This is where I am staying during the first week of Malaysia, before I move into my apartment and start working for Quartzelec.

Shaky Starts

   It was a precarious beginning to my year abroad. The final few days before departing home served as the foundation to my year in Malaysia. What I packed prepared me for what I intended to do, what I left at home left me unprepared for scenarios I predicted were unlikely to occur. This seemed like sound logic at the time, but when you spend little time thinking or preparing for an entire year away, the list of things you don’t expect will be very basic and incomplete to say the least. Here is a short list of things I should have prepared and packed, but failed to do so:

  1. Driver's License

  2. Towel

  3. Student's Visa

  4. Spare Towel

  5. Camera

  6. A Third Towel (in case your roommate steals the first in a drunken haze and leaves it in a less than sanitary state)

The list goes on, but I believe I have sufficiently embarrassed myself, and the unprepared lazy student stereotype need not be enforced any further.

Despite my lack of preparation and late arrival to the airport, I was regarded by my peers as a fully prepared, organised and ready for what Malaysia has to throw at me. Please note that I take no credit for this, anything that was on my person which proved useful was most likely handed to me by my extremely logical and kind step mother, Patricia Dean.

Upon arrival into Malaysia we were greeted by the lovely students of the University of Melaya, who were waiting in the arrival hall with signs and buses and everything, very professional. As the Malaysian students were only a year or two older than us, there was a shared feeling of mild embarrassment as the evidence of their organisational and planning skills displayed far exceeded any of our greatest accomplishments at University.

Oh for those interested in movies I watched on the plane(SPOILER ALERT):

Jeff Who Lives At Home (funny quirky film, Jason Segel is very amusing, cliché ending)

Contraband (decent plot, good action, lots of angry mark Wahlberg = win!)

This Means War (terribly cheesy plot, decent but infrequent fight scenes, British Tom Hardy was good, American Chris Pine annoyed me)

Haywire (UNBELIEVABLE cast, awesome fight scenes, overall very disappointing, due to very frequent stagnant and slow scenes, although I believe that was intentional, but I am spoilt by Hollywood action.)

     When the bus was packed with students and their expensive belongings, we made our way to the university campus, where everyone showered and went to sleep… except for me, because I FORGOT MY TOWEL.

That sums up my departure from UK and arrival into Malaysia fairly accurately, please return to my blog if you wish to read about the rest of my stay in this wonderful country.

P.S Sorry for the lack of pictures, I didn’t pack a camera, but I bought one so there will be more.