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When things go wrong as they sometimes will,

When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is strange with its twists and turns

As every one of us sometimes learns

And many a failure comes about

When he might have won had he stuck it out;

Don't give up though the pace seems slow—

You may succeed with another blow.

Success is failure turned inside out—

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,

And you never can tell just how close you are,

It may be near when it seems so far;

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit—

It's when things seem worst that you must not quit

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This is one of my favourite book series, one of the last novel I read before technology took over and I barely reading books again. If I remember it correctly, I was around 12 years old when I read the first book of this series, which was actually owned by my late father. He loves the author, Jeffrey Archer very much so we had a lot of his books on our home shelves.

The story revolves around a family; the Cliftons where it follows through the generation. What I like about this series is that it doesn’t have a typical storyline like most novels do and it really does not get boring. I still have two more books from the series that I have yet to read since they were just released a few years back. I will definitely read them as soon as I finish high school next year!

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I finally made a few public Spotify playlists yesterday. All this while, I’d just optioned to the ready made playlists available online. However, lately I have been more picky about my music choice. I’m not subscribe to a paid account so I couldn’t have my preferred music on play immediately. The best solution right now is definitely making my own playlists.

Making a few playlists was quite time consuming but it is very worthwhile. I’d like to share one of my personal favourites. This playlist is titled ‘Paul’, inspired by one of my all-time favourite— Paul by Hyukoh. The word ‘paul’ derives from a latin word meaning "small" or "humble". Sometimes, there are times where you need to feel small and humble to the things around you. This playlist was made with that feeling in mind.

Playlist’s link: https://open.spotify.com/user/lroqp7ccyfkdj5qzkxrorx1gt/playlist/5zjkwoVbpunrtrkT2pqnhl?si=QoxsEmAyQXmAIb02W1bYFQ

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When I study, I always get bored when it gets too... empty. So I turn on some background music to help me focus better. However, I don’t like studying with lots of noises. The best way was to put on sounds instead of people singing: such as jazz or lo-fi beats.

Today I’d like to share two of my favourite spotify playlists I’ll play when I’m studying or just when I need some space for thinking.

Link to Lo-Fi beats playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWWQRwui0ExPn?si=UEjcfs_MRNmn8h2jE5XDjg

Link to Jazz in the background playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWV7EzJMK2FUI?si=Px6UZJ7zSfS6BA9MtOjnGQ

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Lately, I haven’t been watching many movies or dramas but one show for sure caught my attention on Netflix. It is an American docudrama film directed by Jeff Orlowski. The documentary revolves around the impact of social networking where some of the most known tech experts are gathered to give out their opinions and discuss how alarmingly dangerous the impact of social networking is on humanity.

I think this documentary is very well made and an eye opener especially to younger generations like me who are directly impacted to the topic discussed. However, I do believe older generation should watch this too and understand how the world right now is changing. It brings a lot of insights on the things that are mostly unknown or unfamiliar to some.

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When it comes to choosing a song to play in the background, this playlist is always my go-to choice! Perfect to listen to on rainy days or relaxing evenings. 👍🏻

Link to playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX5g856aiKiDS?si=d1gFfQ99TVulrBeCiKjqAg

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This is a quite random topic to talk about but I really do love picnics so much! It is such a low cost and fun activity to do with friends or family. I’ve always had a very good time whenever I go picnicking so today I would just like to share some of the tips to a good picnic

First, the location. This is actually not very important depending on the type of person you are. If it’s me, I sometimes just have a picnic in my own backyard. Of course, the more exciting the place is, the better it is. Avoid very crowded parks and try to find a quiet calming spot for the best time. I always opt for shady places like under a big tree or at the corner of a park where kids are not usually running around.

Secondly, the time. This is very very important especially seeing how very hot our country is, never go on picnics at midday. Not only will you have an uncomfortable time, you might also get skin cancer from all the dangerous UV rays you’re exposing yourself to. Even if you go on picnics at any other time, don’t forget to put on sunscreen! My favourite time for a picnic would be around 5 because it is usually windy at that time and you have plenty of time before the sun sets.

Another important thing to decide is the activity. This is really just up to yourself. Even playing your phone and snacking around is a fine time guaranteed. I usually find myself drawing and journalling during picnics. It is a great time to relax and rewind and the creative juices just flows out when you don’t have anything planned.

