This is Home
Ayam bekkkkkk!
Yahhh I'm so back.
For months I'd been so excited at the prospect of going home, but when finals ended and the time came for me to clear my room and pack my stuff to go home, it was oddly bittersweet.
The cab was scheduled to come pick me up to go to the airport at 3 A.M., so two of my friends who hadn't left Grinnell yet came over to my room and helped me with my last bit of packing and stayed with me till the cab arrived.
They were doing the whole countdown thing ("Two more hours!" "Another 30 minutes!"), and frankly my thoughts then were, "Oh no! I want to stay now!"
I couldn't imagine leaving my Grinnellian life.
It's probably because of that thing I learned in psychology class, that when a big event comes closer you get this weird aversion-ish feeling towards it or something. (Frankly I do not remember much from psych class.)
But I have a much better explanation for it.
Thing is, going to college in a small, rural town where the nearest city is an hour away, where there are absolutely NO other real Malaysian, is very very very different from studying in, say, Melbourne or London where you have enough Malaysians to have a Malaysian gathering. It's even different from studying in a US college where there are at least a few people whose home is the same place you call home.
For one thing, Grinnell is completely, absolutely detached from anything and everything that I associate Malaysia with.
There are no Malaysians in my college to bridge the mental gap between Grinnell and Malaysia, no Malaysian restaurants or enough people who know about Malaysia to be that connection between small, cornfield-surrounded Grinnell and that tiny country in the south-east region of Asia.
Nothing in Grinnell reminds me of Malaysia, and nothing in Malaysia reminds me of Grinnell.
So going from one place to another is like turning my life 180 degrees around (somemore time difference also 13 hours okay!).
Plus the facts that Grinnell is so rural, and so small, and that we hardly leave the campus much since everything we ever need is on campus, I feel like I've been living in a little Grinnell bubble all this while.
And the thing is, Grinnell is not like the world. Grinnell is not even a good representation of America, which is something both my sociology and philosophy professors cared to remind us while discussing the typical American society.
The one thing I absolutely love love LOVE about Grinnell is that it is absolutely, without a shadow of doubt the MOST accepting 120-acres of land I've ever set foot on.
It is where you can be who you are, and for the most part, won't be judged negatively or discriminated against for it.
It's not yet perfect, and occasionally you get homophobic comments and racial slurs, but on the very rare occasion that it happens, the entire campus comes together in support of the community discriminated against.
Over there, there are drag shows and cross-dressing parties, there are little rainbow flags in the mail room in support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community.
In Malaysia, the common line for expressing how lame something is is "That's so gay!", homosexuality is perceived as a mental disease for which you need counseling to be cured of, and I've seen how on one occasion someone described a girl as not-pretty and looking like a "tranny".
Forget likening someone to a transsexual to convey her "not-pretty"-ness, the fact that you're making such judgments shows a lot about what sort of person you are.
These very same comments, made on the Grinnell campus, would've caused an uproar.
But in Malaysia, it is common and completely acceptable it seems.
I love how chill it is in Grinnell. There are people who dress up, but there are many lazy days when people come to class in sweats and slippers. There are athletic, super-fit people, and there are chubby people. But no one makes comments on how fat someone else is, there are no highly annoying girls who tell people how fat they are when they are not actually fat. In one year of being in Grinnell, I've come across less appearance-based comments than I've experienced in a single month in Malaysia.
Somehow, being in Grinnell makes me super comfortable about myself. Here, I am a lot more self-conscious, just because looks play a big part in how a person is defined by others.
I never realized it until I left here and experienced something totally different from the Malaysian way.
Going to a liberal arts college had been the best decision in my life that I've ever made for myself. So even though no one outside the US knows about LACs (other than people going to LACs), even though I could tell a Malaysian employer that I graduated from Grinnell and for all they know it could be a chapalang community college, even though I will never inspire the same respect and awe as someone who says he's studying in, say, University of Melbourne... I will never, never trade my Grinnell experience for anything in the world.
For nine months I hadn't spoken to a real Malaysian face-to-face, hadn't come across anything even remotely Malaysian.
It feels a little weird to drop that life to come back to this.
Not to mention the fact that I'd been ridiculously busy the past few months, and now suddenly I have absolutely nothing to do.
I cannot even imagine how coming home after graduation would feel like.
But but but. Malaysia is home, always will be.
It feels so good to be able to drive again!
Feels good to not have to wear layer after layer just to go out! (But then it feels like this Malaysian heat is slowly cooking me up.)
Feels good to be with people who are more or less stuck with me forever, for better or for worse.
Feels unbelievably good to be in my own bed, in my own room, sans roommate.
Feels good to just finally, finally be Home!
