Tok Abah is hospitalized and Tok Mak wants me to be the Prime Minister

If you read my previous post, you already knew that I'm kinda in an unstable condition.

On Thursday night, my uncle told us in the big family whatsapp group that my tok abah is warded. 

That's all, no explanation, nothing.

Tok abah is such a strong man, he doesn't fall sick very easily, so

having to know that he's warded obviously causes the whole family to be in a chaotic situation.

Mom and dad (and Ina) booked an emergency flight back to Semenanjung, all aunties and uncles rushed from KL to Melaka, life was pretty hectic.

I had no choice but to bug everyone asking for more updates, At the same time, I had a report due that midnight and a quiz to study for. I talked to Atika (my sister) about it cause we're the only twos that can't be there when the drama is happening.

We both came to a conclusion that we both are scared to read the messages on whatsapp on every morning because anything can happen when we're away. That's the drawback of studying abroad, you just have to accept all the news, good or bad, from home.

So, my tokabah lost a lot of blood, which the doctor found it rare because all of his organs are in perfect conditions and he didn't have injury or anything. So, there's blood transfer going on and at the same time, the doctor was interrogating the family members about the family medical history.

This morning, I got the chance to speak to tokmak about it.

I don't know whether it's just with my family or it's a normal phenomenon that old couples fight a lot. They fight each other like a child, omg you don't want me to start.

When I stayed with my grandparents over the summer, they fought all the time, 

even over simplest stuff.

I just found it funny lol.

Anyway, I gotta talk to tokmak about how things happened,

and tokmak and I, we had so many things in common and one of them is overthinking.

She can't see the doctor because she's scared of being diagnosed with any kind of diseases.

The doctor was just asking, trying to figure out the disease and she's already crying.

She's very dramatic, OMG.

So, I told her about me having the anxiety attack and I have to meet the psychiatrist soon,

and obviously, I had to translate the word 'psychiatrist' to an understandable Malay word which I couldn't find any appropriate term in my mind that time, so I came up with 'pakar sakit jiwa' and she freaked out!!! 

She didn't want me to be mad because of my study and she just can't accept that I'm having a stress issue and it's related to mental health haha. I mean, living in Canada makes me feel like depression is a common thing, but I don't blame her for not understanding this whole situation.

Anyway, as we talk, she mentioned about, how I should support the government cause government has done so many stuff for the people (oh yeah she's part of Wanita Umno and she's just their main lady, man!). I was just nodding, cause I obviously would have my own opinions (even I'm kinda behind on all political issues cause I couldn't even keep up with my life lol) about stuff and I was being completely respectful but she ended the sentence by saying

I should be the first woman Prime Minister in Malaysia.

....

What makes her think I'm eligible to even join politics, to begin with, hahaha

I have no interest in politics at all and I laughed so hard and she started to beat around the bush and she said, oh well maybe I can be one of the Ministers instead and make a decision for the country.

I mean...

At this point of time, I can't decide for my life, what more for the country lol

So, I changed the topic, talking about my cooking style and how I would cook so simple stuff cause I don't have time to spend on cooking like I had when I was in my first year

and about marriage (yeah I will tell you about that soon....)

After an hour and a half, she had to leave my place so we're about to say goodbye

and I didn't expect this coming at all.

She reminded me again about being the Minister/PM!!??!!

My reply was...

Maybe not the PM, but the PM's wife.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

jk!

Told Pan about this, and obviously, he's against this idea.

Tbh, I can't imagine myself being the leader of a country, I used to think that it's kinda cool

but as I grow older, I just feel like I can't carry that much of responsibility, on top of all the negative comments that I have to face and nope, I'm not up for the challenge.

After being the school head girl, I think I'm done joining anything that revolves

around political stuff. 

The school politics, office politics.

I don't think I'm good enough for these things.

I'm sorry, tokmak.

I don't want to let you down, but this dream of yours, won't be fulfilled.

