USA | 5:30pm, Fairhaven dining hall, left side.

I'm back from the States. Not too sure if my entire being is back, but I'm back...physically.

It has been a week since I left Bellingham, WA. It has also been a week since I left my family. By family, I'm referring to the group of friends I had stuck with for the past five months.

Returning to Malaysia has been a bittersweet experience (at this point, more bitter than sweet) as the difference is vast - the weather, the people, the food, the walkability, and even the WiFi speed! So it's taking some time to readjust and this, is what they call "reverse culture shock".

A series of my exchange program experience will be written in the upcoming weeks, while the memories are still fresh in my mind. The point of it is not only to share my experiences with whoever that's reading, but also to relive the moments and to preserve them in writing.

The past five months has been one heaven of a journey, where I got to step out of my comfort zone and try new things...basically to start afresh. Before leaving Malaysia, I felt like I've reached a plateau and there was a strong need for change. What I needed was a challenge.

Challenges wasn't the thought of flying across the globe to live in a completely new country, nor was it the language barrier. In fact, I was more than excited for the new adventure, and I was confident that my English was good enough to be understood.

Challenges came in the form of withstanding the cold, speaking English with a more American pronunciation all the time, eating non-Asian food and having salad as veggies for an extended period of time, keeping up with class readings, and being empathetic towards the people around me.

Being from Malaysia (a country diverse with cultures, religions, races) and having a couple of international friends, I thought socializing with other international people would be easy peasy. I was wrong. I lived in a suite with two Americans - Olivia (my roommate) and Jenny (my suitemate), who were both a blessing to live with, and in my group of friends, each of us are of different nationalities, we had different opinions built on the ways we were brought up, we came from different backgrounds and cultures, and we all brought different things to the table. It took a lot of patience, tolerance and understanding to get their point of view, to not be easily offended, and to agree to disagree. If you were an outsider looking in on our relationship, you'd see us as a team - our differences in skills and abilities complemented each other. Everyone is important.

Every time I think about us, I'm amazed by how well we click and genuinely care about one another. If only the world could love each other the way we do.

Reflecting on this experience, I realized that I learned a lot about myself. The biggest would be learning that I'm such an overthinker. Being a person that is into details and reading a situation in order to decide how I should react, this habit was amplified when I was there in the States. I began to realize that I analyze people and situations a lot more than I thought I did...so much so that sometimes it took a toll on me. I became inwardly worried, anxious and nervous easily which made me pretty stressed out and frustrated. Being around people who cared and are positive helped me a lot, as I forced myself to take it easy on the overthinking...imagine sometimes I literally shake my head while telling myself to stop thinking (I try to do it when no one is around or they'd think I'm crazy). Knowing the importance of communication, this experience reiterated the cruciality of it as our backgrounds were diverse and so was our level of English proficiency, which makes for easy miscommunication. With such differences, I learned tolerance.

Having to part with the place that gave me such an impactful experience and friends who became family was hard...and it still is. I lack distraction to keep me away from my own thoughts, which may be of more harm than good but it is just something I'll have to deal with myself.

I miss the chilly weather, being able to layer up my clothes, but I don't miss the cold wind.
I miss my friends, waking up knowing they are within my reach whenever I needed company.
I miss the dining hall meals not for the food, but for it being the time our group sit together to eat and talk.
I miss the conversations we had - the jokes, the bullshits, the deep topics, the stimulating debates that were never shallow.
I miss the walks I get to take with or without choice. Walking to class, walking back from downtown, walking to the dining hall every couple of hours, walking to safe money or just to sightsee when I'm traveling.
I miss the super fast and accessible WiFi, so reliable that I can walk to campus still being connected to the internet throughout my journey (and unpixelated video calls).
I miss cooking for my friends, as we gathered at the fifth floor of BT East, and doing the dishes after.

I miss Vara's constant presence around me, her infectious joy and laughter, her killing of flowers, and how she looked up to me as a big sister.
I miss Vicky for her poised behaviour, her love for arts, her must-have ballerina pose photos, the way she blushes when her crush is in the building, and her serious-big-sister talks with me.
I miss seeing Airat in his Nike cap, his sarcastic humour, having breakfasts together, traveling, and sharing our love for bubble tea and shawarma.
I miss Austin being the big brother, always making sure we're good and happy, the food he whips up, and sitting in his truck to go places during the weekends as a family.
I miss playing around with Hampus and how we tend to catch each other's eyes when either of us made a blunder, before making eye signals to act like it didn't happen.
I miss the hilarious things Jonathan says and does, the coffee and conversations we had together when he skipped classes, his strong opinions and his constant questionings of "Why?".
I miss Song for her animated Koreanness, her generosity in cooking for us, and her automatic knowing of coming to me in the middle of the night when she's had too much to drink.
I miss Dane for his objectiveness, his jokes (sometimes twisted ones), his listening ear, and just watching him and Kaitlyn being together.
I miss Sören's dry humour, his unexpected silly moments and the lasagna he made.

I've always been the kind of person who acts tough and hold my emotions in (#strongindependentwoman). However, when I went to the U.S., I wanted to change a little...after all no one knows me. I started to practice my believe of to-feel-is-to-live because whether sad or happy, angry or relieved, I wanted to feel all of it because that makes me human. And boy, am I glad I did.

On the flipside, now that I'm back in Malaysia, I'm starting to wonder if I sabotaged myself by feeling a little too much. I absolutely do not regret how close I got with my friends, I don't regret the happiness I felt, the annoyance I faced or the sadness that hit me when we had to part. But with all that said, my self-diagnosis says that I'm possibly a little bit depressed...and sometimes I feel like I'm about to implode.

Leaving one another was a tough step we all had to take, and being the second last to leave our apartment was incredibly painful as I had to witness my family leave one by one. It was the hardest as Song and I left in our Uber, waving goodbye to the unlucky-last-person-to-leave Jonathan. This whole separation felt like everyone took a piece of my heart with them and now I'm left feeling kind of empty.

There was a time when I got annoyed with the constant question of asking what time we were having dinner because I felt like the time was fixed at 5:30pm, no reconfirming needed. But now, I actually miss it and I'd give anything just to have a meal with everyone again...

...5:30pm, at Fairhaven dining hall, left side.

I miss my Illegal Aliens. Till we meet again.