waiting, I decided to go have lunch with my friend, who was also a course junior from MIU, and had recently graduated after finishing his internship. The guy had recently managed to dig up his old Pokemon cards and had been spending the weekend raking in a ton of cash from selling them off. Incidentally, we were having lunch where we were while waiting for a couple of his customers to come and meet up with him.

I mentioned in a previous post about a conversation we had previously about possible future careers. It's been a couple of months since then, and I guess you could say things have gotten less murky regarding what I see myself doing with my life. My friend was telling me that I should just go ahead and become a lecturer right after finishing my Master's, mainly because he thinks I'm good at teaching and also happen to be a very patient person.

Fair enough, I do enjoy teaching - I genuinely loved helping people out with their studies back in school, and that continued throughout college and university. And I do feel that I have more patience than most, but mainly because I just prefer to spend my energy quelling my rage instead of feeding it. I've also previously stated multiple times in this blog that I see myself as ultimately becoming a lecturer...but straight off the bat? I'm not too sure about that. I still think I should spend some time working in the financial industry first, which seems to me like the responsible thing to do with the (little) knowledge I possess about it.

One route into the industry that I'm planning to explore is that of a certified financial planner (CFP), which, on the surface, is a qualification that seems to be quite obtainable. Being able to manage your own finances is an important skill to have, and to help people with that seems like a role in society that I would actually like to fill. I was explaining an investment-linked insurance plan to a friend the other day, and I quite enjoyed it. Told you I like teaching.

For now, though, I'll just wait on the offer letter from the university for my MPhil, which I'm told can take up to a month because of approvals and stuff; during that time, I should probably just start what I can on the research. Once everything starts, things are probably gonna get really busy, so I might as well start warming up.

Running.

I was walking home from Friday prayers today when, upon reaching my street, I suddenly felt the urge to run the last fifty or so meters to my front door. It's actually quite normal for me to run home after my now-increasingly-less-frequent visits to the nearby playground to play football, so maybe that's where it came from. At that point in time, however, I decided against running. It seems the older you get, the more reluctant you are to sweat.

Sudden urges to run are nothing new for me. I recall going to the beach when I was younger and just running across the sand for no reason. I just felt like running, so I did. Those were simpler times.

Having said that, I actually don't really like running. Running as a form of exercise just isn't my thing, as I find it to be quite boring. I've tried running regularly for fitness purposes, but up until now I just can't commit to it. I'm a willing runner when I play sports, though, because at least then running serves more purpose than simply getting from Point A to Point B. Outside of sports, I never really run unless a sudden urge propels me to.

Doing things simply because I feel like doing them and for no other reason isn't something that occurs too often. I've always been more of a rational, analytical type who thinks before saying or doing anything. Heck, I even rehearse possible conversations in my head sometimes in my free time. Nevertheless, I find being spontaneous every now and then to be good for my sanity. Overthinking tends to happen when you try to think everything through; sometimes you just need to have a little faith that things will somehow work out, even if not in the way you think.

***

I had to make a big decision recently regarding my future. On one hand was the MPhil research work I mentioned in my last blog post. On the other was a job at a prominent Malaysian investment bank, for which I'd gotten past an interview a couple of days ago and had been invited to attend a second and final interview next week. Sure, simply getting called for a second interview is no guarantee that I was definitely getting the job, but at least there was a chance that it might happen.

It wasn't as easy a decision as I first thought it would be, but I ended up declining the interview invite in favor of focusing my attention on getting started with my MPhil. I'd only attended the first interview for the experience anyway, as I had already more or less made up my mind to further my studies, and I'm glad I did because it was a bit different from the one I attended for internship.

An additional effect from attending the interview is that the door to me working in the financial industry has remained open. In the first few days or so upon receiving the MPhil offer, my head was buzzing with the very real prospect of me finally finding my true calling as an academician. It seemed to make sense - I love learning and knowing about things, after all. It also seemed to be quite possible that I would go straight into an academic career right after completing my MPhil, which is something that made me feel a bit uneasy as I still felt that I should give working in finance a go. Thankfully, attending that interview reminded me why I even wanted to work in finance in the first place, and I guess I'll have another big decision to make in about two years' time.

I would like to go into academia someday, but I really feel like I should begin my working life with a career in the financial industry before doing anything else - it somehow feels irresponsible if I don't. My feelings on that could change after MPhil, but I guess we'll see in a couple of years.

Crossroads.

I've been job-hunting for over a month now, and it hasn't gone very well so far. I have been contacted by a couple of banks, but circumstances meant that nothing has come out from said contact. As for the other companies I've sent my resume to, I have yet to receive any kind of response, which I (somewhat optimistically) put down to:

a) Bad timing. We've been having a number of public holidays lately.

b) My being just another candidate among hundreds of others.

I have talked about being unemployed in my last post from over two weeks ago, and it's pretty much as frustrating now as it was then. One key difference between now and then, however, is that I now have another option: furthering my studies.

Furthering my studies had not been an option at all over the months that have passed since graduation. I'd been keen to start working and start earning, and if I were to start studying for a Master's degree it was going to be after I'd gained a few years' working experience and had collected enough money to be able to fund my studies myself. Even so, I was also wary of the fact that I might not even have the motivation to further my studies after immersing myself into the corporate world for a few years.

The funny thing about life, though, is that things don't always turn out the way you think they will. Almost completely out of the blue, I've received an opportunity to work as a research assistant while at the same time study for a Master of Philosophy (MPhil/PhM) in Management. It means that I'd basically be paid to do my Master's.

MPhil, for those who are unfamiliar with it (don't worry; I'd never heard of it before either), is an advanced postgraduate research degree that's just a level below a PhD. In fact, it's typically awarded to PhD thesis submissions that don't quite reach PhD standards.

Anyway, nothing's confirmed yet. I still have to sort out the exact details, which I hope to do when I meet up with my would-be supervisor later this week. Assuming it all goes well, though, there's a good chance that I'll go ahead with this program instead of waiting for God-knows-how-long for a response from any of the companies I've applied to work at. This would at least give me something to do as well as a bit of income. Oh, and there's also the small matter of being able to work on my Master's degree as well.

The downside of this, as far as I can tell, would be the foregoing of the higher salary and industrial experience I would have instead gained from choosing to work. That is kind of a big deal, actually, but if I'm going to do my Master's at some point anyway, it might as well be now while I still have the head and heart for it. I'm getting paid to do it as well, and there's also the possibility of getting a scholarship, so on the financial side I'd still be getting something.

One thing about the research I'll be doing though: the topic is women's entrepreneurship. It does seem interesting somewhat, and the research would possibly be given further weight given that I'm not actually a woman, but for me to be researching this topic seems a bit...unusual, given my background. Still, conventional has never really been my thing when it comes to education choices, so maybe it wouldn't really be all that unusual. It'll probably be just another one of those things that I'm going to have to explain to other people about in some length.

I'm at a crossroads in my life right now, and I'm clearly edging towards studying over beginning my career; a few months ago, studying had not even been an option. It's things like these that make me wonder why I even bother planning out my life at all...well, not really, but you get what I mean. Nevertheless, let's hope everything goes well.

Downtime.