I promise to be a better person, but not a better political leader.

At this point of life, 

I just wanna live happily,

with my family,

travel the world,

do what I wanna do.

Nothing interesting.

 I just want to live my life.

Anxiety Attack

Since last week, I am having trouble in breathing properly. Having shortness of breath always causes me trouble in sleeping, headache and sometimes I feel like vomiting.

At one point, I could feel like my heart just stopped beating before it would beat so fast

as if I just finished a marathon. I would overthink about it

especially after looking up on the net about the symptoms that I have.

Well, the symptoms lead to a heart disease that kinda needs an urgent treatment

but my schedule is so full that I don't have time to go to the clinic/hospital for a check-up.

But last Thursday, I had three hours of free time, so I thought I should see the doctor.

I didn't wanna go to the hospital because the doctors might think I was being dramatic about my 'disease' or I just overcomplicated stuff or everything was just in my head.

So I went to McGill clinic but unfortunately, the doctors were fully booked. 

I kinda don't get the healthcare system here because apparently, doctors can only treat a certain amount of patients every day and they can't go beyond the cap.

I don't get it, but anyway, I went to the receptionist, to explain my situation and apparently my case is kinda serious so they booked me a slot. It's an emergency, as they said, but I had to wait 2 hours for my turn. 

Long story short, I explained every situation that I had to go through and I was diagnosed as having an anxiety attack. My lungs and heart worked perfectly during the check-up, had no sign of asthmatic attack. I was not prescribed any medicine but I had to book an appointment with counselor/psychiatrist to connect the dots in finding the thing that triggers my anxiety level.

Well, we all know, it's all about academic stuff. I was asked the question, have I ever thought about committing suicide and my face was so shocked. Was it that serious?

But obviously, I never thought of that, but I just felt like sleeping the whole day

or I would just cry so much before going to sleep.

I was scared to open up about my problems, to begin with, but I decided to be frank and honest and I was told that what I'm going through is perfectly normal.

I have so many workloads, so many things on my plate and I don't have time for myself. 

I thought maybe I need to go for a short vacation somewhere but tbh, I don't think it works in a long run if I do not want to change the way I view things.

When people ask me what are my priorities in life, I can list all of them.

But little did I know, I just don't know my priority anymore.

Because the truth is, we can't prioritize everything as it kills the notion of having priority in the first place.

This weekend, it's a long weekend, due to Thanksgiving.

I started Friday night with having a me-time in a bookstore, trying to find good books to read over the Christmas break because I don't plan on going anywhere. I think this Christmas break will be all about spending time with me, myself and I. I need the break, not to travel, not to do something I have never done, nothing. I just want to read and chill and prepare for the next term.

Then, I went for dinner with my friends and watched anime with my roomies.

I also started my Saturday with my family. I facetime-d them and talked to tokmak and my mom. I had a long nap and I did my laundry, I ate and now I'm blogging.

I don't want to do anything related to academic stuff, I just want to chill.

But I'm still having shortness of breath.

I'm so confused now. Does 'thinking about stuff' could even trigger the anxiety attack?

Okay, I'm calling my psychiatrist boyfriend now.

  

How I remind myself to always be grateful?

One day, as I was walking to my morning class (I have 830 am class every day, not complaining), I just remembered my prayer, that I used to recite every day before going to bed and every time after the 5 times daily prayer. This is a line from my prayer that I recited every day since I was a kid. My parents thought me this and eventually, as I grow older, it has been my routine.

“…Ya Allah, berikanlah kami sekeluarga peluang untuk belajar ke luar negara…” translated to “…Ya Allah, grant my family the chance to study abroad…” It has been my parents’ dream to send their kids studying abroad, hence they make us include this in our prayer. I made it to Montreal, Canada and Atika is in Adelaide, Australia. Alhamdulillah, Allah grants the wishes, and hopefully Aiman and Adlina will be granted this wish too, amin.

