Soar and S'more.

Counting down 9 days till I leave Vegas... Yes, I'm excited to go home and meet my beloved family and friends, but I'm really sad to leave my wonderful host family and my amazing friends. I still remember how I felt during my flight. I was nervous but super excited that meet my host family. I was thinking how should I call them and what I can say if things get awkward. And yay I arrived. I remember the first thing I saw when I arrived at the McCarran International Airport - slot machines. Dang. It's Vegas being Vegas. *laugh* (And guess what? There are slot machines in the pharmacies too! No idea why but it doesn't matter. It's Vegas. That explains it all.) I remember my host mum was looking smoking hot at the airport :P And we went to... (Let's just skip it. I swear I can tell you every single detail that happened on my first day here but I don't know how long I will take to finish it.) My exchange journey had been amazing. It's full of ups and do...

I can't believe that I had already lived here for more than 2 months. 53 days until I leave Vegas!! *cries* I love this place, or to be more specific, Summerlin. School had been super duper  kinda easy to me. (Apparently, most of the exchange students agree with it - American high schools are easy.) I mean, I am still struggling in Mythology (currently we are learning about Beowulf which is so confusing I wanna die) (or maybe not) and also English (we are reading Frankenstein and it gave me night mare - I dreamed about a dead body came back to live after struck by a lightning and it chased me) but at the same time I am really getting so bored having tons of fun in Chemistry and Algebra II. My projects for Ceramics I were kinda really bad. Basically the process of making a project is like this: Given a task > have a great picture of the project in mind > start working it > it cracks/falls here and there > try to fix it > still couldn't work > try again ...

Some cultural differences between most-but-not-all Americans and most-but-not-all Malaysians: 1. You don't answer 'never mind' when somebody apologizes to you unless you hate that person. 2. There is a big difference between paper towel, napkin, tissue and toilet paper. 3. You don't call toilet 'toilet', you call it bathroom. 4. 'I'm good' instead of 'no, thanks'. 5. 'I don't care' means I don't mind. 6. Usually, the drivers yield when a passenger wants to cross a road. 7. No service charge but you are very welcomed to pay the waiters/waitresses tips! 8. *this post is to be updated*

Let's talk about American High School. I leave for school around 7.30 a.m. School starts at 8 a.m. It ends around 2.16 p.m. My classes are (listed according to the period): U.S. Government, Dance I, Algebra II, Psychology, Ceramics I, Chemistry, English 12 and Mythology & Folklore. I have 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th period on A days and 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th period on B days. This is how it works: First day of school - Mon - A day Tues - B day Wed - A Thurs - B Fri - A and the following week goes: Mon - B Tues - A Wed - B Thurs - A Fri - B and it just keeps on ABABABABAB. I don't care if you don't get what I mean. Sometimes I get confused too. I need to ask my friend to confirm if the following day is an A day or a B day. Unlike Malaysia, it is not compulsory for a student to join a school club. (No PBSM yay!) A lot of students do not involve themselves in clubs. Personally I think those school clubs are fun. I am currently joining Key Club which provi...

I am very blessed to live in Summerlin, Las Vegas. It is a very beautiful neighborhood. I really love it here. I love how the strangers greet each other when they simply meet by the roadside. I love how the waiters in the restaurant serve the customers. I love how the cashiers in the supermarket make conversations with the people. I love gift cards. (it could save me a lot of troubles thinking about what to give to others) I love the dry desert weather, though I struggled at the first few weeks, because I can finally get rid of mosquitoes bites and I can walk around without sweating. I love the education system here because it is not 100% paper-based. I love the fun classes in school. I love bonfire. I love s'more. I love roasted marshmallow. Can I move my family and my homies here, instead of me flying back to Malaysia? Again, I am blessed enough to get straight A's in SPM. Honestly I wished I get more A+, but I am still grateful for everything. Maybe because I am far away i...

I'm sorry I didn't update my blog as much as I thought I would. Basically, everything is getting better for me. I love going to school. I made friends. I find the teachers amazing. I enjoyed the classes. I joined Key Club. It's kinda sad that I am only here for the 2nd semester. I wish I can study in the school for years. I volunteer in church every Sunday. I am starting my volunteerism in the library tomorrow too. I am still looking up places to volunteer (because I am kinda free after school) and yay feeling so productive. To be honest I have a lot more to tell but I am just lazy to write an essay now. Good bye.

I started my American high school life last Monday. The first few days at school are really bad. Well, maybe not that bad, but I felt so left out and helpless. My school is a overpopulated school. There are around 3,000 students and we all go to school at about the same time. There is no morning session or afternoon session like Malaysia. We do have 2 lunch session, but the cafeteria is still very crowded in both session. Some people go to choir room, some people just sit at the stairs, some people just sit around the school compound. You know what? Nobody knows I'm an exchange student until I clarify so. When I said I'm new, they thought I'm an American moved from another state to Vegas. When I told them I'm from Malaysia, they thought I moved from Malaysia to Vegas. But, still, nobody cares about exchange student LOL. This place is just so diverse that we have people all around the world moving here. I've met some students who migrated from Taiwan and Italy to A...

It's so awesome, feeling the snow for the first time and stuff. But I wished to talk about pre-departure orientation, which will ruin every expectation that you might have before leaving for the States. It was held in i-City Best Western Hotel for 4 days 3 nights. They took away our phones and that was saddening. It was very stressful for the first day, but it got better in the following days. We talked about religion, expectation, adjustment cycle and communication with host family. It was kinda out of expectation. When I first applied for the program, I did not realize that there are so many details in adjusting to a new culture and lifestyle. I felt clueless and nervous, but at the same time excited to start the journey. Like what the people from U.S. embassy told me during the farewell lunch, "It's not always gonna be easy." So yeah, I'll enjoy every single moment when I'm there! It took me 13 hours from Malaysia to Amsterdam, Netherlands and another 8...