Yahhh I'm so back.
For months I'd been so excited at the prospect of going home, but when finals ended and the time came for me to clear my room and pack my stuff to go home, it was oddly bittersweet.
The cab was scheduled to come pick me up to go to the airport at 3 A.M., so two of my friends who hadn't left Grinnell yet came over to my room and helped me with my last bit of packing and stayed with me till the cab arrived.
They were doing the whole countdown thing ("Two more hours!" "Another 30 minutes!"), and frankly my thoughts then were, "Oh no! I want to stay now!"
I couldn't imagine leaving my Grinnellian life.
It's probably because of that thing I learned in psychology class, that when a big event comes closer you get this weird aversion-ish feeling towards it or something. (Frankly I do not remember much from psych class.)
But I have a much better explanation for it.
Thing is, going to college in a small, rural town where the nearest city is an hour away, where there are absolutely NO other real Malaysian, is very very very different from studying in, say, Melbourne or London where you have enough Malaysians to have a Malaysian gathering. It's even different from studying in a US college where there are at least a few people whose home is the same place you call home.
For one thing, Grinnell is completely, absolutely detached from anything and everything that I associate Malaysia with.
There are no Malaysians in my college to bridge the mental gap between Grinnell and Malaysia, no Malaysian restaurants or enough people who know about Malaysia to be that connection between small, cornfield-surrounded Grinnell and that tiny country in the south-east region of Asia.
Nothing in Grinnell reminds me of Malaysia, and nothing in Malaysia reminds me of Grinnell.
So going from one place to another is like turning my life 180 degrees around (somemore time difference also 13 hours okay!).
Plus the facts that Grinnell is so rural, and so small, and that we hardly leave the campus much since everything we ever need is on campus, I feel like I've been living in a little Grinnell bubble all this while.
And the thing is, Grinnell is not like the world. Grinnell is not even a good representation of America, which is something both my sociology and philosophy professors cared to remind us while discussing the typical American society.
The one thing I absolutely love love LOVE about Grinnell is that it is absolutely, without a shadow of doubt the MOST accepting 120-acres of land I've ever set foot on.
It is where you can be who you are, and for the most part, won't be judged negatively or discriminated against for it.
It's not yet perfect, and occasionally you get homophobic comments and racial slurs, but on the very rare occasion that it happens, the entire campus comes together in support of the community discriminated against.
Over there, there are drag shows and cross-dressing parties, there are little rainbow flags in the mail room in support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community.
In Malaysia, the common line for expressing how lame something is is "That's so gay!", homosexuality is perceived as a mental disease for which you need counseling to be cured of, and I've seen how on one occasion someone described a girl as not-pretty and looking like a "tranny".
Forget likening someone to a transsexual to convey her "not-pretty"-ness, the fact that you're making such judgments shows a lot about what sort of person you are.
These very same comments, made on the Grinnell campus, would've caused an uproar.
But in Malaysia, it is common and completely acceptable it seems.
I love how chill it is in Grinnell. There are people who dress up, but there are many lazy days when people come to class in sweats and slippers. There are athletic, super-fit people, and there are chubby people. But no one makes comments on how fat someone else is, there are no highly annoying girls who tell people how fat they are when they are not actually fat. In one year of being in Grinnell, I've come across less appearance-based comments than I've experienced in a single month in Malaysia.
Somehow, being in Grinnell makes me super comfortable about myself. Here, I am a lot more self-conscious, just because looks play a big part in how a person is defined by others.
I never realized it until I left here and experienced something totally different from the Malaysian way.
Going to a liberal arts college had been the best decision in my life that I've ever made for myself. So even though no one outside the US knows about LACs (other than people going to LACs), even though I could tell a Malaysian employer that I graduated from Grinnell and for all they know it could be a chapalang community college, even though I will never inspire the same respect and awe as someone who says he's studying in, say, University of Melbourne... I will never, never trade my Grinnell experience for anything in the world.
For nine months I hadn't spoken to a real Malaysian face-to-face, hadn't come across anything even remotely Malaysian.
It feels a little weird to drop that life to come back to this.
Not to mention the fact that I'd been ridiculously busy the past few months, and now suddenly I have absolutely nothing to do.
I cannot even imagine how coming home after graduation would feel like.
But but but. Malaysia is home, always will be.
It feels so good to be able to drive again!
Feels good to not have to wear layer after layer just to go out! (But then it feels like this Malaysian heat is slowly cooking me up.)
Feels good to be with people who are more or less stuck with me forever, for better or for worse.
Feels unbelievably good to be in my own bed, in my own room, sans roommate.
Feels good to just finally, finally be Home!
isthisme exuded garlic breath at 1:23 AM