Being unemployed really isn't a whole lot of fun. It was fine at first as I had the freedom do whatever I wanted, but being someone who hasn't been on a break this long since April 2012 when I started my foundation studies, it was only a matter of time before the itch to move on to the next stage of my life began to kick in.

I've applied to quite a number of companies, mostly financial institutions, over the past month or so. Only two have gotten back to me thus far, but I'm still yet to attend a single job interview. I'm still hopeful however; I'm sure these companies get hundreds of applicants every month, and it takes time to go through all those resumes.

A lecturer of mine told me I should just take any job I can get for now, even if it is working part-time at KFC, at least just to fill up my time, gain some experience and get some routine into my life. I do see where she's coming from, but I wonder if KFC would want to take on someone who may possibly leave on short notice for another job within a month.

Yes, because of course companies are practically begging at my feet to let them hire me, aren't they? Yes, because working at KFC is 'beneath' someone possessing my qualifications, isn't it? Yes, because I'd just be wasting my time with a low-paying job when a much better one is most definitely around the corner, wouldn't I?

Most people would have taken up a short-term job by now, and I have no problem with that. In fact, I respect people who do that. It's just that I figure that since this is my break, I would like to spend it doing things I would actually like doing. Throughout my whole life, whenever given the choice, I have always chosen to do what makes me happy. I thrive when I'm happy, and I'm a wreck when I'm not.

Without going into too much detail, the very nature of working in retail (which is typically the industry where people in my situation would go into) has little to no appeal to me. I know I'm not going to enjoy that sort of work, so I would rather not put my emotional and mental health at risk by going into it. I'll admit I am a lazy person, but for me the cons of taking up a part-time job outweigh the pros, given my personal situation.

Having said that, I confess things get a bit dull whenever I don't have anything lined up for the day, which is what happens on most days. I used to spend those plan-free days playing video games, but it's gotten to the point where I've gotten tired of it. I instead spend a lot of time just aimlessly surfing the internet nowadays.

So am I making the most of the downtime I've been given? Definitely not. Am I enjoying it? In parts, yes, but overall not as much as I would have liked. I'm not complaining, though. It won't be long before I move into the next stage of my life, in which I'm never going to get this much free time again. I guess I'm just going to bask in this idleness while I still can.

Cats and Dogs.

Are you a cat person or a dog person? For pretty much my entire life, I was neither. I grew up not really being an animal person in general, mostly because I wasn't a fan of (a) getting contaminated by the germs on those things and (b) possibly being on the receiving end of any form of bodily harm. Animals did fascinate me to a certain extent, however, as I used to enjoy observing them and learning about them; just not enough to to make me want to touch them.

I had a pet fighting fish when I was seven, which had been given to me by a teacher in school. It wasn't long (probably only a matter of days) before I found it floating upside down in the jar it was kept in, though. Apparently you shouldn't seal the jar shut if the lid doesn't have any air holes, no matter how concerned you are that the water might spill out. I've never had a pet since.

I grew up not liking cats, which is probably down to my experiences with strays at outdoor/open air food joints. I didn't like their incessant mewing and begging for food, how they would suddenly just rub up against your leg, and that they were dirty and germ-infested. House cats were cleaner, of course, but I still refused to touch them or be touched by them. I also never quite saw the point of having pet cats in the first place, as they pretty much give you nothing in return for you taking care of them.

I always thought dogs were more practical - they keep you safe and can understand instructions. Having said that, Muslims in this country don't typically keep dogs as pets (we're not allowed to unless they're for protection), and Malays here generally have a pretty negative outlook on the things. There's also the matter of dogs potentially being able to bite your arm off and being pretty noisy regardless of their size, so as someone who would rather keep his limbs and eardrums intact, I wasn't a big fan of dogs either, though I could appreciate their practicality.

As time went on, I met more and more people who had cats or dogs as pets, and they loved them like they were their own flesh and blood. A friend of mine's cat died once and she was really upset about it; it was difficult for me to empathize given my not-very-fond feelings towards cats.

It wasn't until my trip to France a few months ago that I finally softened my stance towards cats. The house I had stayed in while in Toulouse had a cat that belonged to (or rather, was taken care of by) my friend's housemate. I was given a couch in the living room to stay in, which happened to be the same room the cat would usually hang out in if it wasn't outside. I tried avoiding it at first, but it kept coming towards me for whatever reason - I was told that it hadn't been getting enough love from the guys who lived in the house, so maybe it just wanted some attention and affection.

I eventually decided that resistance was futile, so I allowed it to come up to me, rub itself on me (getting fur everywhere in the process), and even climb onto my lap. I figured I might as well just try petting and scratching the cat while it was at it and, well, I found myself sort of liking it. The cat (which didn't have a name, by the way) and I got along just fine for the rest of my stay there, as you can tell by the above picture.

I wouldn't say I love cats now, but I am able to tolerate them. I was at my cousin's school the other day and there was a cat in the warden's administration office; I took the time to pet it on my own accord. If that does not signify progress, I don't know what does.

I very recently broke down my personal barriers against dogs as well. I flew to Singapore last Friday and, as my flight was quite early in the morning, I spent the night before at a friend's place in Nilai - the thing was that he had five dogs at home. One was a large Doberman kept outside in a cage, while the other four were a family of toy poodles.

I was greeted at the entrance by a whole load of barking, and I could see the poodles poking their little heads through the gaps in the gate, seemingly ready to pounce. My friend's mom opened the gate and they rushed out towards me. I panicked at first and tried to get away, but I eventually calmed down as I realized that they weren't going to bite me. Sure, their saliva got on me and probably my clothes as well, but I just had to wash it off later, which I didn't think was really a big deal. I later tried my hand at petting the dogs, and I found that, like I had experienced with the cat some months earlier, it really wasn't so bad.

I got back from Singapore on Sunday, just before lunchtime, and the same friend (as well as his girlfriend, whom I'd met once previously) picked me up from the airport and took me back to his house for lunch. His mom's cooking was excellent and the time I spent there before heading home to Ampang was enjoyable, but most significantly for the topic of this blog post, I just want to say that I quite liked being around those little dogs again. I enjoyed chilling with them (the one in the picture above is named Lucky) and seeing them do tricks. My friend later said I can I just come over and hang out whenever; I might just do that to see those dogs again (...and to see him, of course).

So do I love animals now? Well, I wouldn't go as far as to pet stray cats, but my perception towards them is now much improved. Animals are God's creatures too, after all, and deserve the same levels of love and respect afforded towards human beings.

Job Hunting.

I was browsing through my social media the other day when I found that one of my friends from Rembau, currently studying to become an army doctor, had posted a picture of himself on what appeared to be a naval warship. Considering that I've never been on one of those before, I thought that was pretty cool. I have slight memories of being on a ferry once when I was very young, though, which is pretty much my only experience of being out on the open seas.

The experience of spending some time at sea on a naval warship is something I may never get to do, unless I enlist in the navy for some reason at some point in the future, which is pretty unlikely considering the sorry state of my physique. However, having a friend who does have that experience is, for me, the next best thing as I could potentially ask him about it the next time I see him. Secondhand experience is, of course, nowhere near firsthand, but as someone who grew up being contented with reading storybooks and listening to tales from my elders, it's good enough.

