But I believed in His plan for me, and it beautifully unfolded in the weeks to come.

Life sans camera, as I found out soon enough, can actually be pretty liberating. For one, you realise that the need to constantly update yourself to the world is..not actually a need. I definitely reflected on how I used social media and realised that sometimes I overused it to the point that I'm more concerned about the appropriate filters/captions instead of truly enjoying the moment. That's not to say that documenting is a bad thing-I just learnt that sometimes it feels great to just live the moment to its fullest without thinking about anything else, including the documentation part. 

Another great thing about life sans camera is the privacy that comes with it. I don't usually share most of my pictures on social media, but even then it feels like my life is somehow public because it's on my phone(?). Without the camera, all I have to perceive the world is truly my senses and my memory to retain the feelings and thoughts of that moment. The feelings and thoughts that come and go with no trace whatsoever somehow allow me to reconnect with myself and also with Him as we had discussions that belong exclusively to that particular moment. 

Technology will no doubt seek to overcome human limitations, but sometimes it is best to experience life by just living in the moment, sans documentation. 

PC: Alex Holyoake (Unsplash) 

For those that do not know what NALS is, it is a national event that gathers youth leaders and prominent Malaysian leaders and public figures to have important discussions on various issues that are close to the heart of Malaysian youths. The summit consists of three parts: NALS Movement, NALS Symposium and NALS Networking. This year, they have expanded to include several other components as well under NALS Movement. In their own words:

This year's the 5th instalment of NALS, which goes to show the growing demand of a suitable platform for intellectual discourse among youths. This year, PPMPA UKM offered the opportunity to be a delegate and I went for it immediately. I had nerves the night before the event because I knew I was going to learn a lot the next day, besides meeting lots of cool people!

On the day itself, each received a goodies bag and also a tag that indicated which cluster we were going to be in with the stickers on the tag. 

As we were delegates, we were randomly assigned to clusters. I got different clusters from the ones that I preferred but it turned out well and were both very insightful sessions indeed!

The morning session started with Cluster A: The Potential of ASEAN Community. The speakers were Karim Raslan (aka Pak Karim), Syed Nabil Aljeffri (aka Mr Green 😂) and Jared. The moderator was really charming, moderating the session clearly for all to understand the flow and peppering the session with humour.

This session was interesting because each speaker contributed different points with their different expertise but with the same passion of building a stronger ASEAN.

Here are my key takeaways of the session (Long Section Alert⚠️️):

1. To know what ASEAN community is truly like, we have to go out and engage the community.
2. Pak Karim and Syed Nabil emphasised repeatedly throughout the session that the Vietnamese are a force to be reckoned with.
3. Malaysia is the best equipped culturally to accept changes due to our diversity and that could be a major advantage for us to be competitive. But if we remain in our comfort zone, we will fall behind as the others march ahead steadily.
4. Better coordination is required by the public sector and better buy-in is required by the private sector to harness the power of ASEAN.
5. Government to government (G2G) trade is easy to negotiate, but respect for people in certain nations are lacking.
6. Malaysia standing up for the Rohingya is a sign of breaking ASEAN's principle of non-interference, which is a good thing according to Jared because as neighbours we need to help each other out. The old ASEAN needs to be renewed as the roles of neighbours shift according to times.
7. In the era of ultranationalism (extreme nationalism that promotes the interest of one state or people above all others) especially post Trump's victory, ASEAN cannot be taken for granted. It may just fall apart anytime, and we should certainly learn from EU's mistakes.
8. What can we do as youths? We need to act more and have more exposure towards issues like these by joining or interning with relevant NGOs and companies such as SUHAKAM. Cross-community communication is also important to establish relationships with youths of the ASEAN community. Besides that, we may also have the power to make policy statements.
9. Complexity of a country needs to be taken into account before judging their policies, political climate etc.
10. "Make ASEAN your community".

There were several new terms and concepts learnt during the session and it really helped me understand the issues surrounding ASEAN better.

Welcome to my new blog.

Self-confession: I am quite fickle-minded.

I used to have several projects on my hand and they all kinda died. 

HAHAHA.

(Well, on the bright side though, I accumulated a wealth of experiences from doing various different stuff ;) ) 

But this one would be different.

Yes, admittedly I said that for the start of every new project that I had.

But this would seriously be different.

Why?

Because this blog would be the manifestation of the new me.

The new me that doesn't want to pretend to be "perfect".

The new me that embraces her flaws the same way she does her strengths.

As I turn 22 at the start of this new year, I started to have this fear.

What if I was fearful of being who I am supposed to be that I became anything the world told me to do? 

I've already followed the normal route from going to primary school to secondary school and up till now I took a critical course in a public university, with good enough grades throughout.

But there's something inside me that felt missing, and just like Moana in the Disney film, I could not shrug it away.

I was missing my dreams.

2 years ago, I wrote a future letter to myself. A long one. On what I expected myself to achieve by the time the letter is received by the older me. It was idealistic no doubt, but it felt right in my heart.

Fast forward to today.

I've grown. A lot. However somehow the fluctuations of emotions intensified, an issue that I'm going to address soon. 

But long story short, I'm still not there. And I'm the only one to blame.  

I'm not sure when I realised this, but I did and felt that I just woke up from a long dream.

Awareness is so important, and I don't want to live my life blindly anymore.

Let all choices be conscious ones, including this.

PC: Miguel Á. Padriñán (Pexels)