Missing for 3 months...

So yeah, I haven't penned down any thoughts for freaking 2 months plus. So what have I been doing all this while? I will try my very best to summarize it through some short descriptions and pictures. There you go, some of the highlights of my life..

I played in Madison Open (Badminton Tournament held in Madison, duh..) around mid-December in three events for the first time. By God's will, I emerged as 1st Runner-Up in the Men Singles event, Champion of Men Doubles (Group B) and 1st Runner-Up in Mixed Doubles (Group C:p) with this lovely girl, Anna.

One week after the lovely tournament, despite the achings and sores on my body, I had to undergo what the above picture shows, FINAL EXAMS! It was a good one for me though, probably thanks to my sores, I have to admit that I did pretty well for the exams:D.

Ta da, I am back in Penang (at the Arrival Hall Entrance of Penang International Airport) in no time. I boarded a flight two days after I finished my exams, that was on the 23rd December (already 24th in Malaysia). Like always, I hate the 'process' of flying back. You will understand what I mean if you have to burn your ass for approximately 20 hours and not getting adequate quality sleep. But since I have so much to look forward to, it was worth it.



Was in Cameron Highlands for a few days with my family. Visited the tea plantations, strawberry farm and cactus farm. Love the weather there. Only around 14.3°C to 26.3°C. How sweet will life be in Madison, Wisconsin if Madison is just like Cameron Highland. The second picture is a cactus plant which looks so similar to DURIAN ( Bombaceae Durio zibethinus L./Murr)!

The weekend I came back from Cameron, I and some of my friends played basketball in INTI. Guess what happened? I SPRAINED my right ankle. Arghhh, for the first time. This sucks. I was only playing for fun. I have to blame myself for all this mess. I wore my brother's running shoes knowing that its support for ankle is bad for any other activities besides running or jogging (unidirectional purpose shoes - running/jogging shoes). Screw myself for that! Results = I could not play any sports (especially badminton :( ) for three weeks plus.


Next thing I knew, I was back at Penang International Airport, this time at the entrance of the departure hall:(. Sad but true. The worst thing was, I was stranded at Changi (Singapore) Airport for 17 hours due to a cancelled flight (reason: bad weather at Japan). The airplane was not at the Airport since the it did not fly from Japan to pick me up:(. Fortunately though, I met one of my fellow-sponsormates (another JPA scholar studying in Madison), Saiful. So yeah, we overcame all the hurdles and landed on Madison Airport, 20 hours later than the initially expected time. What I learnt from this trip: (1) Do not try to play truant even if the classes aren't important (I came back one week late), (2) Do not trust American Airlines for International Flights (go for Asian Airlines), (3) Thanks to the cancelled flight, I got to sit an Asian Airline, SIA (Singapore Airline) which definitely costs me at least USD 200 more if I were to purchase SIA ticket.