Ready.

"My name is Amir. I am 20 years old."

The ice-breaking session goes on, telling more things about myself and all.

But really.
I came to wonder what really have I achieved being 20 years old.

I wanted to think more of what could I really achieve in life, while still being called as a youth. I still believe that
there's loads of time for me to do that. I still do.

But living with all these kinds of society to family and finally life expectations, my life just seems to be like a box of
random chocolates. You never know what you'll ever get. It's not the future nor the past that haunts me even more. It's
the sense of consciousness of me being in the present, and knowing uncertainties in life.

The question is even more terrifying, when they asked; "are you even prepared for this?"

"This" life here is real.
I am in university now. It is at Sarawak.

Before coming here I knew very little of Sarawak. Other than knowing my father once was stationed over here fighting
communist guerrilas in the mid 70s, I could very much say that I know this part of Sarawak here only when I arrived "here".

I did, and it was my very own choice. Knowing yes it was far, I didn't mind though. As long as I could learn what I really
wanted to learn. And as long as I could pursue in something that I feel very much to my own expertise.

"I wanted to do it." I thought.

But I didn't really calculate the whole risk. The risk of not having enough money and what more.
Oh. Moreover, the risk of failure.

I watched that movie, "Interstellar" and I thought it was more mindblown than any other movies that I once have seen.
There was this scene where they went back to their ship, sighing from a "large wave" planet.

"We were not prepared for this."

Then again I thought. We thought we have prepared some things. Like mentally and physically, we can assess ourselves wether
we have become stronger, better or not. Likewise in our daily life, we thought we did prepare for our final exams. We
really thought we did our preparations far better than any other previous attempts we made previously.

But in fact, we didn't. Because we didn't expect the unexpected.

We weren't prepared for uncertainties in life.

More so to that, I didn't want to think of it. The more you thought of how helpless you've got yourself into, that's when
you would feel the sort of whirlpool sucking every sort of problems you've got.

Yes, it gets heavier. Or this is where we call it "serabut".
But I never said "I didn't know what to do."

I always kept myself a reminder.
"Train hard, fight easy, you win the war. Train easy, fight hard, you die."
That was what my Chief Instructor said, back when I was in the old days.

Whatever situations happens to us, stay calm. Being all tensed can snap your limit and that's where you would give up.

You will not foresee a situation with your eyes opened, but your mind is elsewhere. Rather your eyes should be closed,
with your mind focused.

What gives me a stronger reason to live is probably because I'm surrounded with the warmth of the people around me.

Yes. I believe so. Yes I do.

It gives me the sort of platform to carry on and go with whatever there is in front of me.

So, do I still write things? Yes, I do.
Asyraf Amir. 20141223.