After spending ~4 months in Malaysia, I feel more like a local than a foreigner. I must admit, the first few days in KL were not fruitful. It was the first time in my life I ventured out in to the world with no family, friends or anyone for that matter; completely alone. On top of that, coming into a country with different systems, structure, language and environment was quite daunting.

I knew it would be hard, but never did I expect the magnitude of the harshness. After a couple of weeks, I spent time cleaning, buying toiletry, reorganizing and unpacking my belongings. It was then where I finally made the house I was living in, a home. My mind felt more at ease and I was ready to start my solo-exploration.

The first thing I did was try out Malaysian’s national dish, Nasi Lemak, where Nasi stands for rice and Lemak, fat (i.e. fat rice). Which is,

“[a] blend of coconut milk-soaked white rice, dried anchovies, sliced raw cucumber, roasted peanuts, and spicy belacan sauce…”

It tasted just as good as that quoted description. These are almost served in every single restaurant and costs about C$1–3 max — the best Nasi Lemak in all of Malaysia is in Village Park Restaurant. After trying out various Malaysian dishes (nasi kandar, hainanese chicken rice, murtabak, chicken rendang, roti canai, maggi goreng…), I decided that it’s time I learn how to cook on my own. This deemed to be a pretty complex task as I never cooked anything before. The first part of any cooking is to get the ingredients, however you also have to know what you want to cook (or even close-to). On the other hand, there was me who shamelessly entered the grocery store (The Store) with no recipes in mind; after 1 hour of walking around and deciding if I should buy this or that, I simply bought a box of chocolate cookies and left. I didn’t know how hectic it would be to go grocery shopping, so many items, so many variations, so much food; gheeeeez. Anyways, I eventually picked up some easy recipes online and started shopping accordingly. I’ve made tons of dishes and some of my highlights have been written on a previous blog post.

Here are some amazing Malaysian food I’ve had in the past few months:

Travelling outside of Malaysia

Once I got comfortable living on my own, I decided to visit nearby countries. The first one was Bangkok, Thailand. The round trip flight cost me around C$160 and I booked a place for C$21/night; it was perfect, near many restaurants and a 7–11. I went out my first night and my goodness the amount of massage parlours per sidewalk. Literally everywhere you walk, you’ll hear a lady waving and smiling at you to come inside, I didn’t plan on getting any massages nor did I do any prior research, so I simply looked away and kept walking. The weather was beautiful and the food was also amazing. One thing however, most food aren’t halal (not like in Malaysia), so I had to be careful, but this was no stress as I try my best to be wary in Canada anyways. Before I left, one of my highlights was riding on a Grab Bike (Uber on a motorcycle), this was something I never (or could) experience in KL. It felt so refreshing to let the wind hit my face as we skrr’d through the busy-traffic roads.

When I returned to KL, I stuck to my routine on working out daily and maintaining my calories (via MyFitnessPal). I also made a number of friends who are relatively my neighbours and befriended my landlord as well. The rest of the days consisted of myself sticking to a daily routine and of course enjoying the Malaysian food.

About a month later I booked a trip to Bali, Indonesia for 1 week! I had an amazing time as I took both a mental and physical break from everything. I stayed in Kuta in Park Regis Hotel. The roundtrip flight cost me around C$200 (normally it’s cheaper if you don’t book 1 week earlier…) and the hotel cost was C$29/night which included room service, a multitude of TV channels (from FOX movies to Disney), open gym, pool and free water everyday. It was also a 2 minute walk from KFC and Dominos pizza. Kuta is an area that is filled with beaches so I went out everyday to a nearby mall that was also connected to a beach. Every night there is a special band that performs, so not only did I get to enjoy the fine waves but also the captivating performances. Since there are multiple beaches around Kuta, I took the opportunity to go surfing for the first time. I paid 400k IDR (~C$37) for a 2.5hr surf with a trainer and professional pictures to be taken. This was one of my bucket lists for a long time and I was super grateful for both the affordability and the opportunity.

