Winter hitting us soon.
Its going to be winter soon. No less the fact that there is no white snow falling from the sky does not mean that it will be any less cold.
The weather report on tv says that it will 5degrees celcius tomorrow, which according to Tony, would mean the start of the Winter soon....(regardless of whether it has officially been declared "winter" yet..) Anyway, as I have said before, Toowoomba is on highlands, and inland. It's also rather windy here, and will be much colder earlier than those living on the Australian coast
It is generally know that your first experience of winter (or anything unknown) will always be memorable (or the worst if it comes to that), but the second will be better after you have gone through it. Hmmm....
Tony says that the sun will start to set by 4.30pm when winter hits us, and dawn at 7.00am.... It is a wonder why Malaysians like us who have never left the country for practically all of our lives could not understand why people in Australia stop work at 5pm.
Imagine coming home from work at 5, and the sun is already dark. Of course, the sun starts to set at 7.30pm in Kuala Lumpur, but of course, we are only understanding the Australian's context of time from our own KL'ian context, not theirs.
It is a really darn annoying thing to have to go home by 5pm, coz the sun starts to set by then, and it is dangerous for the fairer sex like me to go walking off by myself to my friend's place, which I could very much not do, since I do not have the additional priviledge of the 2 hours of daylight like I could back in KL.
Of course, the other thing that I remember about the winter is the vignitte by my Cross-Communication Lecturer, Mr. Chang, about how he could not understand why women go around in a bikini, when "from his context" it was blazing hot. It was not till he experienced the same weather himself, did he realise that although the sun was shining that day, it was actually freezing cold....but of course, even if you see that on tv, you as the viewer, would not be able to experience it from their context....
If you are a tourist, say like in China, where I went for a week many years back, the significance of the lifestyle may not hit you, till you are actually living there for a significant duration of time.
No less, you can say I am still in the "KL"ian context of time. The joke says,
"You can take a person out of the culture, but you can't take the culture out of the person".
In which case, the person is me, having fully grown in KL all my life, and used to the culture of my homeland, and not Toowoomba's. It may take me longer than I thought to get used to the lifestyle here.
It is a bit hard not having had any Malaysian food any time I like...I haven't had teh tarik in a long long time. Seafood of any kind is expensive in the inlands, and definitely in Australia. But I can survive that...I am not too fussy about the food I eat anyway.
If you were wondering, no, I have no intention of returning back to KL any time soon. Not so soon anyway. It's too short a period of time during the leave of my absence to have affected any noteworthy change, nor for me to notice any. Everything will still be the same except for the fact that some of my friends have found new jobs, new beaus, higher pay packets, and some may be getting married soon enough within this year.
I miss the Malay food. You can barely find any in Australia, though an electic variety of Chinese food can be found wherever Chinese people are found.....(just not nearby).
There is no nasi lemak, teh tarik, rendang ayam, A&W root beer, roti canai, chicken rice, or the char kway teow like the one from the stall near my Auntie's house.
I miss my friends from FGA. People who are mature in their walk like Madeline, Katherine, Jess, & Jacqueline who will text me "biblical" advice when I need some.....
I miss my cracker jack friend, Annie, who is now in the States for nearly 2 years soon, but we converse through Skype. Oi people...get Skype ler....talk is also FREE!
(If you were wondering, I CAN'T INCLUDE everyone's name....)
Anyway, just pray for me for wisdom that I get my assignments done well, that God will help me find the path that He envisioned in my coming here, and that I find like-minded female friends who are as serious (and as randomly mad as I am).
The weather report on tv says that it will 5degrees celcius tomorrow, which according to Tony, would mean the start of the Winter soon....(regardless of whether it has officially been declared "winter" yet..) Anyway, as I have said before, Toowoomba is on highlands, and inland. It's also rather windy here, and will be much colder earlier than those living on the Australian coast
It is generally know that your first experience of winter (or anything unknown) will always be memorable (or the worst if it comes to that), but the second will be better after you have gone through it. Hmmm....
Tony says that the sun will start to set by 4.30pm when winter hits us, and dawn at 7.00am.... It is a wonder why Malaysians like us who have never left the country for practically all of our lives could not understand why people in Australia stop work at 5pm.
Imagine coming home from work at 5, and the sun is already dark. Of course, the sun starts to set at 7.30pm in Kuala Lumpur, but of course, we are only understanding the Australian's context of time from our own KL'ian context, not theirs.
It is a really darn annoying thing to have to go home by 5pm, coz the sun starts to set by then, and it is dangerous for the fairer sex like me to go walking off by myself to my friend's place, which I could very much not do, since I do not have the additional priviledge of the 2 hours of daylight like I could back in KL.
Of course, the other thing that I remember about the winter is the vignitte by my Cross-Communication Lecturer, Mr. Chang, about how he could not understand why women go around in a bikini, when "from his context" it was blazing hot. It was not till he experienced the same weather himself, did he realise that although the sun was shining that day, it was actually freezing cold....but of course, even if you see that on tv, you as the viewer, would not be able to experience it from their context....
If you are a tourist, say like in China, where I went for a week many years back, the significance of the lifestyle may not hit you, till you are actually living there for a significant duration of time.
No less, you can say I am still in the "KL"ian context of time. The joke says,
"You can take a person out of the culture, but you can't take the culture out of the person".
In which case, the person is me, having fully grown in KL all my life, and used to the culture of my homeland, and not Toowoomba's. It may take me longer than I thought to get used to the lifestyle here.
It is a bit hard not having had any Malaysian food any time I like...I haven't had teh tarik in a long long time. Seafood of any kind is expensive in the inlands, and definitely in Australia. But I can survive that...I am not too fussy about the food I eat anyway.
If you were wondering, no, I have no intention of returning back to KL any time soon. Not so soon anyway. It's too short a period of time during the leave of my absence to have affected any noteworthy change, nor for me to notice any. Everything will still be the same except for the fact that some of my friends have found new jobs, new beaus, higher pay packets, and some may be getting married soon enough within this year.
I miss the Malay food. You can barely find any in Australia, though an electic variety of Chinese food can be found wherever Chinese people are found.....(just not nearby).
There is no nasi lemak, teh tarik, rendang ayam, A&W root beer, roti canai, chicken rice, or the char kway teow like the one from the stall near my Auntie's house.
I miss my friends from FGA. People who are mature in their walk like Madeline, Katherine, Jess, & Jacqueline who will text me "biblical" advice when I need some.....
I miss my cracker jack friend, Annie, who is now in the States for nearly 2 years soon, but we converse through Skype. Oi people...get Skype ler....talk is also FREE!
(If you were wondering, I CAN'T INCLUDE everyone's name....)
Anyway, just pray for me for wisdom that I get my assignments done well, that God will help me find the path that He envisioned in my coming here, and that I find like-minded female friends who are as serious (and as randomly mad as I am).
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