It was late September 2015 when I came to Sydney for my Foundation Studies at UNSW, and my class was called CP8. It has been almost 8 years, I never realise how fast time goes.

After the event in Singapore, I went back to motherland for a while and even went to the US with my mother before coming to Australia. You know I was stupid, naive and miserable. I almost looked down on everyone in my class. I just didn’t understand because I merely judged them from my bias and perspective. Everyone had their good and bad. Nobody was wrong, if anyone, it was me.

After so many years, I am just glad that I have met them all in that classroom and had precious memories. We had lunches or dinners together, we went to the city shopping together, we celebrated together, but we are not perfect so we had arguments and conflicts from time to time. However, those (bad) things faded away with time. What I remember now is nothing but pure joy and happiness.

Ever since we graduated from CP8, we never had the time like before. Everyone was busy with studies and their own things while I was focusing on making my side projects like WoWs Info. I had a plan since I arrived in Sydney, but this is for another day.

My uni life was also tough, I could barely pass my courses. I managed to graduate somehow, but that’s when COVID hit. I am never a big fan of remote teaching, not sure how much you can learn from it. Almost everyone went back to motherland to study online. There were some people left, but eventually, everyone went back except me and my aniki.

One of my friends was planning to stay here. He was the most promising person who could actually do it, but sadly, he never came back because of COVID. It hit quite hard on all international students. I was lucky enough to land a job, but the visa was hard. More on this one later probably in August this year.

It was the same in Singapore, things never changed. You ended up almost alone. That’s why I hesitated to make new friends. What’s the point, right? That’s exactly why I am naive. Real friendship is not something that can be shaken by distance or time. Sometimes, I know, I will probably never see that person ever again I just met, but I am thankful for just meeting the person. At least, at that moment, I was truly enjoying my life.

Afterword

This time, I simply want to reflect and be honest and true to myself. I want to apologise on behalf of my young and naive self. I feel like sometimes in life, I am too cold to people and friends and not considerate enough. Life is already tough, I think more kindness can make everything better. I want to be better. I know I can.