Three days after chilling in Kuta, I booked a tour guide for 600k IDR (~C$56) to go to Ubud (you can customize your trip, the guide will pick you up and drop you off from your location — message me if you want the WhatsApp contact). Ubud is more of a cultural place with lots of historic sites; village vibes. It felt much more peaceful in Ubud, less traffic on the streets which meant less chaos. I went to Ubud’s famous Monkey Forest (80k IDR/person), then visited the Tegalalang Rice Terrace, where I achieved one more of my bucket lists, and that was swinging on a mountain. Finally, we went to the Tegenungan Waterfall, which is just a beautiful area to be in, nice to take lots of pictures and swim near the waterfall. After a long 8 hour day, we drove back to Kuta, and knocked out hard. The rest of the days were spent souvenir shopping, enjoying the beach and eating. However, one of those days I woke up to my bed shaking, noticed the AC and lamp moving and within a second I realized I was currently in an earthquake which had a magnitude of 4.4 — the biggest in 2019 (in Bali). I was so stunned on my bed that I couldn’t move. Nothing severe happened to anyone in the hotel because it was in the south side of Bali and our hotel was built to sustain earthquake damages. The day after I boarded my flight back to KL.

When I returned to KL, I noticed I had about 1 month+ left and wanted to take the time to relax and enjoy every day. This was obviously not the case, as my daily routine took over once again and I was back on a roll. That’s okay, I realized that I’m not really the type to just chill and relax anyway, there has to be something that I’m doing, I just have to keep moving. This was probably why my first few weeks in KL was so hard, because I literally had to shut myself off from doing anything and just let myself breathe.

Work Life

I am currently working at a Series-C startup, it is an American company but most of the tech is situated here in KL. When I was first interviewed for this role (AI Engineer), I was excited as I wanted to get my hands dirty at a startup and learn how they leverage AI to gain a business advantage. The interview went swiftly via Zoom and literally a couple of days later they got back to me with an offer letter. As a student who’s in constant search for internships every semester, the suspense of hearing the outcome of an interview is painful — so that was really nice of them. Fast forward to the first day; when I arrived to my office, I was greeted with a welcoming package, a tote bag, company stickers, lanyard, and a t-shirt. I spent my first day speaking to my manager and setting everything up on my laptop. Within three days the project I was told I was going to work on completely changed. This is because the business realised that project was not priority and assigned me to another new project : building a fraud engine. My first assignment was to implement some RESTful endpoints, which I managed to do because I had just learnt it during my previous semester. Anyways, work consisted of free snacks everyday, there would be a pantry filled with snacks every morning (from Kit Kat bars, chips to cereal and coffee), we also had free lunch every Tuesdays and Wednesdays and every other day we went out with our team for lunch. To add the icing on the cake, the office was situated on the 27th floor of a large building so the view was motivating. The company culture was great as well, they’re often open to feedback and organise bi-weekly socials for team bonding (game nights to book clubs). I truly enjoyed the startup vibe and I have my mind set on pursuing more startups to simply learn as much as I can from the experienced. I learnt a lot in terms of design patterns, new Java concepts and some NLP (Natural Language Processing). Though some days I would have a bug in my code and that would eventually lead me to scratching my head for hours and weeks; on the other hand, when I finally got my algorithms to work (matching the expected outputs), I would literally stand up and take a deep breath, and then just start walking around; that satisfaction was incomparable. This company taught me a lot dealing with challenges and implementing efficient code. I realised that in a startup a lot of things happen and a lot can change in an instant, sometimes you can work on a dedicated project for months and then realise you might have to drop it for later to focus on another project that has a higher priority. Sometimes you’d have to spread yourself out working on 3–4 projects at once to ensure proper and fast-push to production and most of the times you have to monitor your work-flow and always think of improving current business processes (internally and externally). Most of my learning didn’t solely come from research however, at least once every day I walk around my office and talk to someone about what they’re working on and how they’re going about it. Talking to my colleagues and manager about my project or about code in general taught me more than I could grasp from simply doing research. I feel like sometimes we tend to go online to look for answers to our problems, sometimes it’s best to simply ask someone, whether it would be for advice, guidance or for help; ask. Anyways,

so, what have I learnt?

