Is there such thing as quarter-life crisis?

Cause I think I'm having them now. 

I turned 25 years old last Sunday. There were no big celebration or anything, I just spent the day with my close friends and that was enough for me. I was happy with that. I even turned off the Facebook notification because I don't want random people to keep wishing me randomly (assuming there are people bothered to do so lol).

I have been saying this for few times to my close friends, that I think I've becoming an introvert. Which of course, that was met with snide laughter and a very enthusiastic NO with a lot of evidence showing otherwise. I mean yeah, I still get E (for Extrovert) every time I did the personality test but deep down I know I no longer it. I no longer wanna meet a lot of people, I hate going to gatherings (unless I organised them) and I would prefer people not to talk to me.

But yes, I can't go on for more than 2 days just by myself. I enjoy solitude but one time I was by myself the whole weekend and by Sunday evening I realized I started talking to myself in front of the mirror. Not the normal talking, I was trying to have a conversation with my reflection and got frustrated because I already know what the reflection would reply, like duh. Not a fun conversation, to be honest (we were talking what I should get at pasar malam).

I enjoyed being in the middle of a group's conversation or gathering, as long as they're my people. I feel like I don't wanna meet or get to know new people. Is that okay? :|

I used to think I'm actually a good friend, honestly. My friends are lucky to have me HAHAHA. Used. I no longer think that. And truthfully, I am okay with that, I don't feel like changing that anymore. I've changed a lot, obviously. And not all are positive changes, I admit. I used to strive to be a perfect person, who can make everyone happy and love me. And now I'm like, as long as you don't cross me, then we're good.

My decision now is more me-centered. I still do things for others, but now I'd like to do things for me more. Put me on the first list of people I need to consider before making any decision, never let people disregard me whenever anything that concerns me is transpiring. That sort of things (though sometimes it won't work that way).

Of course, that didn't always happen. In my process of treating myself better, I lost a friend. It was my fault, of course. I was always the childish one. I know friendship is all about tolerating each other but the thing is, I don't want to know that part. The tolerating part. Let's do it on our own terms. We are all tolerating each other in this world, trust me. 

But above all, I don't wanna keep it against my friends to keep tolerating me just because we were friends for years now and it would be a waste to end the friendship. It doesn't sit well with me to ask them to tolerate the changed me, and for me to keep apologizing every time it happen. I don't wanna do that to myself. I am still trying to understand me. My changes may not be for the better (for others) but I like it this way. 

WAIT THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT TO WRITE TODAY!

Meh. Okay I'll probably talk about my quarter life crisis some other times.

Goodbye for now!

Perfect World

I'm currently living in a small (but not too small) one-room apartment, overseeing the beautifully landscaped garden with a man-made lake. My room and living room are okay, but my kitchen is TO DIE FOR! I probably spent most of my salary on my kitchen. Not really cooking or baking materials, but you know, tupperwares because tupperwares are life! #didIjustusethewordmaterial #Idon'tknowanyotherwordotherthanmaterialsorry

My family's house is also only a drive away, which I would occasionally visit after work and during the weekend, (for the food mostly). The traffic were rough to get there, but anything for food okay! And yeah, also to visit my growing-old parents. And sometimes I would babysit my nieces and nephews because my sisters need to have a romantic dinner with their husband *vomit blood*. But sometimes, they would leave their kids to the husbands so we the sisters could get together for a shopping spree or just simply making cookies while them complaining about their husbands.

And during the weekend, I would be spending time with my close friends. Probably just out for lunch or dinner, gossiping and people-watching. Especially people-watching. And laughing like nobody's business. And there's also one of those weekend where we could get a bit adventurous and extra rajin so we would be doing something energy-consuming such as, I don't know, wall climbing? Which everyone was excited about during the planning and immediately regret the decision once we finished (because why do we plan such an exhausting activity?!). And once in a while, we would be meeting up after work because there's some juicy gossip eh I mean information that should be relay face to face (for added dramatic effect).

But there are also one of those time where I would be home for the whole weekend. Ordering take-outs and lazying on the couch while binge-watching anything I could find on TV. Couldn't even be bothered to reply texts or whatever because I can. And while showering I would be planning on rearranging my kitchen or my bedroom but right after showering, I would still be in my towel, lurking some random people's photos on Instagram for hours. #wealldidthis #don'tlie

And although I said I wouldn't, I would eventually fall for that person who I keep seeing almost everyday. He made lame jokes but I laughed anyway because I'm easily entertained liddat. No really, I'm really easily entertained it hurts me that my friends won't laugh at the things I showed them. I'll be crushing hard on him for some times til I grew the feelings out, or confess to him right away and grew the feelings out by crushing on the next person.