I hope this is an interesting post and you will find yourself enjoying yourself on a picnic sooner or later :)

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I went on my very first trip in Japan with my friend. She was one of my closest friend while I was in Japan. We decide to go on a trip to Otaru, one of the biggest tourist spot in Hokkaido, probably is on every tourist’s to-go place.

It was the starting of autumn and the leaves were starting to change colours. It was bummer that we couldn’t get to see this place during the peak autumn season but it was still very beautiful. Since our money was quite limited at that time and most of it were spent on transportation, we couldn’t do much. Just a lot of walking and trying food here and there.

To be honest the real reason why we ended up in Otaru was because I wanted to visit a recreation cafe here. I’m so glad we made it there although we had quite a hard time finding the cafe. It was one of the most interesting place I’ve visited in Hokkaido. We spent two hours there just playing games idling around the cafe with our drinks.

We were planning to go on another Otaru trip in the winter. Unfortunately, corona happened and we were sent back to Malaysia. I wish the world would be normal again soon because I really want to be able to go on trips like this again.

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I think I should stop writing too long of a post because the layout is getting a tad bit weird. So now I am just going to introduce my favourite spot in Sapporo, a very famous tourist spot but somehow is loved by the locals too. Contrary to what you’d expect, there aren’t that much people here on most days. The park is very long, so you could easily find a very isolated part if you want a peace of mind from the bustling city.

The environment is super great during summer and autumn, everyone stops by here to have a picnic during these times. That of course, includes me. Plus, my dorm is just two stations away from this park. It’d just take me 10 minutes if I was to bike.

Weirdly, padlet doesn’t allow me to post a lot of photos. If you couldn’t tell, I’m not excellent at describing things so I am just going to attach a collage of photos I took at this park. :)

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On the 4th of August 2019, we finally departed on our flight to Japan. It was the start to our very exciting exchange journey. Nothing was to be expected and it was just really a trip full of anxiousness and excitement.

During our first few weeks, we stayed at Narita Hotel for our orientation. Only a few countries joined this orientation so there weren’t that much students during that time. We did tons of activities everyday from cultural learning to language classes, It was pretty much like attending a long seminar about Japan.

For two weeks, we weren’t allowed to leave the hotel compound. As a person who gets extremely claustrophobic easily, it wasn’t a very pleasant time but the wonderful people I met there made up for it.

We left for our very first visit trip to Narita Temple, which is one of the main temple and must-visits in Japan, surrounded by beautiful heritage sites and a old classic Japanese town. Narita translated means land of fields, so the entire journey going there was filled with sceneries of paddy and grass fields.

A week later, we left Narita for a conference in Nagoya Japan, which is the most anticipated trip for everyone. We have been preparing for the conference for quite some time then, and finally depart to another city just sparks everyone’s joy. The journey was very exhausting though as Nagoya and Narita takes almost 6 hours by bus.

After the conference and some time spent in Nagoya, we returned to Narita for the actual orientation. I was shocked at first. Coming back and seeing so many students gathered up at the hotel. That moment is when it really hit me that I’m actually on exchange program. Eeverything was just a short tease to the actual experience for me.

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It was the end of summer break, and finally my first day in school! Nothing peaks my excitement like when I first got my very own school uniform, with a skirt and a coat. Oh how I wish we had those high quality uniforms in Malaysia too. But of course I wouldn’t have been able to afford them anyways if they do decide to do so here.

To be extra honest, there wasn’t much to my first day of school, we just had a school tour and was forced to sit on the stage for a one hour long assembly just to tell everyone that we are the new exchange students. Nothing much, just anxiety spiking up. Plus, that was the very first time for me to practice full Japanese for a whole day! Yep, totally failed it. No worries though because everyone have probably forgotten my broken Japanese back then. The good thing is, I made a bunch of new friends and lucky me, they aren’t your typical shy Japanese people. Perhaps maybe friendlier than myself.

My school isn’t as great as other exchange students’ schools but I’m very grateful for it. It may not be the most academically competent school but they do students who have very high social skills that can make up for the lack of mine. So I’ve never had a problem making friends as compared to other exchange students, despite my very poor language skills.