*sigh* where do I begin? This has been one of the craziest life-changing experience for myself. Before I got here, I thought I was independent enough to face any challenges but little did I know that these challenges were going to break me to my bone and throw me back to square one. Coming to Asia, allowed me to have a fresh start, a fresh outlook on life, dropping everything I know to open my mind even more.

Living alone comes with its own battles, a fight against hostility, a fight against momentous thoughts, a fight against yourself. Day in and day out being alone in your thoughts can drive you crazy, it brought me back to the beginning when I slept in a pod before arriving here. Living life in a box, there are openings but you don’t have the strength to open it, it’s just too hard. To surpass this difficulty, I focused on myself, internally and spiritually. I promised myself to try out new things; I started with cleaning my apartment (every detail), then taking out the trash, cleaning the washroom, doing the laundry and talking to the employees who work in the building. While taking every day step by step, I began to finally breathe normally again, I started going out often, visiting malls and talking to all kinds of people and hearing about their stories. I also got back into the gym and started following a routine of working out everyday, watching what I eat, indulging from time to time and setting goals to achieve. By going through my days like this, I kept learning and learning. Learning more about myself, my strengths, my weaknesses and using this time to solidify these areas. To go back home, not different, but as programmers usually say: ‘optimized.’

Surely, everyone’s pain and suffering is different, and nor can I ever compare mine to yours and neither can you to mine. Reading about someone’s experiences is completely different from walking their shoes. Though, writing on Medium helped project my thoughts to words, but obviously not everything is written. Often times I like to live in the moment, drop everything and just enjoy. Whether it be eating, shopping, or even walking. It gives me some form of calm and peace.

Now, there is way too much I’ve learnt during this trip, so I won’t be able to write them all down but here are some significant ones in point form:

• Exchange your money at your destination not home country (if it’s Asia), since western currency carries more value
• Keep all your valuables in front pockets, there aren’t major crimes, but it’s natural there can be some thieves on the loose
• Clean your house/room the first thing you wake up in the morning, indirectly forcing yourself to waking up earlier and getting that over with
• Make sure to do the dishes, cleaning all residues off your plates. Asia is insect heavy and you wouldn’t want any crumbs or food leftover for them to munch on
• If you want to avoid cockroaches, purchase the following — the bait will give you some peace of mind and use the spray on dark areas once every two weeks

• Go grocery shopping when you know what ingredients you need to look for (or else you might be wasting your time figuring out what to get)
• If you visit Genting Highlands to go to Premium Outlets, when you get off the bus don’t take the SkyWay cable car, you have to take the shuttle to the Outlets, then take the shuttle back and then use Skyway Cable car to go up. My suggestion, Premium Outlets here costs about 4x more than in Canada — so not worth it. Just use cable car to go up
• Don’t worry about transportation in KL as there are too many. However some things to note: MRT is the most modern subway (comes on time and has a schedule — very HQ as well), LRT is a bit older than MRT but still really good (I use it and it never disappoints), Monorail is one of the oldest transportation services (I use it too but sometimes has 5 min delays), and so much more but those are the top ones. Regardless of which medium and kind of transportation you use, make sure to buy the Touch’n Go card! You can find these at 7–11’s, Watsons or at the subway stations. You can refill these cards and use them on mostly all transportation methods, really saves you the trouble from paying cash all the time!

• Try purchasing clothing and accessories that are made in Asia (asian brands) this is because western brands carry an enormous amount of value and cost more than back home
• Negotiate — one of my favourite skills I’ve learnt — if you don’t know how, shoot me a message, I’ll teach you
• If you’re in Canada, sign up for Tangerine credit card/debit card or if you’re in US, sign up for a Charles Schwab card. Why? ZERO transaction fees. If you take money out of ATM anywhere in the world, you will always be charged with some transaction fee, but if you have any of the aforementioned cards, no fees, you get what you want (save your money)

Finally, I’m grateful for this fellowship as it acted as a trigger to push me beyond borders, observe various perspectives on the other side of the world, and I learned how to live on my own.

To whoever’s reading,

I wanted to thank you for not only making it to the end of this blog post, but also thank you for keeping up to date with all my posts, it’s been an incredible journey, and this will be marked as my final blog post. Though,

the journey never ends

Okay, this is an achievement post. For those that don’t know why I seem so excited, it’s because

I’ve never cooked in my entire life.