This thing has been in my mind for a week, and today I decided to write about it. I just feel content and blessed. Since that day, I hardly complain about how hard things are this semester. This semester I have 3 lab reports due every week, one lab after another, back-to-back quizzes and exams, as much as I feel overwhelmed by school stuff, I feel blessed. Because hey, studying abroad has been one of my wishes since I was 3 and little did I know, 17 years later, my dream does come true.

A key of happiness is to always be grateful of what you have. And one way of doing that is to recall all the dreams you used to wish upon and tracked every one of them which came true. I remember when I was 12, I prayed that I got accepted to boarding school and 5 years later, I graduated from one of the best boarding schools in Malaysia. I was given a choice to study in the UK when I was 12, cause my dad worked in the UK that time, or to continue my high school journey in SSP. No one forced me, not even my parents. I chose to study in SSP and that is definitely one of the best decisions in my life.

One day, during YTN camp last summer, a wise man came and gave a talk to the YTN scholars about gifts and tests from God. He said that Allah will only grant our wishes, hence they’re gifts from Him, if and only if we can handle the tests that come with them.  To have our wishes granted is a blessing, and to be able to go through the tests that come with them is definitely a success.

Being in Electrical Engineering major is hard. This is the life decision that I always question though, but back to Paragraph 1, I don’t complain as much now.

I am a hard worker, I don’t know how to study smart, work smart, I don’t know. I study hard, work hard, because only by studying hard, I can get better grades. I’m not super smart, I didn’t get 3.90GPA every semester, but just enough to make myself happy haha. But I guess I should add on something fun to my ‘study hard, work hard’ formula. I walk.

Every day, I aim to walk 5000 steps and now that the weather in Montreal is still nice and not ice-y, it’s always possible. I will take the longest route to get home and take more stairs and it’s been therapeutic.  Today, while completing my assignments, I did time calculation in my head. ‘Will I be able to finish the report if I go for a walk at 530pm?’ After having a long thought about it, I decided to just go. Note that, I still haven’t completed the report while I’m blogging this but I just feel the need of telling my future self about this feeling. Anyway, me and Nawwar (my roomie) we went for a walk at Jeanne-Mance park and Nawwar has a new toy, a film camera, so we had a short photography session and as we walked home, we stopped by Chatime and had bubble tea and I went home, feeling happy.

The older people always remind me to not be so happy, because I will eventually cry after that but today, I just feel content. I don’t feel worried. I feel like my life has been taken care by the Almighty and I have no reason to feel worried about anything.

As much as I feel stressed about my study, my grade has been fated anyway. I just have to keep studying and do my very best because Allah will do the rest.

Another thing that I’m blessed about is the humans I’m surrounded with. At times, I had experienced days when I asked someone a question but his/her response just completely ruined my day. But I’ll always keep telling myself that these ‘toxicated’ human beings shouldn’t define my happiness, shouldn’t affect my feeling and they don’t define my life.

When one person doesn’t treat me right, I should know that it’s fine because I have 10 more people that love me and care about me and always remember me in their prayers.

I don’t have enough money to travel this December because last Summer there was a confusion in the calculation of the scholarship allowance but I don’t feel as sad. Because I know this time, for this allowance, I have to save up for something more important, for a bigger event in my life. And by sacrificing now, I know I will be happy later, even happier. Because why travel alone when you can travel with your most favorite person on Earth right? ;)

To travel is a gift, it’s not something that I must do just because the rest of the society finds it cool. Money shouldn’t be a problem, and traveling is not the only solution because there’re more ways to be happy.

I take pictures, not to show the world how good my life is. But I take pictures for my memories, because if one day, I lost all my memories, at least I have the pictures that could tell me that my life was amazing.

I write, not to seek for attentions. But I write for my kids to know that I’m not a superhuman and miracles don’t happen every time. My life is full of ups and downs but a little thing can make you treasure your life more—have gratitude.