My parents are aware that marriage is not in my priority list. They hated that fact but kinda just have to live with it because. 

That, is the version of my perfect world.

But in reality, I'm living in a house with few other people. I really want to have a full authority over the kitchen, but I'm not living alone. I hate sharing authorities so I just let the kitchen be although it pained me to see the kitchen in such a state. But I either have it all, or nothing at all. So, nothing it is. And it'll also be months before I could see my parents again. Work commitments and such, I always delayed my trip home. Also not helping is the fact that my hometown is 5463728274534262 miles away from me. And I have to live with the fact that my cousin is taking my nephews and nieces to watch that new Kung Fu Panda movie #itshould'vebeenme #they'remyniecesandnephewsnotyours

And as far as gossiping with close friends is concern, it was all done via whatsapp group. I hated this the most. Don't get me wrong, I love my friends (and the vastly weird topics we discussed) but I honestly hate texting. Okay this might looks like a lie for someone who wrote 2435363 words in a minute and keep bombarding people with nonsense texts, but I honestly hate texting. I HATE IT. I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT. And while we're at this, this includes talking on the phone. I don't have anything against anyone, but I rarely answer some phone call just because. 

I hated the fact that I live in the age of social media. Everything was done via social media. Wedding invitations, catching up with friends, planning important events etc. Don't get me wrong, I hated it, I really do but I also, infected(?) by it? And if I were to try to not be engulf by this inevitable advances, I would be left out and you know how much I hated being left out! >.<

I wish for a world where you know about someone's new born child because they texted you in person and you went to visit instead of looking at the photos only on Facebook. I wish for a world where you know about your friend's trip to Alaska and because you two met afterwards, looking at the photos together instead of all the photos he posted on Instagram.

Okay, I don't know where you're going with this, Azira. You know social media is important because not all people live in the same timezone and etc.

I KNOW but, I honestly wish it could be different. I wish there are more real-life human interactions instead of the virtual one. Face to face. Laugh at my jokes to my face instead of lol-ing at my post. Make that irritated face to my face instead of ignoring my texts. Argue with my opinions (diligently) and question my decisions instead of throwing shades at me in one of your posts. YOU GET WHAT I MEAN?! 

I hated how social media has affected me (wow I really use a lot of 'hate') SO MUCH. I fall for someone with witty tweets and statuses, that might or might not be his original thoughts. I get offended by some people because I read the things they said in a different tone. People get offended by me because they don't get the jokes in the way I want it to be. So frustrating.

Okay, some people might not agree with me. I realized, social media has been a comfortable platform for those people who find it hard to talk or voiced out their opinions in real life (for any reasons they have that I'm not gonna argue about because each to their own). Not everyone is comfortable talking in the presence of people and that's find but this is also the reason why I dislike social media because some people are different from their real life because when you saw them in real life and you get disappointed because this is not what you want and-

I loathe social media, but I also (sadly) can't live without it.

Waiting is excruciatingly painful.

Yup, totally google-checked that word before I posted.

So, waiting. Currently waiting for the offer that may or may not change my life for the next 3 years. My bet is on I will cry and going haywire a lot more in the next 3 years than I've ever been in the past. Honestly, I still think I didn't deserve this, urm rezeki. But, more on that later.

So I also realized if I sleep early (and in my dictionary early is around 12am-ish), I will wake up not 5 hour later. So here I am, 3 in the morning, going about in my laptop trying to make myself sleepy again (which looks highly unlikely).

Then it occurs to me, why don't I google myself?! Lol okay I sounded vain, but lately I've been thinking a lot about deleting my urm prints(?) on the internet. You know, I think it's time. It's difficult, I expected that but I'm just curious as to what extend my prints are on the internet.

So there they are, on the very first page of my search result, my Facebook and my LinkedIn profile as well as my ResearchGate profile. Okay. Not looking so bad. Also apparently there A LOT of people named Azira Ishak. K.

On to the next page. My oh my, my Myspace profile! Oh you know, it's only my most embarrassing profile I've ever created! >.< To be quite frank, I never really understand Myspace before. It's too all over the place for this young mind to comprehend lol. So I go and get out of bed because I can't seems to do it on the phone and recover my password and it was obviously linked to that super embarrassing email address that I created in high school (it makes me cringe whenever I typed that hahaha) and go on to delete the account. But not before I look around to see what I've been up to here haha. Mostly photos of me and friends from back in Maktab lol. Okay nothing to see here anymore. Delete account. Done and dusted. Phew.