Apart from putting together Nutella or jam on toast… or asking one of my friends how to turn on the stove to make pre-made paratha. Yea, really had no clue how to cook. I’ve always wanted to learn but either I didn’t make time for it or I lowkey feared burning up the entire house.

Before coming over to Asia, I told myself I need to get an apartment that has a kitchen, why? Because this is the perfect opportunity to learn and I should try to take advantage.

Anyways, before starting how to cook, I asked a lot of Malays (landlord, colleagues and newly-made friends) if they cooked on their own. And the response I got from every single one of them were:

“no, no need to cook when you can buy food here, it’s so cheap. The time and money it takes to cook, is the same as buying.”

I wasn’t shocked at all. I mean Malaysians are widely known for their abundance, diverse and amazing food. Also, it is very cheap, about $2–5 CAD for an entire meal. So you might ask, why try to cook when you can buy quality food so cheap?

This was the first time in my life I had alone time from everything back home, and this was the only and perfect opportunity to learn. I didn’t have to learn but I chose to. That being said, I didn’t restrict myself from buying food (I mean how can you).

Now it’s time to talk food! When I went grocery shopping, I was so overwhelmed; there were so many items to choose from. I also walked in with no idea and no list of what to get. As one would expect, I left … with chocolate cookies at hand of course.

The next day I decided to watch a video on how to make pasta, now this video was completely in Bengali (my mother tongue) so I won’t post it here but it was a great start on what I should buy from the grocery store (i.e. my grocery list — finally). After buying all the ingredients and watching the video 3–4x with multiple pauses in between, I made a spicy pasta. After that I went on a cooking frenzy and within 2 weeks I made 5 meals. I was both shocked and astounded as to what the recipes yielded. I still couldn’t believe I made a dish and I devoured every bit I could.

As you’ve noticed, I haven’t written down any of the recipes of the foods mentioned above, this would’ve made the blog more exhaustive than it already is; but if you’re ever curious, I can send you the exact ingredients + how-to recipe.

Till next time ✌🏽

Thank you for making it here:

• if you’re curious to know about the Cansbridge 19’ bootcamp and my journey there, click here.
• if you’re curious to know about my first few days in KL, click here.
• If you’re curious to know where I’ve visited and what I’ve been doing so far in KL, click here.

On another note feel free to follow me on insta as I post on my story quite often: @nayem_wizdom ✌️

Connect 👉 LinkedIn | Twitter

We made it!

I still cant believe it. This moment is surreal. For those that do not know, I am an avid basketball player and I’ve been playing ball ever since Grade 5, so I never get enough of watching the NBA playoffs. That being said, I haven’t had the opportunity to write about my experience during the last Raptors vs Warriors game, so here is the live version that I’ve written the day after the game.

I woke up early (around 8:40AM MYT) to get ready for work (actually, to get ready to watch the game). I quickly brushed my teeth, put my business attire on, called my Grab and opened up the live stream on my phone to watch while omw to work.

As the game tipped off, my Grab driver started talking to me in Malay which I didn’t understand but I didn’t try to, as I was too excited. Then I went to work and rushed straight to my office.

End of 1st Quarter: Let’s go Raptors!

33–32 : Raptors

• Lowry with 15 points, 3 assists

I kept streaming the game and a bunch of my coworkers asked what I was so hyped about. I told them it was the NBA and the hype is because this is the first time in history Canada might take the dubs (win).

I kept watching and they kept scoring back and forth, my heart was racing but it was so fun to watch; a competitive finals with nothing but dedication and heart.

End of 2nd Quarter: Raptors in the lead, let’s get it!

60–57 : Raptors

• Lowry (21), Siakam (13) and Ibaka (10).

Things are getting too intense, had one of my colleagues hop in on the game too, we’re both for Raptors. One downside though, I had a meeting in 30 min but I wanted to watch the game 😰.

End of 3rd Quarter: … Warriors up

88–86 : Warriors

Oh man, that was crazy, I still had faith. Watching a game this intense was so fulfilling. Anyways, I needed to pause the game quickly to get to my meeting.