The way I see it, we all walk different paths and therefore have different experiences. There's only so much you can realistically experience for yourself, so you really have no choice but to be happy with mere stories (sometimes of questionable validity) for the most part. You should, by all means, try to experience as much as you can, but don't get too disheartened if you miss out on some things. Everything happens for a reason, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can move on.

***

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday over lunch about our possible future careers. The guy is currently interning at a bank in KL and will be graduating right after that, whereas I have finally reached the point in my post-graduation honeymoon where I've started to properly think about getting a job. We're both the same age and are from the same degree program. Talking about possible future careers was, of course, quite appropriate for both of us considering where we currently stood in life. It was pretty interesting to think about just how many options are available to young people these days, at home and abroad, and also to consider the possible experiences waiting for us along the way.

The conclusion I reached at the end was that I had no clue what I was going to do with my life, but at the same time I shouldn't be too worried because I'm still very young and have plenty of time to figure things out. I believe I'm the first out of all my school friends to have graduated with a degree; most of the others still have about a year or more still to go. If that doesn't indicate that I've been moving a bit too fast, I don't know what does.

Having said that, I would ideally like to get a job soon, although it remains to be seen where. I'll probably just apply to as many companies as possible, perhaps even in various industries. In the current job market, it would be great to get even one offer. That would make the decision-making process much easier, at least. Me being me, however, I'd probably get upset if I didn't get at least a few. Being given the dilemma of having to choose between several job offers would be, as some might say, a nice headache to have.

The Final Days in France.

This is a continuation of my last post.

Before going to Saint Nazaire, I dropped by Bordeaux, which was along the way, for prayers and lunch. The mosque I went to wasn't too far from the station, but I had a bit of trouble finding it at first as it was a bit hidden from view and looked nothing like a typical mosque from the outside. It was just a regular shop lot, and the roads that it directly faced were more like alleys. There were also  a few soldiers with large guns standing guard outside, with their number increasing to about a dozen as prayer time got nearer.

After that, I decided to look around for a place to eat. I had a few hours, so I wandered for a few blocks (didn't reach the city center, though), even passing a marketplace of sorts, the first one that I'd visited in France (I'd seen one in Toulouse, but it was closed at the time I walked past it with Remy). Eventually I found a halal fried chicken fast food joint called HFC - yes, I thought the 'H' stood for 'halal' too, but it doesn't. I ordered a five-piece chicken meal with fries and a canned drink for five or six euros, which I thought was a good price.

After that, I went back to the train station and continued my journey to Saint Nazaire. I got there in the evening, maybe about an hour before Maghrib. Borhan, the last of my Rembau friends in France, met me there, though he did come a bit late as he had been up to some cleaning. A pipe in his house had burst the night before, so he'd had to take care of the damage caused. I was supposed to be staying with him at his place, but the faulty pipe meant that both of us would have to bunk over at his friends' house. Borhan was also due to move out of his place soon anyway, so there was little point in going back after he'd cleaned everything up.

Before I continue, let me just provide a bit of background about Saint Nazaire, the only place I visited in France that I had not heard of prior to being told that a friend was studying there. It's a small town, kind of like Nilai, in the west of France. It doesn't even have a mall; the largest shopping center it has is more or less like the Tesco or Giant in Nilai. The town is notable mainly for its beaches and its harbour, where I'm told a couple of the world's largest cruise ships were built. Another noteable feature of the town is that none of the architecture looks typically French; according to Borhan and his friends, this was because the whole place got bombed by the Germans during World War II and had to be rebuilt. Apparently the Americans helped out with that, which explains the presence of the American flag being flown with the French one along the Saint Nazaire coast.

We took a bus to get to the house we'd be staying in. It was a nice place with a beautiful garden that it shared with the house next door, and besides that the first thing I noticed upon reaching there were the number of shoes scattered in front of the door. The first room we entered was the kitchen, and sure enough, there were four or five people there preparing dinner, two of them girls. There were a few other guys in the living room as well. Two more of them came later on. Just like in Nice, the guys here were big on having iftar together, especially since they were all (except for one senior and a few juniors) from the same MFI (Malaysia France Institute) batch. Borhan later told me there were about 60 people in that batch; I must have met about half of them by now.

I would go on to be based in Saint Nazaire for the rest of my France trip. I was supposed to have moved on to Tours to stay with another friend, but circumstances dictated otherwise. It just so happened that a few of the Saint Nazaire guys, including Borhan, would be around until after I left, and they didn't mind me staying with them. Most of the people I met on my first night in Saint Nazaire left for Malaysia soon after I arrived, however. Our iftar gatherings got smaller and smaller, until eventually only five of us remained.

I didn't get up to much for the first few days in Saint Nazaire. In the day I mostly slept, went on YouTube, and played FIFA 16 on the PS4. Borhan and one of his friends did take me to one of the numerous beaches once, though; we didn't stay for too long, but I enjoyed walking barefoot on the sand, climbing up rocks to reach the top of a cliff that overlooked the beach and the sea, and then checking out some abandoned, heavily-graffitied military bunkers on top of said cliff. Borhan and his friend lagged behind while I scoured the place with an almost childlike enthusiasm.

The day came where I was supposed to move on to Tours via a stop at Angers. I wanted to cancel my tickets but the office opened too late, so I ended up deciding to just go ahead with my trip to Angers. I did manage to cancel my ticket to Tours and replaced it with a return ticket, though I don't really remember doing it. I probably did that at the Angers train station but, like I said, I have no memory of it. That's what I get for not writing about it right away.

I'd actually heard of Angers due to the recent brave exploits of its football team, Angers SCO, in the previous season's Ligue 1. After getting promoted from France's second division, they somehow managed to find themselves in third (I think) midway through the season before eventually finishing 9th. I passed by the official club shop while walking through the city center; a jersey cost 85 euros.

Angers is known for its history and art. Besides walking through the city and seeing the sights (and the sights were quite good), my main activity in Angers was to visit the Chateau d'Angers, a scenic medieval castle next to the Maine river. The price to enter was, I think, 6 euros or so, and I decided to pay up after having turned down paying  to visit the castle in Carcassonne.

The Chateau was quite aesthetically pleasing, which made me wonder why the place's management decided to put Braille markings on the castle map in front of the entrance; I just figured that people who visited the place would, you know, be able to appreciate its visual beauty.

The sights within the Chateau included its gardens, medieval architecture, and a view of the city from the top of the castle ramparts. The place also housed the Apocalypse Tapestry, a tapestry depicting the end of the world based on its description in the Bible's Book of Revelations. All in all, it was a good place to visit for history lovers and those with a medieval aesthetic. I am, in fact, neither of those, but I still found the visit to be a good experience. I used to read about medieval times as a kid and, just like in Carcassonne, visiting a place like this felt somewhat surreal.

A few days after visiting Angers, the guys I was staying with had to move house as their rental contract was coming to an end. We spent much of the last day in the house cleaning it and, of course, moving our stuff. The cleaning we did in the house was different to how people in Malaysia usually clean when moving out - here it has to be done much more thoroughly. When I moved out of my first house in Nilai, all my housemates and I did was basically sweep all the floors and throw out all the trash - here, the guys even mopped the floors, cleaned up the stains on the stove and in the oven and took the sofa pillows' casings took the cleaners. It just seems logical that all these things should be done when moving out of a rented house, but I doubt very many people in Malaysia have such standards, landlords and renters alike.