On to the next page of the search result. Bunch of other Aziras and then, I saw my tweets! I mean, it's been a while since I deactivated my twitter account (it's a whole different story of that maybe I get back to it when I'm ready), but why is it still there?! Totally freaked me out a bit so I clicked on the link and go on to the next page. A few more of my tweets! But I was a bit relieved when the link is not live. But still, people can still read what I wrote just from the search page. Not good, okay. So I went on googling about how to make the search results disappear and apparently it was about how Google may not have updated their urm (I totally forgot about the exact fancy terms) search index (or something) and yeah so please do Google if you want to know more.

WAIT. I just realized my title is about waiting and I'm totally about to write a different thing at first! I have an attention span of a unicorn (it didn't exist!) -.-"

Okay gotta go kinda sleepy so suddenly so till then!

This one for me.

This is gonna be another one of Azira's lame, emotional, too-much-information-she-will-regret-this-later kind of post, so I warned you and you still have time to escape now. So, escape!

They say write will help. So I wrote, here and there. In my book, on a sticky note that I posted on my board, hundreds drafted texts and random scribbles in my lecture notes.

But it didn't. At all. Not for me. I did feel better for that split second after re-reading what I wrote, but that's it. Is that how it's supposed to be? Is that how you're supposed to feel? Do you not write just one angry letter but a thousand of them to actually make you feel better?

For some random reason, we crossed paths. It was two people at different stage of life, who wants different things, who has different needs. I should've known. I shouldn't play dumb and pretend it was not a big deal. Because it was a big deal. The biggest of them all. I wonder why it never seems to bother me. Probably because I really wanted this to happen. Like, really happen. Because I don't know, hormonal much, Azira?

It's a mixed feelings, seriously. Sad, mad, confusion, curiosity, frustration and probably a little regret. It's not like I'm trying to force thing that were not meant to be but-

Yeah I did. I did try to force it by pretending it was okay. Who am I kidding. -___-

And the part that hurt the most is the way it ended. And how I was pretending it was okay it ended that way. Oh so one day you wake up and decided it's just not worth it anymore because you can't get what you want? Is it? IS IT? 

Do you have any idea what that led me into? Do you have any idea how early I forced myself to go to bed every single night so that I won't be haunted by the idea of you? Thanks to you, I've got to experience a new kind of darkness I never thought it existed. Like really, Lord Voldermort kind of darkness. The darkness that has nothing to offer but misery. Do you know that? DO YOU?

Eh, termarah pulak. 

Okay well it's probably my own fault too for having too much expectation in this whatever-it-is-called. For having expectation at all. For expecting more than I can bargain. Yup, definitely too much expectation on my part. Expectations kills. Stabs you right in the heart. And part of your brain. The part that make you think straight, I suppose? 

Oh and the heartache. It was one of a kind. Different kind of heartache from when you lost a dear friend, or when your friend betrayed you, or when your experiment didn't really go well (more on that later). It just kinda break your heart. Into thousand of small little pieces. You try to hold it together but at one point it was very exhausting trying to pick all the pieces up and you just... give up. And spent the rest of your day on bed eating Nutella straight from the bottle with a chocolate bar. 

HAHAHAHA okay I exaggerated but you get my point right?

Oh just for the record, I've never regretted everything that happened. It was good (and fun) while it lasted. And things happened for a reason. Although I am yet to realise that reason, at least now I know of a new kind of people. And that it will get better. 

Or that's what I told myself every day and every night for the past months. 

I'm back, again.

Like anybody cares, Azira.

I'm thinking of writing again because well, there's this huge lump of untold stories (both happy and miserable) in my heart and my mind that I need to unload somewhere before it exploded in my face (yes, exaggeration is my middle name). I don't know, I figured here would be a better place than any other place (obviously). And I hope I figured right.

And also, re-reading my old blog posts, damn I think past Azira has much more wisdom than present Azira. Like, sometimes I can't believe I was able to write like that. And the amount of craps I wrote is also undeniable high. I'd like to ask for apology if any of my older posts make you wanna stab me in the eyes with forks. -.- 

Oh and update about myself (for anybody who cares): Currently in my final year and right now I'm supposed to be studying for my Plant Microbe Interactions paper this Tuesday, but here I am instead. Talk about priority issues. .___.

Till then!