Honestly, I really could’t miss it, it was too intense. While I was in the meeting room, I sat in the far corner and opened up the laptop display and started watching. It was so crazy, held my breath in because I was too excited.

Final 30 seconds, things are heating up:

• Raptors in the lead by one (109–108 : Raptors)
• Siakam jump shot (111–108 : Raptors)
• Steph curry makes two free throws (111–110 : Raptors)
• Raptors timeout

You can imagine the intensity watching this game

• Warriors timeout

Last 8 seconds:

• Curry misses a 3-point shot
• Warriors call timeout -> Excessive timeouts called (Technical)
• Leonard makes 3 free throws (1 tech and 1 foul from Iggy)

WE WON!! I can’t believe it! This was beyond amazing, what a game, what a deserved win!

The rest is history.

#6ixin6

#Raptors

As always, thank you for making it here:

For any new readers, you might have noticed the time zone mentioned earlier was in MYT (I am in Malaysia right now), so:

• if you’re curious to know about my first few days in KL, click here.
• if you’d like to know where I’ve visited and what I’ve been doing in KL, click here.

On another note feel free to follow me on insta as I post on my story quite often: @nayem_wizdom ✌️

Connect 👉 LinkedIn | Twitter

If you’ve already read my two other blog posts before this one, then click here to scroll down to the real chunk of this blog post.

—

For those that don’t know why I’m on an expedition in Malaysia, here’s some context:

A month ago I received an incredible opportunity to be a part of the Cansbridge Fellowship’s 2019 cohort. The Cansbridge fellowship selects about 15 Canadian students in order to go abroad to push them outside of their comfort zones, accelerate their personal growth, and show them the possibilities that exist outside of Canada. The fellowship is composed of a week-long bootcamp where selected fellows take on the task to come up with a business idea and then have the opportunity to pitch it to real investors, while also visiting startups and named-companies such as Lever.co or Microsoft. This is followed by the CFC (Cansbridge Fellowship Conference) where all other fellow alums are invited to see the pitches, network and have an amazing day getting to know everyone. Finally, the selected fellows depart from SF for their own respective journey to experience Asia. This was a process of going through 4 rounds of interviews; 1 written application followed by 3 video calls with the alum of the fellowship and the founder William Yu. Truly a unique experience. That’s the gist of the Fellowship. If you want to read more in detail, here’s the link to my first blog post.

Anyways, I’m in KL (Kuala Lumpur) right now and it’s been a month. Things have really gotten better. And for that I’d like to first say,

Alhamdulillah.

When I first came to KL, I felt so lost and hopeless. Being put in a completely different environment, I was faced with challenges I never imagined. This was explained in detail in my blog post #2.

The story goes on …

Okay so where do we begin? This post is relatively longer than my other ones since so much has happened. So, it’s completely up to you if you want to ride along the entire journey. If not, then:

TL;DR:

• Exploring Batu Caves & the ASEAN Sculpture Garden
• Visiting KL Bird Park
• EID Mubarak
• Hiking Klang Quartz Ridge
• Exploring Zoo Negara

During my first weekend, a few of my friends from Singapore and Thailand came by; Allison Gacad, Cooper Midroni and Christy Chow from the fellowship. They arrived at around 8pm to my apartment. While exhausted (as one would expect from a long travel), we took the opportunity to just sit and catch up on our Asia experience. Topics such as what we’ve been learning so far, how many cockroaches we’ve seen, how many beautiful sights there are, etc. Apart from a long day, it was quite refreshing to finally have some human-interaction.

Batu Caves

The next day, Saturday May 19, we went to Batu Caves: a famous tourist attraction, with a series of beautiful temples (one of the most popular outside India¹). At first I was hesitant to go since we have to walk 375 flights of stairs to get to the actual area. Given that the entire school year has been stressful, let’s just say, my cardio was at an all time low. Anyways, I mustered up my stubborn courage and went to the caves.

On arrival, we started taking a bunch of pics, bc how can you not.

We then started walking up the staircase, at the 100th or something stair, my cardio game was something else… I gave myself the excuse in my head, “it’s okay, you’re fasting…” Had to take a breather and continued, but while I was taking a breather, we noticed monkeys. Yeah, legit monkeys!

