Things to remember

I've never been so big on New Year's resolutions. The only resolution that I remember ever having is to gain weight, and I've had the same one since I was probably 12. Hahaha. I may have had a few others over my school years like, "write notes everyday" and "don't procrastinate" and such, but here I am, 22 years of age, and I still procrastinate like a champ.

But this year, I thought of a few things that I would like to remember/change (not necessarily 'resolutions' per se) and just thought I'd share it on my blog, because why not. Maybe some people can relate too. I hope these won't sound too ridiculous or petty haha.

So, everyone, this is me, talking to me:

1. Something or someone can only get to you if you let them.

If something/someone upsets you, it's only because you're letting them upset you. I'm not saying that you shouldn't get angry/sad at all, because at the end of the day, you're only human. But if it's affecting you too much when there's nothing much/else you can do about it, then you're just wasting your energy on something that's not worthwhile. Do what you can to deal with it, but if nothing changes, move on. Don't let it bother you anymore. There are other things more worthy of your time, your energy, & your attention.

You get to decide: shall I let this thing/person affect me?

2. You choose what makes you happy.

My mum used to tell me that I'm very easily fascinated. I get so excited over little things. She never said that it was bad, but I have this weird thing whereby when someone points out something about my character, I take it as criticism and my first instinct is to fix it or change it. But after a while, I realised that being easily fascinated basically means that I'm just... happy more often. Which means I smile and laugh a lot more, and my heart feels joy a lot more. Nothing wrong about that, right?

The way I see it (now), you find your own happiness. You decide what can make you happy. Allow yourself to find beauty and amusement in the world around you, especially when so many bad things are happening around us nowadays. The world needs more positive energy!

3. Stop trying to be 'perfect'.

The thing that properly annoys me about studying psychology is when I start recognising some symptoms of disorders in myself. Once when I was doing my revision, there was a subtopic on neurotic personality. I was reading the signs of neuroticism aloud to myself and after a few signs I just sort of stopped talking because it was as if my textbook was describing me – "wants to be liked by everybody, 'must' get everything right, 'must' be good in everything they do," etc etc..... I'm not gonna tell you all of them 'cause it's quite embarrassing haha. After reading the section I made a mental conclusion: "Okay Tin, so someone who's neurotic is basically like you."

But when all is said and done, you can't really please everybody so no, not everyone is going to like you. You're human and humans make mistakes, so don't think that you 'must' get everything right. And you can do your best in everything that you do, but let's be real: you can't be good at absolutely everything. You can be the best version of yourself, but you can't be perfect.

Let it go.

4. Everything will be okay.

Take life one day at a time. Wherever you're headed, you will get there in due time, insyaAllah. You may not know yet how you'll overcome the obstacles to get to the end, but just have faith that you will. "Believe that you can and you're already halfway there."

5. Trust that God will always have your back.

Time and time again, I am always reminded that when I have God by my side, nothing is impossible. It's truly amazing how He continues to shower me with His Mercy no matter how many times I've turned away :( Alhamdulillah, for everything. I pray that He'll allow me to turn to Him more and more each day, praise Him more, rely on Him more, and learn to depend on Him and only Him, no matter what I'm facing. No request is too small or too big, I believe. And if something doesn't go according to my plans, it's certainly following God's plans. He Knows best after all. I need to keep that in mind and never doubt His plans for me.

6. Eat more veggies.

Ever since I came to London and started living on my own, I told myself that I had to start acting like an adult and make adult decisions – so I decided to start eating vegetables. Hahaha. But since I've been avoiding them most of my life, it's become a hard habit to break until now. Whenever I remember, I do make the effort to include some greens inside my cooking and I gotta say I'd feel pretty damn great afterwards. I would eat like, beberapa helai spinach and feel super proud of myself. This year, I want to open more doors and break more barriers!

Let's start with broccoli!

7. Shop less.

Actually, this has been a monthly resolution these past few years. It's 2016 now; looks like nothing much has changed. I think it's about time that I stop thinking with my heart and start thinking with my bank account. Nghhh.....

*returns shoes to Asos*

The Canadian girl

Hi blog, hi everyone, hi 2016.

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post. I admit that a lot has happened since then, but a month?! Crikey. It sure felt like a lot less than that. Anyway, I've been wanting to write a bit about what I was up to over my winter break. I had such a lovely break and I'm sad that it had to end, but sometimes I think the temporariness of things makes them all the more special, no?

Last December, right after I was done with my submissions, a good friend of mine came to London from Canada. I was super duper excited when she told me that she was visiting 'cause I hadn't seen her in like, a year and a half which is just ridiculous. I didn't get to see her last summer 'cause we got no jodoh; she only went back to KL after I'd flown back to London. The only contact we'd had was over text, and even then I'd usually forget to reply her at some point and would only get back to her after like two days and continue the convo as if nothing happened. I don't know how I became such a lazy texter hahaha but Amal still always makes the effort to text me about random stuff every now and then. She's incredible like that; always brings colours to everyone's lives. So anyway, Amal & I practically had been counting days till she arrived in Landan, occasionally texting each other "OMG giiiiirrrrrl!!! X days left! So excitedddd!" Totally lost our chill when she arrived outside my apartment building.

The top priority of her trip was, obviously, Malaysian food. What else could it be, right? Hahaha the girl's been deprived for too long so we took her to this mamak place in London that is the ultimate lifesaver for Malaysians in the UK, 'cause it's the only legit mamak restaurant that I know of here. I mean, they even tebar the roti canai and scribble your receipt on a piece of paper and everything.

The restaurant's called Roti King and it's located just outside Euston's tube station. It's a really small place though, and sometimes you'd find a queue outside it, like we did. If you haven't already gone there, you definitely should (why wouldn't you?!), but I'd recommend you to avoid the lunch hours. We had to wait for quite a bit and it sure worked up our appetites!

4 girls, 6 dishes. What'd I tell you hehe. Afterwards we went to walk around Carnaby Street and met up with Marissa & Azam there. It's sooo good to see these people la after so long. And London was pleasantly warm that day, which made it even better! I was only wearing a blazer and even then, it felt warm in some instances. The Canadian girl was just walking around in a t-shirt & a denim shirt tied around her waist, 'just in case' hahaha. Lovely day, lovely company – what more could I ask for! (N.B: don't answer that.)

What I looove about Oxford Street at that time of year are the Christmas decorations and window displays that they put up. So festive and just so so beautiful. The swarm of Christmas shoppers can get a bit too overwhelming though, so it's quite tricky to pick a nice time to go there without getting caught in the crowd. Buttt I had a great time anyway. Always is with these girls! <3