Peace be upon you, dear readers!
It's a final page of the year 2023. It wasn't a good year to be honest, but I learnt a lot. I couldn't recall so much of things happening this year because mostly they were unproductive days. However, there were also good things that I was grateful for.
We started this year with resuming the previous academic calendar year; the 2022/2023. We had Ujian Akhir Sesi Akademik (UASA) for the first time, then we had Majlis Anugerah Kecemerlangan Murid (MAKM), then sambutan Hari Jadi Murid Asrama. I remember it stopped there. We had a month school break, and I spent mostly my break at school. I repainted my class, I helped the Asrama Team to paint the asrama too. I spent most of my school break at school. It's a boring tale.
Then, when school reopened, it was time for Ramadhan and Hari Raya. Ramadhan was great (but the year with Covid was greater), Raya was fine, but I didn't get to jalan-jalan simply because I refused. We did a home-photo-shooting for raya. Then, it was time for school again. We had an event for Cikgu Welen in May, together with Hari Raya, Guru and Gawai celebrations, all in one. I guessed, that was the end of all our excitement in school.
End of May, I went for a road trip, finally I went out the border of my own district. We got to experience Pan-Borneo Highway, from Selangau to Kuching and it was convenient and splendid. The journey was comfortable too and the highway shorten our journey by almost 2 hours, I think. I got to wander around Kuching too, though it was short but it was the best because I hadn't been travelling for nearly a year after Covid.
Then, came June, July and August. I couldn't recall much of what happened in those months, but for sure, those weren't good months. I discovered my own colleague hated me and talked about me behind my back for things I didn't do. I was confused. It was obvious. School was no longer a happy place. I had my downs, week by week. Early August, I purchased a concert ticket to Yunaverse. I was excited to go on a solo trip in two months. I then booked my air return ticket, then my stay at a backpacker pod. I was excited.
Early September, I was promoted to become a Senior Assistant, and ahead of me there were few other senior teachers. That was the worst week of the year. I cried everyday, every night and every morning before I headed to school. I cried the hardest I could, but I made sure I didn't cry again the following week. Slowly, I struggled to lift myself up again. My colleague came to see me, out of sudden that one evening, to say how sorry he was but things can never be the same again. Awkward. We didn't talk now, I refused and maybe he refused too. We talked when there were works related. I didn't like my workplace anymore. I hated it then. Days passed and I was getting better. I had to be better.
Then, came October. I had courses in Miri, then a week in Mukah. I was selected as part of MARA programme namely Mathematics for Rural Kids (MARK). October was the busiest. October was ended by my trip to Kuala Lumpur for Yunaverse. It was a short trip because so many things awaited in November. Early November, I was in Sibu for Scrabble competition. We won 3rd again this year. I was paired with lots of ladies this year, two of them were new. We had our struggles too, most of our senior players couldn't play because so many events coincided in the same week. We recruited quite a number of new players, and Mukah Team was seen as underdog. Little to their surprise, the underdog team consisted of mostly young players made it to the semi-final and won third for real (last year was ketiga bersama).]
After that, I went to Sibu again for Sukan Peribumi, forcefully. This was when Habib got to know the real me. I was mad and shouted at him in the car. Something terribly happened from school, management teams and colleagues led to this. I regretted it, but at least I woke him up from his long dream of ignorance. Our friendship scarred. We didn't joke around like we used to anymore. Maybe it was for the good, I wasn't sure. What good thing this month was, I got to see friend-of-friend, an English Excellence Teacher in Selangau, Ms Venissa, who was also a Public Gold active dealer. I bought my first gram under her. To date, I had collected a total of 3 grams of gold as an investment. I promised to buy a gram per month, consistently.
When November ended, we needed to be ready for a last minute sport day on the first week of December. I performed a lot my duty as a leader this month, though I wasn't fully ready. My boss was missing a few days in a week, almost every week. I had be in control of the school. Then, it was time for a short school break. I spent the first week in school, did my works a bit then the following week was a few pages of this chapter before we close this book of 2023. Nothing much happened really, went to Miri with my mom for a wedding, stayed overnight then headed home again the following day. Now, it's the 365/365 page of 2023.
Phew~~~
This year, I missed a lot, especially my 8Ss principle; Solat/Sembahyang, Sihat/Sejahtera, Simpan/Saving, Sedekah, Syukur, Social Media cleansing, Success and Scholarship. Let breakdown this.
1. Solat/Sembahyang di awal waktu dan ketika musafir. I failed tremendously this year. Consistency was the hardest when you want to change yourself.
2. Sihat/Sejahtera, so exercise and eat healthily. I gained so much weight, now I'm at 97kg by the end of this year. I gained 10kgs from 87kg which I cut from 93kgs in previous year. My ankle sprained twice after a heavy run I had. I'm at my worst.
3. Simpan/Savings. Now, I have a few saving or investment accounts. However, the more I saved, the more I dug. So, it remained stagnant. In November, I started with gold investment. I regained my spirit back, now I have 3 grams of gold with Public Gold and 1.065 grams in my Maybank Islamic Gold Account (MiGA). I promised to consistently buying gold every month in those two accounts. My SSPN Prime account was doing good, consistently saved RM100 per month but I withdrew RM500 in October. Tabung Haji was doing good too, consistenly saved RM200 per month, but this was the account that I dug the most almost every month when I ran out. Gosh!
4. Sedekah, every month and on behalf of Ayah. I only sedekah in the month of Ramadhan this year and this is sad.
5. Syukur, always praise for Allah. I couldn't deny I had lot of downs this year and I forgot to praise Allah for everything He had made me. There were always reason to them.
6. Social Media cleansing; reduce them. Now, I rarely posting on my IG, reactivated my Facebook and became a frequent Tik Tok viewer. Gosh!
7. Success, apply for Excellence Teacher. Missed the deadline and not working hard towards achieving it. No write-ups, small scale research bla bla bla.
8. Scholarship, the Chevening. Purposely missed it because I had no Person of Reference, no time for IELTS and no abroad Uni granted a postgraduate with 3.26 CGPA during their undergraduate. Now I regretted of me saying "Alaaa, pointer 3.0 pun nanti posting gaji sama je". If you want to grow, you can either grow with your own money or grow for free, and I wanted the later. Next, try HLP and MEXT!
So, are you ready for 2024???