When we reached the top, it felt simply amazing, the view was something else. Here are some more pics from inside the cave:

After ending our trip, we got ready to head towards the Sculpture Garden

ASEAN Sculpture Garden

When we entered the Garden, we were welcomed with a huge map of the site. Whilst following the map, we noticed a small, children’s park and that brought back memories of my friends and I playing sandman. I wanted to play but we were on an agenda so couldn’t lose track. Along the trail, we saw nice ponds, trees and rocks. This was such a peaceful moment; to inhale the freshness of nature while also enjoying the peace.

Here are some pics of the garden … and the park ofcourse:

KL Bird Park

After our garden tour, we booked 2 Grabs and headed towards KL Bird Park (10 min ride). The entrance ticket was about 60 ringgits (rm) which is equivalent to about $20 CAD — this was well worth it and you’ll see the images soon.

For this part of the blog, I won’t explain our journey walking and viewing the birds; so I’ll just show some candid pics.

How am I doing?

I’ve been feeling a lot better since. I’ve been breaking into my house, cleaning and keeping myself occupied. The next few weeks, I didn’t do much, just focused on work and curating a schedule to start working out after Ramadan. Finally, Eid Mubarak!

First Eid on my own

A day of celebration and joy. This is the day right after Ramadan ends upon moon sight. Normally back home (Canada) I spend all my time with family and friends. We usually eat like crazy and it feels like gaining all that weight back we lost in Ramadan. It’s truly a beautiful day and I enjoy it the most. However, this Eid was different. Clearly because I had no family and friends here. I wouldn’t say I feel lonely anymore since I’ve made friends in KL along the way, but it was just different. Part of me didn’t want to believe that

this was the first Eid I had to celebrate on my own.

But I chose not to fixate on the sadness and enjoy every moment. I bought myself ice cream, ate by myself, and spent the rest of the day with a friend from here. The next day I actually met up with the CEO of Cubecrate and one of the founders of Maxman.tv. This is how I approached him:

No email templates, no scripts, just honestly reaching out. I was stoked when they replied back and we hit it right away. Anyways, long story short, our meeting ran for 7 hours, followed by dinner at an all you can eat-kinda sushi.

A few days later one of my other friends (also a 19’ Fellow) Simone Delaney came through from Indonesia. Unfortunately, she only stayed for one night but the entire day was more than fulfilling.

I went hiking for the first time!

Simone is an avid hiker and she’s done it a couple of times, so this was the perfect opportunity to go hiking with someone experienced. We did a quick Google search at my apartment of hiking places in Malaysia and found Klang Gates Quartz Ridge (or Bukit Tabur). It is about 14km long and about 200m wide; this is the longest quartz in the world²! I told myself, ‘well if I’m going to learn how to hike, might as well try the most challenging one.’

After finalizing our place, we booked a Grab, which was 26rm ($8 CAD) to the Quartz Ridge. When we arrived, the driver didn’t know where to drop us off as they changed the entrance to another side. We were kinda lost, but luckily 10min later we found it. We then found the entrance to the hiking trail and started our mission. There were a lot of challenges on this trail:

• no specified trail, we just walked on mud and where there were openings (up and under tree branches)
• there were a bunch of rocks, so felt like a mixture of both rock climbing and hiking
• mosquitoes everywhere (20+ bug bites)
• you’ll get sweaty the first 5 minutes (it’s so steep)

But I must say, when we made it to the top, it was the most satisfying experience. Such a wonderful view, so calm and peaceful.

We then stopped by Melawati Mall for lunch and had some booming shawarma (diced)

Zoo Negara

After lunch we went straight to the zoo; they had separate ticket prices: locals, students and for foreigners. We fell in the foreigners category (obv) and we paid 82rm ($26.24CAD). There’s not much to describe in terms of our excursion around the zoo, so here are some candid pictures:

That’s all folks; I know this was a long one (with tons of visuals), but a lot has happened and I couldn’t leave out the detail.

It’s not the destination, it’s the journey — Ralph Waldo Emerson (one of my fav poets).

Thank you for making it here:

• if you’re curious to know about the Cansbridge 19’ bootcamp and my journey there, click here.
• if you’re curious to know about my first few days in KL, click here.