There were four of us at this point, and we moved into three separate apartments, each belonging to juniors who'd gone home for Raya. Borhan and his friends were actually waiting for their university placements (one of the guys had actually already gotten a place in Nancy, but was still yet to move there), so they would be staying in these apartments for the time being. Borhan would be leaving for Malaysia a few days after me, and he was planning to shift to wherever it was he would be shifting to by then, so there was a bit of uncertainty on my part as to where I would be staying if he had to move before I left. Thankfully for me, that didn't happen.

I was due to meet up with a friend coming from the UK in Paris the day before Eid. We would be renting a room on the outskirts of Paris in a place called Villejuif until the day after Eid, and we'd be spending our first Eid away from our respective families seeing as much of the city as possible. That left a gap of a few days between moving into the new apartment and my Paris sojourn in which I had absolutely nothing planned, so I expected them to be very uneventful.

I was, of course, proven wrong when my phone chose to die early on Saturday morning, just a few days before my Paris trip on the coming Tuesday. It had served me well for the past three years or so, so I figured it was probably about time anyway. Still, I sent it to the one phone shop in town in hope that it could still be salvaged, at least until I could go home and get its replacement in Malaysia. The shop wasn't open on Sundays, and it was afternoon when I sent the phone in, so I thought it was fair enough when the guy at the shop said I'd be getting the diagnosis on the phone on Monday.

Monday came, but the diagnosis didn't. Borhan called up the shop for me (since, of course, he spoke French) and was told that the guy who had received the phone on Saturday wasn't in that day. Apparently, we would be able to get the diagnosis the next morning, the same day my train would be leaving for Paris. Considering the likely possibility that I would have to get a new phone, I had to do my best not to burst with rage at the slowness of the service I was getting. If this had been Malaysia, I would have gotten a diagnosis in fifteen minutes.

On Tuesday morning, soon after the shop opened at 10.00, Borhan and I dropped by to check on the phone. Surprise, surprise - there was still no diagnosis. They said they could have it ready by 2.00 pm, but considering that I had a train to catch around that time and Borhan would soon have to leave for Nantes with his friends to catch a bus to Paris, I decided to just take my phone back and hurry to get myself a new phone. We'd already wasted enough time.

Borhan and I took the bus to the Casino supermarket, where I found that they sold game consoles on shelves; in Malaysia, you could only find those in specialist video game stores. They also sold smartphones as well; again, those aren't things you'd find outside of a specialist store. I didn't have much choice or time, so I ended up purchasing an Asus Zenfone 2 Laser for 144.50 euros. My old phone cost about RM800, so this new one was actually cheaper considering that 1 euro was equivalent to about RM4.62.

Later that day I went to Paris, which I'll talk about in a later post. I came back a couple of days later, happy but tired. At this point, I only had a couple of days left before leaving for Malaysia, and I still hadn't met my friend in Tours. She'd been busy as her pre-university program in Tours had been wrapping up, and she was moving to Nantes for the next stage of her studies, so we decided to just meet up there the next day. Due to certain complications with the public transport, we only managed to meet for about 40 minutes at the Nantes train station.

The next day was my last in France. My flight was at about 3.30 pm, and my train to Paris was at about 6.15 in the morning. I said goodbye to Borhan after Fajr, and set off on the long journey to the Charles de Gaulle airport. It was mostly uneventful, except for a brief exchange with a middle-aged Frenchman during transit in Nantes in which he was a bit awestruck by my power bank. I wondered whether those things were uncommon in France and, if so, why.

My plane took off as scheduled (maybe slightly later) and reached Dubai without a hitch. The transit was almost four hours long, but I was just glad it was much shorter than the last time I was here. The Dubai International Airport looked different in the middle of the night, what with all the sleeping people everywhere. I didn't join them in catching Z's, though, as I didn't want to risk missing my flight. I also figured I could sleep on the flight later anyway.

As it happened, my seat on the flight home was sandwiched between a married couple with a baby on one side, and a talkative British-Chinese teenager named Alan on the other. Alan was nice to talk to, of course, but it would have been equally nice to have spent that time sleeping instead. I did eventually get some sleep, but not as much as I would have liked. Still, I wouldn't mind running into Alan again at some point in the future, so there's that.

Eventually I reached KLIA and, after picking up my luggage after what seemed like an age, took the KLIA Express to KL Sentral (for RM55, which was quite a hike on its old price of RM35) where my mom and a few of my siblings picked me up. I went home and had spaghetti for dinner for the first time in what had felt like forever.

It's been almost a week now since my France adventure ended, though some of the effects are still being felt. For instance, I've had trouble sleeping as my body clock readjusts to Malaysian time. Malaysian drivers and traffic have served as unwelcome reminders that I'm not in Europe anymore. And the days seem to pass by so quickly.

France was a fantastic experience, and a much-needed escape from daily life. I'll (hopefully) be starting work soon, and it was refreshing for the mind, body and soul to escape Malaysia and the real world for a while before starting this new phase in my life. Travel can be addictive for some, and I wouldn't be inclined to disagree after having a taste of it - my current lack of money, however, is a strong deterrent.

It would be great if I could visit more countries in the future, but we can never know what the future holds. For now, I'll just have to focus on the present and see where it takes me.

Toulouse, Part 2.

This is a continuation of my last post. Obviously.

The day after we went to Carcassonne, I needed to exchange some train tickets in the city. Instead of taking the public transport (and thus having to spend money), Remy suggested we cycle. One of his housemates had two bicycles - one was a mountain  bike, while the other was a racing bike - so we could each take one.

I had honestly not ridden a bicycle in years; not since our bikes at home got busted and no one found the time to get them fixed. I remember trying out a friend's Fixi in Manipal a few years ago (and failing miserably), and, now that I think about it, I may have also tried out a housemate's bike once during my freshman year, but that was pretty much it. Furthermore, we were going to cycle on roads and into the city center, which was something I'd never done before - my cycling prior to this had only ever been limited to just going about my own neighborhood. I decided to see it as an opportunity to try something new.

My cycling was not smooth, particularly when going through small gaps and making sharpish turns. I also had no idea how hand signals worked, and mostly just copied what Remy did. Heck, I even had trouble getting on the bike at first, and the problem just kept on happening throughout the day. The added pressure of cycling out in public didn't help, as I couldn't help but feel like my poor cycling skills were being judged by the drivers on the road as well as the pedestrians. Other than that, though, I actually enjoyed myself.

Remy took me through the university he was studying in before we went to the city. It was pretty deserted as it was the summer holidays (Remy himself was on holiday as well), except for some students who had to resit papers from their recent exams. It wasn't the biggest or most scenic campus I'd ever seen, but it was still interesting to see. I've visited quite a number of colleges and universities in the past, and this was another to add to my collection.

After that, we set off along the path to the city, which lay along the Canal du Midi, a canal stretching over 200 km long through Southern France. The canal was lined with plenty of trees, so there was an ample amount of shade. There were boats in the water (including ones that looked as if people lived in them), and the path we cycled along was shared by pedestrians, joggers and other cyclists coming from both directions.

