Week 40: Turning 21 and Going Home

It has been a pretty emotional week. I've been spending a lot of time with my friends who will be graduating in a few weeks time. I feel really sad that I only became close to them in the past few months. I wish that I had spent more time with them but, alas, it was not meant to be. I hope that we will still meet up next year. I'm sure we will find an excuse to.

Also, I turned 21 last Saturday. I basically spent the whole day in Coventry with my friends. First we went to a buffet and ate till we couldn't move. After that, we basically scouted around Coventry for bars to drink at. There was no crazy celebration or anything but I really enjoyed the company. It was a really fun day for me.

I'm flying home tomorrow and due to certain personal developments, now I have a lot of mixed feelings about going home. I am restraining from actually telling the world the problem because of the various implications that it could cause but I honestly hope that a day will come when I can be absolutely honest about the problem I am facing right now. But for now, I'm just going to keep my mouth shut.

You probably won't see why it has been an emotional week for me just by reading this post and I am sorry about that but my hands are tied for now. Maybe one day I will write a post about it. Maybe.

Signing off,

YiJiun

P.S. I've uploaded a cover onto my Soundcloud channel which I will pop on here. Enjoy!

Weeks 34 to 39: Exams, Croatia and Dressing Up

Hello readers! As is the norm this academic year, I have not been updating my blog as frequent as I'd like but here is my sort of monthly update.

Exams are finally over, although it actually did not take that long to get them over it. It was just because I had 9 exams crammed into a measly 2 weeks that it felt like an age. Not all of them went well to be honest, but that's just how it is I guess. There was one particular paper *Finance 1 cough* that was especially hard and I honestly thought that I was going to fail it but after the paper, it seemed like most people felt the same so I guess I won't fail? I mean, the university isn't going to let half the class fail a paper, right? Anyway, it's all done and over.

Practically immediately after my exams, I jetted off to Croatia with two high school friends. That was genuinely fun. It was a nice mix between hectic days and chill ones. Also, the length of the trip was just nice, as in I didn't feel sick and felt like going home at any point of the trip. The first place I visited was Pula which was a quaint little town near the seaside. It was an interesting place because historical buildings and monuments were just scattered around the place. The difference in the architecture of the different eras the place went through in the past was also pretty obvious. It was quite an experience. Didn't really do much there except go to the beach. I got a nice tan there which was a nice change from the cold English weather.

Beach and sun in Pula!!

After a day of travelling, I finally reached Dubrovnik where most of the fun happened. On my first day in Dubrovnik, I visited the old town. After walking around for a bit, me and my friends went on a Game of Thrones tour of Dubrovnik which was basically the highlight of the whole trip for me. I'm a pretty big fan of the show and the books, so the tour was perfect for me. The tour guide was really lovely and was even an extra in the show which was cool. She took us around showing us landmarks that served as shooting locations for the show. She was an even bigger fan evidently, and was pretty knowledgeable about both the shows and the books. I was basically in awe the whole time and splashed out some moolah on GoT merchandise as an early birthday present to myself. After tour, I scaled the city walls and while the view was great, it was pretty tiring and slightly torturing because of the sun beating down on me.

Pretty Dubrovnik

The lovely GoT Tour guide

The next day, I went with my friends on a kayaking excursion. Now that was an experience. It was open sea kayaking and we had to get to another island and back. Halfway, the sea decided to play up a bit and send some waves our way. I swear some of those waves were the height of my head. I nearly flipped over a few times. But I survived. And apparently I kayaked for about 10km which is an achievement in addition to me not being the last kayak in the group although I was left behind for some parts of the 'adventure',

Next stop was Split. The apartment we rented was actually inside Diocletian's Palace which is the main attraction of Split. That was a nice surprise because it made getting around and visiting landmarks so much easier. I made a point to visit most of the historical landmarks in the old town and that honestly did not take as long as I thought because all of them were clustered around the same spot (also the palace was not as big as it seemed on the map). It was a pretty chill 2-day stay there and I went back to England after that.

Just staying in an ancient palace, no biggie.

Now that I was back in England, I had another busy week surprisingly. I performed with Glee for an open day and also as part of the student arts festival but the highlight was Societies Awards where I got to dress up and act fancy for a night. It was probably the first time I wore a full suit ever since I came to the UK. Also, because I didn't have a bow tie and wanted to wear one to the awards, I learnt to make one out of a neck tie. Now, that's an achievement. Glee was not nominated for any awards but it was a fun night just hanging out with my peeps (the DJ was quite bad though). Also, it was held in the beautiful Stratford which was a plus.

I still have about a week or so to go before I go home to Malaysia (can't wait!!!!). I aim to record a few covers and sort out some career stuff in this short period of time, so hopefully that will go well. Also, I'll be celebrating my first overseas birthday! It will probably something small with some close friend who are still around university then. It will also be my 21st birthday and, people who know me knows that actually prefer having an intimate celebration, so that works out well for me.

Bye for now and I promise to post one last update before I fly back to Malaysia!