On another note feel free to follow me on insta as I post on my story quite often: @nayem_wizdom ✌️

Connect 👉 LinkedIn | Twitter

I had everything. I rented out the nicest, spacious studio with a terrace that has an infinity pool and a gym! My work environment was amazing, received the latest MacBook Pro with the touch ID, free lunch 2 days a week, and free snacks everyday!

Everything looked awesome, everything looked set, everything looked comfortable.

or so it seemed…

I had the biggest house with the nicest amenities, and the sickest work-welcome, but the truth is,

I have never felt so lonely in my life like this.

I felt loneliness before, but this was something else. I used to be the happiest guy, with loads of energy to make the next big thing, to make the big impact! I had strong goals, passions and dedication. Every morning I would wake up to a plan, a routine that would set my days. I always kept myself preoccupied and busy with tasks I’d like to accomplish. I used to always be on the go.

fast forward >>

Yesterday I burnt rice, I saw a flying cockroach in my kitchen, saw a dead kitten on the streets, I’ve been sleeping for 3 hours a night, living in fear, no routine, I just stay in bed all day, I don’t feel the same energy I had looking at life, I feel heavy sorrow. I feel empty inside. I feel no purpose. I want to go back home. I have no one.

I have been crying a lot inside. I feel alone.

Suddenly all of the things that meant so little, now means so much.

Family, friends, education, lifestyle, everything.

I’ve been praying a lot on-time lately; asking for guidance and help. I’ve been attending the mosque everyday after work and I feel at peace in my heart. I’ve been taking things slow; back to baby steps.

It’s okay not to be okay

I told myself. It’s okay to take some time to yourself and let your mind rest. It’s really okay. I’ve been doing a lot of searching and found multiple ways to cope with myself when I felt hopeless. Here is my list:

1. Let yourself breathe

You need to give yourself time and space to just breathe. I know how hard it can be when you can’t stop and just want to do something, but at this moment in your life, give yourself a break. You deserve it.

2. Write down everything you’re grateful for

I didn’t believe this one at first but it did a number on me. For every time I felt hopeless and sad, I would take out my iPhone and start writing everything I’m grateful for. It can be anything, here are some examples:

I am grateful for:

• having a roof over my head
• having the ability to taste, hear, see, feel
• having a bed to sleep in, etc.

3. Meetup.com

Oh yes, never thought I’d be doing this at all but I gave it a try. It’s simple as making a profile, choosing your preferences and then going to a meetup. One thing that comforts me is that there are other people on the same boat as you looking for human interaction.

4. Go outside, explore.

Yes we’re in a completely different environment, and yes it can be super hard to adjust to a new environment; take all that weight and step outside. Just walk and breathe in and out. Talk to your local convenience store, grocery store employees. If you don’t speak their language, keep exploring, you’re bound to find someone who can speak your language (if not, make learning a new language a hobby).

5. Do NOT create a todo list

Only for the first 2 weeks. From someone who comes from going through life by setting small goals, I decided not to write todo lists for my upcoming days. This really helped as I set no expectations so I had no regrets doing whatever I wanted to do on the daily. Once you’re comfortable and settled, by all means, write out your small goals and chase them!

6. Focus on your inner self more

Whether this is meditating, going for a morning run, or praying and practicing your religion. Whatever it is, focus on that. Tap into it. This is the time for reflection and growth. Understand yourself and know yourself. What is it that you deeply love, want, care about?

Finally,

7. Make your place, your home

Wherever you live, whoever you’re living with, sometimes the best thing to do is making your place like yours. Clean your bed, do the laundries, learn how to cook (in my case), clean the entire apartment. These little things can make a huge difference in your overall lifestyle. Make your home so that when you’re out, you cannot wait to go back home.

My mom and dad told me to never fear anything, to keep going and with that, I will keep going.

Thank you for making it here, stay tuned to the blog posts (mine and all the other fellows), got a massive journey ahead!

On another note feel free to follow me on insta as I post on my story quite often: @nayem_wizdom ✌️

Connect 👉 LinkedIn | Twitter

I left my friends, my comfort, my family, my home …

To embark on a journey to learn more about myself.