We eventually reached the Toulouse Matabiau station, the same one I had gotten off at when I'd first arrived. I don't remember how long we cycled for, but it must have been about 20 minutes at the very least. We were allowed to bring our bikes in (you're even allowed to bring your bike on board at least some of the trains too, in fact), and so we did. After I was done with my tickets, we got back on our bikes and went into the city.

We didn't cycle the whole way, of course, as there were a lot of people and I was concerned about my lack of control. The Wales-Russia game was going to be on later that evening, so we saw a large number of Welsh and Russian fans walking about. There were a number of military guys about as well, which was understandable given the trouble that some Russian fans had gotten involved with in Marseille earlier in the tournament.

Remy had a dentist appointment later that afternoon, so we didn't stay for too long. We planned to come back the next day, however, as there was going to be something called the Fete de la Musique, which is an annual nationwide celebration of music, held on the longest day of summer. We'd seen a stage being set up in the Toulouse Capitol, and Remy said there were going to people playing music on the streets everywhere, so the next day promised to be pretty 'lit', as the kids these days would say.

So we went back to the city the next day, in the mid-afternoon, by metro this time. The place was packed with people, but it turned out that we'd come too early. Street musicians had set up their stuff here and there, and there was also the occasional DJ set, but overall we had the impression that things hadn't really kicked off yet. The big stage in the Capitol had been walled up and only people who were wearing special wristbands were permitted to get near it. We could see people performing there, but only as a rehearsal. Remy said the actual concert would only be starting in the evening and, sure enough, we managed to catch some of it on TV later that night.

It was a hot day and we were fasting, so naturally it didn't take us too long to get tired. Our final stop for the day was a park, in which we could see plenty of people relaxing in the shade and lying on the grass. The place also contained a Japanese garden, which I visited alone as Remy elected to take a nap on the grass instead. The garden wasn't that big, so I didn't stay for too long. We went home after that.

We didn't really do anything for the last few days of my stay, so I spent them just going on the internet and editing my vlog. The day for me to leave for my next destination eventually came, and Remy came with me to the train station to send me off. I had a long train ride ahead; about seven hours of total travel time.

I'd enjoyed my time in Toulouse, which was mostly due to Remy and his housemates being wonderful hosts. It would have been nice to stay longer, but I had to move on to my next stop: Saint Nazaire.

Toulouse, Part 1.

This is a continuation of my last post.

My train left Nice at about 9.00 am. I had planned beforehand to drop by Montpellier along the way to Toulouse, and so I did after a journey of about five hours. I had originally intended to check out Marseille for a bit before then moving on to Montpellier and Toulouse, but my plans had changed, my time was limited, and I figured there was only so much sea you could see before it starts to lose its luster.

My attraction towards Montpellier, just like my attraction towards coming to France in the first place, stemmed simply from my love of football. While I was with Fabian in Lyon, he was pleasantly surprised to find that I had some knowledge of French football; one of the things I knew was that not too long ago, before the PSG juggernaut took over everything, Montpellier had somehow managed to crown themselves French champions - they weren't exactly a glamor club, so it was big news. Their top scorer that season was a certain Olivier Giroud; I remember getting all excited when he joined Arsenal that summer.

As it turned out, I only had about an hour to explore Montpellier, so I decided to use that time to get something to eat as I wasn't fasting (I hadn't yet fasted while in France as I was still getting used to the long hours). I also had my luggage with me, which meant I couldn't go too far anyway. Fortunately, I found a halal kebab place a short walk away from the train station.

While I was in Nice, one of the guys there told me that he liked the architecture in Montpellier. During my brief visit there, I noted that the city did have some nice architecture, and also that it seemed to be fairly clean. I didn't take any pictures or record any videos though, because I felt it wasn't fair to the city for that small area to be my lasting record of it. Now that I've done a quick Google image search, that decision may just have been the right one. Montpellier is home to some magnificent sights, and I wish I could have gone to see them.

After I'd had my lunch, I went back to the train station and got on my train, reaching Toulouse about two hours later. Rahimi/Remy met me on the platform, and we took the metro and then the bus back to his place, where he was staying with three other Malaysian guys and a cat.

Before I continue, let me just say that I was quite impressed with the public transport in Toulouse. We used the metro a number of times while I was there, and the thing that struck me the most was how regular the trains were - one every minute or so. As someone used to the LRT and Monorail, KL's (and in fact Malaysia's) equivalent of the French metro, I just found it incredible that you didn't really have to rush to get on the train because you knew the next one would be coming along very soon anyway.

As for the bus, Remy had an app on his phone that told him exactly when the next bus would be arriving at any given station. Back in Malaysia, I would never take the bus if I could help it, but I might just change my mind if such an app existed for Rapid KL (and also if that app was reliable, of course).

Another thing was that you could use the same ticket for the metro and the bus (and the tram, too, but I didn't get to take the tram while I was there) along the same journey. A single one-way ticket was also the same price (1.60 euros, I think) regardless of how many metro stations or bus stops you passed by along the way. In Malaysia, LRT tokens (I wouldn't know about bus tickets) are priced according to where you buy them and where you're going. It's quite exciting to think that Malaysia's various modes of public transport could someday (probably in the distant future) be as good as its Toulouse counterparts.

Anyway, the first activity I had in Toulouse was watching the Italy vs Sweden match at the Fanzone near the Palais de Justice (Palace of Justice; it's a courthouse). The security just to get in and watch the match live on the giant screen was tight - I'd unfortunately forgotten to remove my Swiss army knife and my nail clippers from my bag, so those got confiscated.

There was still a huge turnout, with fans of both sides showing up to cheer their respective teams on. The match itself was pretty awful though, with Zlatan missing an absolute sitter. There was a point during the match when some people in the crowd got into a bit of a scuffle for some reason, and they were duly escorted out by the security guards. Eventually, Eder scored to give Italy a 1-0 win, thereby ensuring that we at least got something from watching the game.

The next day (or evening, rather), we went to an iftar gathering for all the Malaysians in Toulouse. There were maybe about 40 people in attendance - many of them were young students like Remy, but there were also a number of families (husband, wife, kids) there as well. Remy told me they had these gatherings fairly often, sometimes just for the heck of it, but the turnout for this one was rather larger as it was a special occasion. I thought that was good, as it indicated the strong sense of community that these people had. When you're a minority in a foreign land, you have to stick with each other and help each other out, 'cause no one else will if you don't.

On other nights, the five of us in the house (excluding the cat) would have iftar together in the living room while watching whatever Euro match was on at the time. The group stages were on every day while I was there, so we'd always catch the 9.00 pm game while waiting to have iftar at just before 9.45. As Isya' was at about midnight, we'd watch the game until it ended at around 11.00 before praying Maghrib together.

The day after the Malaysian iftar, Remy drove us to Carcassonne, which was a French city (according to Google anyway; I thought it was more of a town) an hour away from Toulouse. It was notable for being home to the Cité de Carcassonne, a sort of fortress from the medieval ages, which was of course the reason we drove there in the first place.

