Another Milestone

This is a very late announcement, but anyway, I have finished my master's degree, folks! Yeah yeah I know, it has been roughly a month since my oral defence, and I had plenty of free times but somehow I did not spare any time to sit and write one of the most important milestone in my life on this platform. No excuse, I probably just suck at blogging. Boohoo.

Oh well yeah, after 2 years of going through this hard phase of "continuing my study but still broke as fuck" phase, I finally finished this degree and I am ready to get an actual job and make an actual money.

Now, you probably think, 

"when did you start your thesis? you have never even mentioned it here, duh"

Oh well, I kinda did give a hint on this on my post here but I didn't specifically mention that I was doing my thesis. Well anyway, thesis was waaay hard than the final project I did in undergraduate degree, which to be honest, I thought was the hardest. It was way hard in a way that I really started from scratch from looking for the company as my thesis' subject and identifying the business issues and eventually did tons of literature studies to come up with the solution that uh, anyway, had to be proposed to the company which means that the things that I wrote had to be applicable and make an actual improvement for the subject. Pft. Sometimes I wonder, how did I do it? Still questioning about it myself, folks. 

Looking back to the first time I enrolled for this program, I did not know what I was doing. What I know was I couldn't rely on my achievement at that moment and wasn't confident enough for the qualifications that I had. I needed to add my values. So off I signed up for this master. Half the program, I was even lost more than ever. But life always finds its way, eventually I knew what I was doing, I know what I want to do and I know how which part of this abundant of knowledge that will take me further. I found my way.

I am glad that its over. I am excited to enter the new phase of life that I have been waiting for this past 2 years. However, on the other hand, anxiety is creeping from behind and lurking from afar. Now that I will try to get a new job, I will have my own earnings and savings, there are so many things I need to learn and so many things I have to adapt myself into. Again, so many questions are starting to emerge,

"Will I be able to survive?"

"Will I be able to learn and grow?"

"How if I fail and suck at my job and get fired?"

Sometimes it goes too far,

"How if I die alone?"

Escalated quickly, I know.

I do, too, realise that now matter how scared I am and ready or not, this is happening, this is actually happening before my eyes and I have to walk right into it. For you who are reading this, whoever you are, please do wish me luck, since I could use some of that. 

Have a good day!

Ramadhan Kareem: Taking It For Granted

I always found Ramadhan as an opportunity or the time of the year where I could catch up with some old friends I wasn't even close with in high school for an iftar session. And its funny that over the years, this perspective has shifted without even realising it myself.

I'd take you back to a year ago when I did my internship outside my hometown. For the first time in my life I did a whole month of Ramadhan by myself. Preparing for Sahoor by myself and Iftar, too, by myself. It was a very exciting moment though, since that was the first time I got to have freedom on everything, I could just cook or go outside or order food, didn't really matter, it was all up to me. 

Up until this year's Ramadhan. It came into my realisation. It is a privilege to be able to spend Ramadhan with my family. It is a gift I had unconsciously been ignoring for the past years. I realised that I had been taking this for granted for 24 years of my life. I used to hate it when my parents say that "please make time to have your iftar at home", I could still remember how I annoyed I would be when I heard that speech every time I asked for permission to go out for iftar.

I may get a job outside my hometown next year and I may have to work extra hard, passes miles and miles of packed road just to get to home and have iftar with my family. Now that I have that chance without even trying, I am making the most out of it. I have actively been declining many iftar invitations, for the sake of this reason. This could be my last year of being able to sit down in my kitchen waiting for the food to come out, laughing with my Mom and having early dinner with her. God knows at the exact moment next year, I will still be working at my office, trying to sip a cup of coffee or tea for iftar, or if I'm lucky enough to be at home at iftar time, I will still have to find out what to eat, by myself.

Sometimes we always take small things like this for granted. We don't realise how precious this small moment until we arrive at the stage where we need to work hard to get it, until we realise that we miss it. I have been missing this moment and literally tossing it away.