April 29th, 2019: While writing my exam at 9AM, I kept wondering what it would be like to join the other fellows who had already started 3 days before. I most probably will be missing out but I can’t do much in my power since I have exams on the final day…

April 30th, 2019: Farewell to my friends and family. Time to catch my flight!

✈️ MTL → SF 🏠

Journey begins

After a 12 hour flight, the first night I walked in, I was completely out of the loop as to what everyone was talking about. Fortunately, my cohort welcomed me in with open arms and filled me in entirely.

I still felt a bit lost …

What am I doing here ?

I felt like a fish in a sea of sharks. Intellectual sharks. Brilliant sharks. Amazing sharks. The coolest, open minded individuals. Couple of days passed and I integrated seamlessly with my team “The Philomaths” (yup, that’s the name we were given). We were tasked to come up with a business pitch to real investors and a self-elevator pitch. We kept working: trying to get to know everyone, finding and polishing business ideas, and writing a self-pitch. In the meantime, we visited LinkedIn, Dropbox, Cresta, Lever and Tesla to name a few. Our cohort got along really well and we all pitched our ideas to each other to get critical feedback on how to improve for the pitch day.

I felt comfortable the day of my pitch; my elevator pitch and business pitch. Everyone supported eachother and we were pulling eachother up even if we did little mistakes (albeit very few). Finally, we finished all our pitches, ate a huge meal and spent the rest of the day with the Cansbridge family.

On Saturday morning, our cohort got together in one room and in a circle we started something: name each person’s strengths and talk about your highs and lows.

My high: finally graduating high school when I was told I would never be able to.

My low: well… let’s not publish it here.

My strength? This was a series of comments from one fellow to another.

This day, was honestly the most memorable day I will ever have. This day, is what made us feel safe, feel comfortable, feel at peace, feel at home. My biggest takeaway from the entire conference was:

Be you, be confident, no one can take that from you.

🚎 SF →LA 🚙

I’ve never been to LA, so two of the fellows and I got together and decided to go on a road trip. We took the MegaBus from SF to LA and made it in 6 hours. With no itinerary/plans we decided to follow wherever the road led us (not literally). We then hopped onto an Uber to Avis Car Rental. Rented a Jeep Compass and started our day at IHOP. After breakfast at 6am, we then went to Griffith park and knocked out in the car for 3 hours. After Griffith park we went horseback riding.

Bucket list achieved ✔️

Next up, Hollywood, honestly not really much here as we saw celebrity names on the floor, had street food and went to the illusion museum.

Lastly, we drove to Santa Monica Beach and had Bubba Gump’s resto, ate an amazing meal and then went Uber e-biking for 30min. That was the end to that one fruitful day. We all dispatched.

✈️ LA → 🏨 JPY → 🏡 KL

Where am I going?

I am going to Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia! Super excited as I will be doing Ramadan, so an abundance of halal food around. Before landing in KL, I had one 18 hour layover in Japan (’tis what I get for buying a cheap ticket). I entered as a tourist and booked a hotel for the night at Ninehours (9hrs) hotel, which was connected to the airport (Narita). The hotel isn’t what you might think it is, a room, a bed, maybe a TV, a bathroom, a mirror? Nope.

These were pods. Sleeping pods. You walk in, they gave you sandals and a uniform and a towel. I felt like I was in jail. I was inside the pod for about 10 hours and it was the first time in my life, I felt as if I was living life in a box. I was confined in such a humid space, with nothing but loneliness. I just kept playing in my head “it’s okay, just one night and you’re out.” This one night felt like an eternity. This was hectic, nothing I’ve imagined.

The next day,

Finally, I slept 3 hours and rushed out to leave the pod to catch my flight (I was 5 hours early — on purpose). Just bought Starbucks for breakfast, dropped $25 USD for a veggie sandwich and a small ice frapp. Talk about hustling.

Caught my flight and here we go …

🏡 Kuala Lumpur | Malaysia

Thank you for making it here, if you’re curious to know about my first few days in KL, click here.

On another note feel free to follow me on insta as I post on my story quite often: @nayem_wizdom ✌️

Connect 👉 LinkedIn | Twitter