It was my first time ever visiting a castle of any sort, and it was Remy's first time there as well, so we took our time exploring. I'd read about medieval castles when I was much younger, so it was a bit surreal checking out the outer ramparts and looking down on what used to be the moat. Seeing for myself the things I'd only ever read about and seen in movies, online or on TV is always great.

The inside of the fortress housed a bustling town filled with restaurants, small hotels and other shops. We also checked out a large cathedral - it was the first time I'd ever entered a Christian house of worship, and I wondered why it was so dark inside. The architecture was amazing, and Remy particularly liked the stained glass windows.

Besides that, there was also a small castle where I guess the rulers of the fortress must have lived in back in the day, but we didn't go in as I had to pay to enter. It would have been nice to have gone, though, as we would have also gotten access to climbing up some of the fortress' inner walls.

We also bumped into a group of Malaysian Malindo Air flight officers, whom Remy chatted up and even gave them some contact numbers they could order Malaysian food from. He told me he always chats up fellow Malaysians, which is a nice thing to do, especially if they're tourists, what with him having been in France for four years and all. It's probably not something I would do, though, particularly if they were in a large group. I'm not good with small talk with strangers.

After we were done with the fortress, we stopped by a nearby lake, the name of which I didn't really pay attention to. It was a beautiful place, though, and the water was clean enough to wash your face with. There was even a kind of inflatable waterpark, though no one was playing there at the time. The lake was also surrounded by lush greenery. I didn't get any of it on camera as I wanted to just soak it all in and live in the moment. Remy and I walked around the entire lake (must have been a few kilometers); it was tiring, but, at the same time, somewhat refreshing. I guess it was good to spend some time with Mother Nature for a change, away from the hustle and bustle of modern life.

It was a pretty eventful first few days in Toulouse, as you can probably judge from this very long post. I still had a few days left, though, so we decided to spend them just exploring the city.

To be continued...

A Nice Time.

This is a continuation of my last post.

I arrived at Lyon Part Dieu, the main train station in Lyon, at about midday. The first thing I did was to go to the billeterie, or ticket office, to get myself a train to Nice. Fortunately, I was able to get a seat on a train at about 4.00 pm, which meant that there would be no uncertainty about finding a place to sleep that night - my friend in Nice, Syu, had arranged for me to stay with some of her guy friends. It also meant that I had four or five hours to kill before my train was due to depart.

There was a mall right opposite the station, so I got myself a SIM card (with unlimited calls and messages and 2 GB of mobile data for 39.99 euros) and a fish sandwich for lunch. After that, I took the public transport to the Lyon Grand Mosque for prayers. I had to get on a bus and then a tram before a short walk finally got me to my destination.

Just like the mosque I went to in Paris, the one in Lyon was somewhat smallish compared to the ones I'm used to going back home in Malaysia, or at least the way it was designed made it seem that way. I noted the presence of a couple of cop-like figures with large guns standing guard in the mosque courtyard. I wonder what they must have made of my giant travel bag. They didn't call me over and ask me to open it up, so I guess they didn't make too much of it.

After I'd finished praying, I left the mosque and headed back to the tram stop where I'd gotten off at. However, I'd only just exited the mosque grounds when I heard someone calling me from behind. As it turned out, just like in Paris, it was yet another Muslim Frenchman offering to drive me and my bags back to the train station. Again, as he had come out of the mosque with me, I decided to trust him. And again, I made the right call.

Fabian, as was his name, was a French citizen of African origin who reverted to Islam three years ago along with his wife and kids. He ended up driving me all around Lyon, including to the highest point in the city to give me a fantastic view of all of Lyon, before finally dropping me off at Lyon Part Dieu. His English was somewhat limited, but we were able to go through a good number of different topics ranging from French football (he was surprised to find that I knew enough about it to hold my own in that discussion) to the state of Islam in France.

The kindness of strangers is not something a traveler should ever be reliant on, but I am thankful that Allah sent Fabian and 'Abid my way. These two men helped to ease my journey and enriched my first two days in France. May Allah bless them and their families in their future endeavors.

It was quite a long train ride (it was about five hours or so) to Nice, which got even longer due to several delays. It was maybe 8.30 pm when I reached my destination, where I was met by Syu and one of her guy friends. That was the only time I actually met Syu during my stay in Nice - the timing was a bit bad as she had some important internship stuff to attend to. It would have been nice to sit down with her and catch up, but I guess it wasn't meant to be,

Her friends whom I stayed with more than made up for that by being fairly good hosts. There were about a dozen guys in total, split between two houses, and all of them had iftar together every night eating Malaysian food. They were friendly enough with me and did their best to make sure I was comfortable.

Like Syu, they were mostly up to their necks with internship work, so I didn't really have anyone to take me around to see the sights in Nice. I didn't mind that, actually, as I saw a certain appeal to discovering the place on my own. I had a place to stay in this time, so I wouldn't be weighed down by my luggage.

On the day after I arrived in Nice, I made my way down to the beach. Some of the local public transport, namely the buses and trams, wasn't working as there was a strike going on (to protest against a proposed labor law, as I later found out), but the beach wasn't too far anyway on foot.

The blue of the ocean was magnificent, emphasized even further by the bright sun on the day. The beach itself was a bit rocky as opposed to the sand I'm more used to and was littered with sunbathing tourists (eurgh). There were also Euro 2016 booths and games set up along the coast, with people in Northern Ireland shirts all over the place as they'd had a game against Poland the day before.

I didn't want to wander too far or too much, so after I'd had my fill of the beach and gone through some parts of the town I returned to my hosts' apartment. The guys later told me I should have taken the time to make it to this high point that overlooked all of Nice, but I felt I'd done enough. I was satisfied with what I got from the day; sure, it would have been nice to have done and seen more, but I was happy enough with I had.

The next day I took a train to Monaco. It was a windy day with a slight drizzle, but I'd already gone too far to turn back. I saw a bit of the city - the way it was designed makes me feel a bit claustrophobic, now that I think about it - before making the long climb to the Prince's Palace. The view from up there was brilliant, and it made my efforts to reach the peak worth it. I didn't actually go inside the Palace itself as I think that would have cost money, but I did take in the sights around it.

I also checked out the souvenir shop, where I found that an AS Monaco jersey costs 85 euros. I'd found out the day before that an OGC Nice jersey costs 80 euros. If that was the going price for an original football jersey from France, I'd just have to make do with a Petaling Street knockoff from back home. RM50 can get you some quite reasonable quality.

I left Nice the next morning for Toulouse, where I'm presently staying with my Rembau friend Rahimi (or Remy, as is his French nickname) until Thursday, when I'll be setting of for St Nazaire in the northwest of France to see Borhan, another friend from Rembau.

I really liked staying in Nice, both because of the people I was staying with and the overall cheerful vibe that the town gave off. It would be nice to visit there again in the future, and I honestly hope to do so. I'll also make it a point to visit more of the French Riviera next time.

A Night in Paris.

I write this as I sit in the waiting lounge of the Gare de Nice Ville, the train station in the Nice city center, and wait for my train to Marseille. From there I will take a train to Montpellier, where I’ll take in the sights (I hear the architecture is quite decent) for a few hours before then boarding a train to Toulouse, where I’ll be staying with an old friend from Rembau for a few days.

