Ever vivid memories in University of Malaya

Pavement of twinkling stars on top dark blue carpet, soothing and cold breeze along curvy waves and a glorious crescent moon that lighten up the whole scenery are the beautiful and flawless denotations of nature’s beauty to create a peace and tranquil atmosphere in the night just like my beautiful memories in University of Malaya (UM). This might sound a little hyperbolic and maybe I am exaggerating stuffs but this is how a drama queen like me would describe a life changing experience on how I broke out from my own cocoon, started to discover the true world and changed for the better after my entry into UM. I was in the ‘seventh heaven’ when was offered Microbiology at the most prestigious university in our nation as I belong to the grass rot community. My new era of life began when I enrolled myself in Army Reserve Officer Training Unit (ROTU UM) in the year 2015. My rays of hope to evolve as a person attained as I had to face many hurdles in the three years of training that provided a vantage point to discover myself more, be the best version of myself on the outside and inside which molded me into a holistic human being. Annual Camps under ROTU that have been hold at the end of each year opened my mind into different dimensions of life. I endured two weeks of army training in the forest every year without proper meals and rest. Moreover, I slept on the bare forest land and went through a lot of struggles that taught me basic survival skills. Those experiences taught me to appreciate the life I’m leading now and it has been the source of inspiration to excel in my life that had brought me up to a higher pedestal as a young lieutenant at the age of 22. In my third year, I had to complete my final year research project which was to detect the presence of Banana streak virus from bananas was so fascinating as I have discovered that bananas have their own nemesis and they too have to face turmoil just like us humans. One year of research time has paved the pathway to be the updated and upgraded version of myself in the scientific research as I involved myself in varieties of lab works. Appropriate assortment of people during my research time has provided baseline lessons on how to treat humans with humanity and I could say that humanity is not the best quality but the basic quality that each of us should have. Juggling in the midst of classes, assignments, lab works, presentations, final year project, variety of personalities every day and army training every weekends never been an easy job but all of these have crafted my confidence that ‘I will win, not immediately but definitely.’ I would love to embrace my tagline before we reach the end ‘I am a solitary moon entrenched with a little hurricane.’