Happiness of a boarding school girl

Haaaaa, tell me, what are the things that make you happy when you live in a hostel.

My first answer is, A VISITOR!

Since my time in UTP, I received a few visits from friends. Ida, Me'e, Top and today En Firdaus!.
Yeayyyyy! I was so happy that I treated him like a friend despite our age difference and status. He is my manager that is responsible of my well being at Schlumberger office. We were not that close at the office because I was a bit shy being myself that talk too much nonsense. So, while being at the office, I just speak whenever needed. I restrict myself for being too chatty because I understand where I am at.

But, as for today, when I just finished ranting on my viva performance to my friends, I received a call from En Firdaus. And, I became that 'gedik' girl that people hated. (laughing). I even asked him to come and visit me at the hostel with an ice cream treat in return. Actually, I just wanted to share my excitement about finishing the  presentation. Although, I had disappointed myself for not being able to perform at my best (my friend said I was too perfectionist that I always felt insufficient for everything), I just tried to let everything go. After all, things had happened and what I need to do now is pray and tawakkal. The presence of a visitor has always me good feeling to be cheerful at least for a few days. (laughing). So, people, do come and visit me later whenever you are free, okay? Although my time here in UTP is almost over, just pay me a visit whenever you are around me, okay? Hihi.

We are not 'katak bawah tempurung'

It does not feel complete if you live in Perak but never go to Gua Tempurung. My friend once said, it was in her wish list to go caving in Gua Tempurung which is famously known as the biggest cave in Peninsular Malaysia. How true the fact is, just google it online. From Pak Cik Salleh, the displacement of of the cave is 1.9km. BUT, that is not the distance you are going to walk through in the cave, since you will be climbing up and down the stairs to get to the checkpoints, and the net distance will be more than 1.9km. Oh, please look up for difference between distance and displacement if you want to know more. LOL

We had been planning for this expedition for several days. But, it turned out that I was the one who had less courage to continue. The morning we supposed to depart to the cave, I was being childish, whining and ranting as I did not want to go. I felt that I would be a burden to anyone else if I did not have that fitness to continue the expedition. When we finally decided to change the activity to ride on a banana boat at Teluk Batik, I changed my mind again to go to Gua Tempurung instead, after I finished taking shower. 

It took half an hour to arrive at Gua Tempurung from Seri Iskandar. When we arrived, there were two other groups of five waited at the entrance. When we wanted to buy the tickets for Route 3, the receptionist said,

Only route 4 could depart now. If you insist to proceed on route 3, you have to wait for others to come. 

Just imagine the next drama that turned up after that statement.

Are we really going in with Route 4? We just barely decided to come here. And, now we wanted to do the extreme one directly?

Fortunately, we managed to buy times to decide since one of us answered her nature call. LOL. The tour guide talked to us that we would be okay with route 4 as he would take us at our pace. Did I get convinced? Not yet. As soon as the friend returned, then we decided to buy the tickets. It costed us RM 30 per person, and RM5 per torch light. 

We went in and followed the trail. The cave is dark (obviously), but could have been brighter if the maintenance is top-notch. The tour guide, Pak Cik Salleh explained briefly about the 400 millions years-aged cave history and some remarks. He pointed to some of unique shapes on the rock caves that are similar to heart, cow, elephant, and even a pregnant lady. But, it is up to our perspective to see that though. One may see the shape similar, one may not even agree on that. Art is subjective and it is up to individual's judgement. As we walked through, we tried to relate our poor knowledge from geology classes. Obviously, none of us had forgotten some of the rock's names and was talking nonsense based on our own interpretation. (laughing)

We crawled in the water, met a cave frog, arrived at the other end of the cave, sledged from a great height of rocks, jumped into a pore, etc etc. We had good times in there, thanked to the great companion. The boys were sporting, we took photos together and shared the thrill and excitements while being in the expedition. And, I did not expect that I met group mate from Projek Kalsom 17. It had been a while since we last met.

I survived the expedition safely with no injury. I only had two small bruises on my knee as I crawled on the clastic sedimentary rocks in the river. The experience is truly unforgettable. If you ask me to do it once more, I may say yes but I may say no at the end. (laughing). It depends on my fickle mood.