The journey here hasn’t exactly been a smooth ride, which you would have gathered from watching my recent vlog (included below). I left Malaysia on a 10.10 am Emirates flight on 11^th June, and was due to arrive in Dubai at around 1.00 pm local time before then getting on a flight to Lyon. As it turned out, just as my plane was about to land at the Dubai International Airport, it was forced to land elsewhere for the time being as the airport had temporarily shut down due to some kind of drone flying about in the airport airspace. My plane was just one of the 14 that had to be redirected that day.

By the time we were finally allowed to land about two hours later than was originally scheduled, my flight to Lyon had already gone. I wasn’t the only one, of course; there must have been about a hundred or more other passengers queuing up to find out when our flight would be rescheduled for, some more disgruntled than others. Many of us, including myself, unfortunately had to wait until the next day for our respective flights. We were given hotel rooms to stay in for the night, as well as meals for dinner and breakfast.

The room I was given was actually quite nice. It was comfortable, and after (a pretty good) dinner I watched the Wales-Slovakia game that night until I dozed off. The next morning, aside from breakfast, I stayed in my room until just before 12.00 pm, which was when the shuttle van to the airport would be arriving. At about 2.30 that afternoon, I was finally on my flight to Lyon, 24 hours behind schedule.

After I’d landed at the Lyon Saint-Exupery Airport (somewhat interestingly named after the author of The Little Prince, who was also a fighter pilot in World War II), I bought a train ticket to the Lyon city center, where I would then board the earliest train to Nice, where a friend of mine from Rembau (and Bukit Indah, in fact) is studying. The ride was only supposed to take about 20 minutes, so about 30 minutes into the journey I realized that I was on the wrong train and spent the remaining hour-and-a-half kicking myself about it. To be honest, though, even before the ride had begun, while I was sitting in the train waiting for it to depart, I had a hunch that I’d made a mistake. However, I decided at that point to stick to my guns – that wasn’t one of the better decisions I’d made in my life.

At the end of the trip, we got off at this place called the Paris Gare de Lyon. This got me a bit confused, as I wasn’t sure where I was. I hadn’t yet gotten myself a SIM card, so I wasn’t able to access the internet using mobile data. Eventually, I managed to get online using the station’s free WiFi (which was only limited to 20 minutes) and I found out that I was, in fact, in Paris.

The first thing I did after finding out I was in Paris was to locate the nearest mosque as I hadn’t done my Maghrib and Isya’ prayers yet. It turned out that the Paris Grand Mosque was only a short bus ride away (Google Maps even told me which bus to take; technology is wonderful), so I made my way there. It should also be noted that I had to lug my two heavy bags around with me: a large green travel bag, which weighed at about 19 kg back at KLIA, and my backpack, which wasn’t too light either as it contained my laptop as well as a bunch of other stuff. I wasn’t exactly in peak physical condition, of course, so traveling from any given point to another was quite a challenge.

I think it was just before midnight when I finally got to the mosque, as they were in the middle of Tarawikh at the time. I was pretty tired, so I didn’t manage to join in after I’d completed my Maghrib and Isya’. After they’d finished, I was getting ready to bunk down there for the night when a man, presumably upon seeing me and my giant green bag and gathering that I wasn’t from around town, greeted me. We briefly chatted and I asked him if I could stay the night in the mosque. He spoke fluent French, so he asked someone from the mosque’s management if it was possible. As it turned out, that wasn’t allowed – the mosque was closed between prayer times.

I tried not to panic, as I’d pretty much banked on being able to spend the night there. Thankfully, the man was nice enough to offer to drive me back to the train station where he figured I’d be able to stay until morning. I was a bit suspicious at first, but for whatever reason I decided to trust him.

I’m well aware that he could have mugged me, and the fact that it was about 1.00 am in Paris (doesn’t exactly have the best reputation for safety) means that it was likely that he would have. However, I just felt that the whole situation just didn’t seem like it could have been premeditated; too many factors were in play. And besides, what kind of criminal goes to Tarawikh prayers at the mosque until 1.00 am and then spontaneously decides to take advantage of a naïve-looking traveler?

I was right to trust him, as it turned out. He was a 25-year-old French citizen with Pakistani roots named ‘Abid (I think), who had been born, raised and educated in France. He was an Uber driver with a degree in something like International Trade, and also had a small fleet of drivers working for him. He wasn’t really from the area either; he just happened to be in the neighborhood after finishing a job and decided to drop by the mosque for prayers before going home.

‘Abid was very helpful. Not only did he drive me back to the station, he also helped to check the price for a room at a hotel (which was way too expensive for just a few hours), helped to carry one of my bags, and even checked the qiblah for me while we were at the station. After all that was done, he left.

I settled down to sleep at this sort of padded seating area, but it wasn’t long before some big security guys came up to me – and others who were sleeping or were about to sleep there – and asked us to leave. There were still maybe two hours left before Fajr, and four before the ticketing office would be open, so I started wondering what I was going to do.

I decided to go back to the mosque. As I had plenty of time to kill, I decide to walk the whole way, heavy bags and all. I stopped at a few bus stops along the way to catch my breath and took the opportunity to observe nighttime Paris.

An interesting observation I had was that the vehicles on the road would always, and I mean always, stop at red lights, even at pedestrian crossings, even in the middle of the night with no other cars or pedestrians in sight. Being a KL boy, I found that to be quite insane. Another observation I had was that it was common practice for drivers to turn off their car engines while waiting at stoplights and then starting them up again once the lights turned green. I didn’t know how economical it was to be doing that as compared to just letting it the engine run, but I intend to find out.

I eventually reached the mosque, prayed Fajr, and then walked back to the train station. I waited for the ticket office to open at 6.00 am and asked for a ticket to Nice. The only one they had available was a night train. I’d gotten pretty sick of Paris at that point and didn’t want to stay there for another day (especially not with the prospect of again having to haul my luggage around the whole time), so I asked for a ticket to Lyon instead, where I figured I should be able to get a train to Nice that left before the sun set – and even if I couldn’t get one, at least I wouldn’t be in Paris anymore. They had a train to Lyon at about 10.00 am, so I took it.

It had been a somewhat interesting start to my trip, albeit a difficult one. Things could only get better from there, I suppose.

Preparation.

I've got a slight temperature. That's not ideal preparation for France, particularly considering that my flight is on Saturday morning. Google tells me that the temperature in Lyon, where I'll be touching down, is generally around 20 degrees Celsius, in spite of it being summer. The temperature in Malaysia, on the other hand, is typically at above 30 degrees, even at night. Having a flu in France would not be enjoyable.

In terms of my other preparations, I'm pretty much good to go; all I need to do now is to pick out the clothes I'll be bringing along. As far as planning my journey goes, I decided not to go too much into detail, because circumstances are more likely to dictate what I'll be up to rather than some extensive itinerary. Basically, I have a plan, but it's more flexible than I suppose a lot of other people would like.

I expect to face challenges while in France, not least the long fasting hours of over 18 hours per day, which is quite daunting when you compare it to the relatively tame 13 hours we get here in Malaysia. As I will be a traveler, however, I'll have the option of not fasting. I'll try not to exercise it, but I fear I may have to at some point.

