In between start and end

During Christmas day this year I went to have a lil celebration for my 8As in PMR. My aunt decided to treat me lamb at Cozy House Restaurant in Great Eastern Mall, KL since my dad told her that I love eating mutton or lamb so much. FYI, my family and I had never been to the mall before.

From what I know, Great Eastern is an insurance company. So the company must have been rich enough to build their very own mall. But anyway, it was also my first time dining at Cozy House.

I ordered the black pepper lamb chop.

Mah food!!

WARNING: This is from the point of view of a person who doesn't read books but is trying to start a reading habit.

Since the 6th of December, there was a sale held in MIECC, The Mines in Seri Kembangan. It was claimed to be "The World's Biggest Book Sale"... it's the BIG BAD WOLF SALE!!!!

Yeah so I obviously went there. FINALLY. After begging my parents for the whole of last week everyday after they arrived home from work. Well, glad it paid off. Now let me put the story in before, during and after parts of the sale, shall we?

BEFORE:
I Twitter-searched "Big Bad Wolf sale" beforehand to see if anyone posted pictures of books they've bought from the sale. Like I guessed, there were TONS of pictures like that posted on Instagram (mostly). That was like a survey for me to see what kind of books are available for sale so that it would give me some rough idea to what I should expect. Intentionally, I have been wanting to buy The Hunger Games trilogy or the Divergent trilogy because of the great reviews and feedback from readers. Well they are (or in Divergent's case, soon to be) a MAJOR MOTION FILM so there's no doubt of the well-written'ness' of the book. I saw their Twitter & FB page posted a pic of The Hunger Games trilogy on the preview day so I was kinda looking forward to that. I also searched on the Big Bad Wolf official website and found out that The Carrie Diaries and the sequel Summer in The City are gonna be available there so I added them into the 'books I'm buying' (imaginary) list.

The other book besides the ones mentioned that was in my list was "Lucy in The Sky" by Paige Toon. A book that I found out from the Twitter-search and it was said that Paige Toon's books are good so thought that I should give it a go.

DURING:
This process was unexpected at all. Since I came quite late (it was on the 2nd last night) MOST of the books were scattered literally all over the table. It hurts my eyes to just look for the books that were in my list. I came at around 12:30am and it feels like during the peak hours as the hall was fully-packed.

After tired of not finding the books that I wanted, I tried asking about 7 crews there for The Carrie Diaries series and only one of them actually knew the author (Candace Bushnell) but all of them said they've NEVER seen the book before. That was really disappointing as the title was listed on their website. I was just like /shock. I didn't actually bothered to look for The Hunger Games when I was there since I have a strong feeling they're no longer available and I think I was right. But luckily I found Lucy in The Sky so that kinda makes up to it because at least I found the one book that was in my list but still not very happy with the crews' answers.

AFTER:
So finally I came home with these beauties.

Under The Never Sky synopsis

Through The Ever Night synopsis

At first I saw the Through The Ever Night book at the young adult section and thought that it was one of the Divergent trilogy at the first look and when I saw the author's name believe me, my eyes were suddenly widen. I read "Veronica Ro- expecting it to be -th but it ended with -ssi. I mentally face-palmed and just left the book where I found it.

Photo credit: Syafira Ain

From the 2nd til 5th of December ago, I went to an annual school camp which is known as Kem Tahan Lasak (translated as 'Extreme Survival Camp' lol I just made that up but hopefully you get the picture). I went to this camp last year but mainly we played sports like volleyball, handball, futsal, kayak-ing and flying fox. This year there was a little twist because throughout the whole 4 days of camp we were handled by askar Wataniah (they're like back-up soldiers).

On the first day of camp itself, we have been treated like soldiers already. It felt like an army camp in a way. We even slept on a soldier bed (they called it as warden bed though), the ones that can be set up and without mattress. To help you city people imagine, think of it as the stretcher that paramedics use but in the colour of army-green and has legs like a bed.
Every morning there we did physical training (PT) which was very fun working out those muscles I never had. There are also some new experiences I've never had before throughout this year's camp.
For the first time I've...
- Been to an army camp.
- Clean the inside of a fish (specifically catfish).
- Ate a part of chicken that my friends slaughter and cooked.
- Went jungle trekking through deep inside an actual forest (well it's in a University region but forest is STILL A FOREST).
- Fishing using a pole made of a tree stem.
- Fishing in general.
- Went camping without a towel (never mentioned this to anyone throughout the camp but it's true that I forgot to bring a towel and survived 4 days without it).
- Goes to camp with friends who I planned to go with (usually I'll go to a camp without even knowing who else is going).
- Awarded the BEST group in camp.
- Only bring one small backpack, a small carry luggage bag and a sleeping bag. The least clothes I've ever brought to a camp.

I would story tell the camp activities and all but I don't think anyone would want to read that long and detail version so I'll just leave you with a group picture with all the 44 'cadets', teachers and facilitators.

Group shot!

A close-up in case you can't spot me. I'm the girl in blue shirt and black hijab btw.

P.S. Do you notice the dude in army pants and black tee at the front row in the group shot? Yeah everyone in camp seems to fangirl over him, but to be honest he reminds me of my primary school crush so badly. Every time I look at him I don't see the guy everyone at camp falls for, I see the guy I fell for back then. To any of my possible close primary school friends reading this, you'll know who I'm ranting about.

Xx,
Melynn.

HEY HEY HEYYY!

I know it's been awhile since the last post (my sincere apology for my laziness). As you might know or might not know, school holidays had started! And it's gonna end in less than a month now... well, 3 more weeks to be exact. It's sad to think that way so I shall not. On the bright side we still got time before school re-opens yeeep >.<

Basically what have I been doing for the past 2 months...?
Let's see.

Photo credit: Ka Mun

Photo credit: Ka Mun

Here's one of the many souvenirs received.

And so the rest of my days I spent at home watching movies and TV shows online, some of it I had outings with my besties and going for some book sales. This school holidays won't be another waste of holidays so I'm intended to do more beneficial activities before it ends in 3 weeks.