Prologue

This is one of my favourite months.  After a whole year of travelling and learning from books, people, sights, smells, and God, I just feel so great to have days all to myself.  Some regard it as boredom but I call it FREEDOM.  After gruelling 10-hour (or more) study days, jet-lagged days, running-around-for-projects days, training days, and not-enough-time days, I just feel so so so great to have a day where I get to do nothing.  Once in a while that is :)

With all the hype about college, I realised I haven't thought much about it.  It's hard when you have six months of your life planned out and at the same time, you have no idea of how it would turn out in the end.  And also because you have so little control over it.  In some ways, it kills me.  In some ways, the possibilities excite me endlessly.

Applying for the Youth Exchange & Study (YES) Program was very planned out in a way that my eyes never left what I was yearning for.  I really really wanted to go for the six-month student exchange programme to the US and yet so scared that I wouldn't get it.  So scared that I never dared to think about the possibilities beyond the selection camp.  So, when I finally got the news, I was just...flying.  Even though I'm not very good with expressing myself in general if I didn't want to, I was definitely on a high in my own little mind.

The whole US thing has finally hit - not fully - but it has hit me and it came along with a hundred and one questions.  Where would I be placed?  How are the people there?  Am I going to be on television?  How are the schoosl there? Does discrimination exist? How much do they know about Malaysia? If you're good at something, will the kids there hate or love you? WILL I SURVIVE? (:

Well, I guess if you put it that way, everything seems scary. And much to some readers' surprise, I don't know the answers to all of them.  But, I guess it doesn't matter.  With many days of thinking (months actually), I've realised that perfection, smooth communication, a total know-it-all, overwhelming patriotism, and excessive friendliness is not what makes up an exchange student.

Personally, I think exchange students are supposed to be people who are willing to learn new things and accept differences. I think, to a certain extent, dreams are important because they are what keep us going every day in facing whatever challenges life throws at us.  Two things. First, Passion.  I just feel that as long as you want to do something and your passion in learning something new everyday continues to excite you, it will never fail to contribute to the whole experience and growth as a person.  Second, God (obviously surpassing passion).  Ultimately, knowing and never forgetting where you came from, to me, is what makes you or breaks you in times of struggle.  It would be such a lie to say that the coming six months are going to be entirely filled with happy moments.  Emotional highs and lows are inevitable and very important actually.  What matters to me I think is the ability to know what is right and what is wrong, where the limits are and that God is with us.  In my opinion, exposure is better than being kept in the dark about things that are happening in the world that you and I are living in.

It is a greater achievement to say that I have faith in God after never letting go of His hand in overcoming temptations than to say that I have faith in God without the courage to test my own strength in overcoming temptation for fear of defeat.

So, even though it is roughly three weeks away, I just want to say,

See you very soon Malaysia, Hello United States of America!

Long ago, I had a dream.  A dream to go to the United States of America.  And now my dream is coming true but it is not the end.  As a traveller in this world, I say it is just the beginning. (:

God I have faith in You.