It'll be an interesting time to be in France, as the Euros will bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to town. There'll be loads of other people coming to France for the first time, and loads who know even less of the local language than I do (I've been learning French bit by bit for over six months now). Maybe it's possible that I'll get to know new people and be on the receiving end of some kindness from strangers.

I probably won't be watching any of the football (tickets have been sold out for quite a while), but I've planned my trip so that I'll at least be in the vicinity of some of the matches taking place in the cities I'll be visiting. There'll be fan zones and stuff, and it would be fantastic to see these things in the flesh. I won't be able to attend any matches, so I'll just have to settle for soaking up the matchday atmosphere.

I'm planning to vlog my experiences in France, and I'm sure I'll hardly be the only one. People do it all the time these days, and I'm certain some people who actually vlog for a living will be doing their thing there as well. It's a practice that is still somewhat looked down upon in Malaysia, but if people can embrace selfies, they can embrace vlogging as well.

I'm also planning to write regularly over this coming month. The last time I went abroad - to Saudi Arabia to perform umrah - I had a lot I wanted to write about, but I barely had the time and facilities to do so while I was there, and upon reaching home I kinda put it off until I decided that the trip was best consigned to memory.

I guess things have changed since then, because I'm determined not to have the same thing happen this time around. I'm a different person from who I was when I decided not to write about umrah over two years ago - heck, I'm a different person from who I was even a month ago. I'll also be a different person a month from now - this time, I'm documenting that journey of change. I named this blog Evolution for a reason, after all.

Underdogs.

I woke up early this morning to watch the 2016 UEFA Champions League final. I'd actually woken up later than planned and thought I'd missed it, but thankfully the match had gone to extra time. Real Madrid eventually triumphed over their fierce rivals Atletico 5-3 on penalties.

It wasn't the result I was hoping for, as I was, in fact, supporting Atletico. I'd never really liked Real Madrid anyway, and let's say I didn't exactly enjoy the fact that they had become European champions at Atletico's expense for the second time in three years.

The result also made it five years in a row in which I'd backed the losing team in the Champions League final:

2012: Chelsea 1-1 Bayern Munich; Chelsea won 4-3 on penalties

I typically support the underdog in a game that doesn't involve a team I support. Chelsea were the heavy underdogs in this one, but being an Arsenal fan I was always going to cheer against them. As it turned out, they managed to beat the Germans on penalties in their own home stadium.

2013: Bayern Munich 2-1 Borussia Dortmund (after extra time)

Dortmund are the team I support in the German Bundesliga, and I figured that their recent record against heavyweights Bayern meant that they had a good chance of beating them. It wasn't to be, unfortunately, as Bayern successfully exorcized the demons of the previous year's final by winning it in extra time.

2014: Real Madrid 4-1 Atletico Madrid (a.e.t.)

Atletico had just pulled off a shock last-day Spanish league title win, and given that they seemed to be beating their city rivals Real all the time those days, I really thought they could win this one. They almost did, too, until Real scored in the last minute to take the match to extra time. A mentally broken Atletico went on to concede three more times in the ensuing half-hour.

2015: Barcelona 3-1 Juventus

Okay, I didn't really think Juventus were going to win this one, but I hoped they would anyway as they were the underdogs. As it turned out, Barca were just too good for them and won quite convincingly.

2016: Real Madrid 1-1 Atletico Madrid; Real won 5-3 on penalties

Same fixture from two years ago, and it ended with the same result. Atletico were, yet again, unlucky.

I wonder just how long my run of backing the losing team will continue. I guess this has mostly to do with my championing of the underdog, which isn't the best strategy to have if you like your team winning matches.

But that's just it: football isn't all about winning. Everyone has their own reasons for watching football or supporting whatever team they support - I watch football for the very simple reason that I love football and everything about it. It's not something everyone can understand.

Now to look forward to the Euros. They were the original reason why I decided to go to France this summer, but since I wasn't able to get hold of any match tickets I guess I'll settle for soaking up the atmosphere. I'm planning to vlog my experiences there, as I think I'll be able to capture the mood in a way that writing in this blog simply cannot.

I will still write while I'm in France, of course. The plan is for this blog and the vlog(s) to complement each other. We'll see how it goes.

Stimulation.

Yesterday, I came across this journal/diary that I wrote in a notebook back when I was in Form 5. I hadn't written that much in it; it must have been less than 20 pages long in total. I thought reading it was going to be a bit cringey, and it was, but at the end I found myself wishing that I'd written much more than I had. It made me realize just how much I'd forgotten about my life in Rembau, despite my two years there possibly being the best time of my life so far.

It would have been nice to go through more old stories. In fact, if I'd filled all hundred or so pages in that notebook, I might even have been able to publish them as memoirs, which I suppose could be worth something given that I would have written about the earliest years in my school's history. My grandfather once told me about a former classmate of his who did publish memoirs of their school days (which were around 50 or 60 years ago), and the book was considered a document of historical significance. Opportunity missed, I suppose.

I think I would have written more if I hadn't allowed myself to be bound by the stigma associated with boys writing in diaries. Even now, five years on, I am painfully aware that I'm still allowing myself to be bound by certain stigmas, albeit not as many as before.

I did write a lot when I first started this blog, though. As a fresh SPM graduate with an itch to write and plenty of time on my hands, I duly put out post after post after post. As time went on and life got busier, writing in this blog became less frequent and less detailed. If a busier life meant fewer posts, surely I'd write more if I had more time?

It's been exactly a month since I finished internship, and this is only my second post since then. Clearly the theory was mistaken; the volume of writing does not necessarily relate to the amount of time available. It's not as if I've been kicking my heels  all day every day since then anyway; plenty has happened, and I've been keeping myself busy roughly half the time. The other half has been spent with recreational activities at home, none of which, unfortunately, involve much writing.

I have been wanting to write: scripts for a couple of personal video projects, articles for my university's e-newsletter, and posts for this blog. Inspiration, sadly, has been hard to come by. Home isn't exactly conducive for intellectual thought, particularly when the TV seems to be tuned in to low-grade comedy shows most of the time (they seem to be all the rage these days). I'll stop right there before this turns into a rant on the quality of today's television programming.

If I am to start writing more (again), I'll need stimulation. I need to be in an environment that promotes creative and critical thinking. I need to read thought-provoking articles. I need to have deep, intellectual discussions with people I don't know very well so that the conversations don't go into more personal matters. I need to be around people who, like me, think way too much about everything.

All in all, while the environment I'm in does play a large role in the amount and quality of writing that I produce, the most important factor is, of course, myself. If I really want to write, I'll find a way to do so. Maybe it hasn't been inspiration that's been lacking, really - perhaps it's motivation.

****

I'll be flying off to France on the 11th of June, and I purposely planned it so that I wouldn't be completely dependent on my friends there. For instance, I'm due to arrive in Lyon on June 11 at about 7.30 pm and will only be meeting up with a familiar face (about 5 hours away in Nice) the next day. Given that I'm due to arrive in Nice at about 3 pm on June 12, this means that I'll be completely alone in a foreign country for almost 20 whole hours. And we haven't even gotten started on the fact that it will be Ramadan then. If the need to survive during that time won't stimulate my brain, I don't know what will.