Tag: Lifescouts

Big Ben badge. Obviously, I earned this badge last month during my trip to UK and even went to Alex Day’s booth itself to buy a physical badge for myself.

I visited Big Ben at Westminster with Kenzie and his parents. It was nothing much, just a trademark building many people take photo with to show that you’ve been to London. You couldn’t really enter the Big Ben itself, so that was as interesting as Big Ben could get. But I’m happy I have this badge. I’m happy I have the bragging rights of going to London at least once in my lifetime. And if you haven’t been to London, you’ve been missing out, honestly.

 

Zoo badge. The ultimate childhood badge. I’ve been to the zoo a couple of times. Not many times, but it was a good dose of zoo-sage for a kid like me at the time. I can’t quite remember the zoos I went to as a child, but I knew Taiping Zoo was definitely one of them. In 2011, I went to Taiping Zoo with a bunch of my other schoolmates as part of a Form 4 Biology educational trip, apparently. That was the only time I went to the zoo as an adolescent. And apparently Effie wants to bring me to the zoo when I go to KL, so that’s cool.

 

 

 

Horse riding badge. I think I’ve ridden two horses in my entire life. The first one was a pony, at A Famosa I think when I was about five or six. The second, much bigger horse was ridden at the beaches of Tanjung Bungah when I was about eleven, probably. Both times, I wasn’t a very good horse rider. It’d be great if there were equestrian lessons available widely here, though. That would be an interesting activity to delve into.

 

 

 

Safari badge. I’ve been on the A Famosa safari twice; once when I went there with my family when I was about ten and once with my schoolmates on a graduation trip when I was twelve. I’ve been on the Singapore zoo day and night safaris too, when I was seven, with my parents and cousins.

 

 

 

Pet-owning badge. Boy, do I deserve this badge. The only pets I’ve ever owned are dogs and fishes. No cats. Quite a shame, actually, because I kind of like cats too. I’ve owned about ten dogs my entire life, but currently I have two dogs. Golden is about 10 dog years and is a Golden Retriever, whereas Heart is three dog years and is a mixed poodle. They’re really different; where Golden is tame and obedient, Heart is ferocious and stubborn. But he’s the cute and small one so everyone spoils him. Life.

 

 

 

 

Chess badge. Not much to say here, since I’m not a professional chess player, but I learned to play chess when I was about nine years old. I loved it. I learned how to play Chinese chess when I was 12, but that I didn’t really like. My chess skills are pretty rusty now but it’d be cool to revive it.

 

 

 

 

Video games badge. VIDEO GAMES. I was a Playstation nerd when the first PS came out, and the first thing I would do when I went to my uncle’s house was play the PS for hours. I used to play games like Crash Bandicoot and Puzzle Bubble and Tekken and really childish games. Same thing happened when I used to go to Joshua’s house. And then I grew up to become a girl (ooohhhh stereotyping here, guys) and my parents weren’t the kind to buy video games so I stopped playing for a good few years but I recently rediscovered my love for video games when I went to Beneh’s place after SPM for a good gaming session. That, and also because of Dan and Phil’s influence.

 

 

Rubiks cube solving badge. I KNOW HOW TO SOLVE THE RUBIKS CUBE!!! Or rather, I knew. Back in Form One or Two, I can’t remember, but the Rubiks cube was so popular among my classmates and literally everywhere you went, there were people solving it. Even during class. We used to have competitions to see who could solve it the fastest. That was when I picked up on how to solve it. I wish I still remember how to solve it, I probably do, but it’s been so long I can’t be sure.

 

 

 

Scrabble badge. Scrabble used to be my favourite game. You can see I was brought up rather intellectually (cough). I haven’t played Scrabble in years, though. People these days don’t exactly turn to board games for entertainment anymore, do they?

 

 

 

 

Bowling badge. I actually bowled for the first time in December 2012, when I followed Beneh and Putri and many other schoolmates of mine to Pacific after SPM finished. I mean, actually, really bowled and not just go to a bowling centre and watch other people bowl. I was terrible at it. I still am. I have terrible coordination skills and stamina so that was expected, at least.

 

 

 

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Currently listening to:

 

Well, to be honest, I’ve never actually seen a proper, real, genuine sunrise before. The only time I was even remotely close to witnessing a sunrise was when I was at Eight Acres, Pahang for a Young News Network camp. My group and I had woken up in the wee hours of the morning just to try to get footages of the sunrise but as we waited at the porch with our camera equipment ready and all, we realised that we weren’t going to be getting what we had wanted after all because it started raining at about 6AM. So technically, yes, we did witness a sunrise, just not, well, a visual one.

 

I went to Sydney, Australia for the first time when I was eight years old, thus you would forgive me if I cannot remember the exact details of the trip. What I do remember though, is visiting the Sydney Opera House, but get this, we didn’t even enter the House. I don’t remember but I think we weren’t allowed inside if there weren’t any events going on inside. But we did take photos outside of it, so I guess that counts.

I think I’m cheating the system here. All the badges I claim to have are for half-assed achievements that aren’t even complete.

 

OKAY, this is a real, full-assed complete one. Last year, to celebrate Leea, Anum and Lela’s birthday altogether, my gang and I went to Taman Jubli Emas for a picnic. There were doughnuts, pizza, cookies, spaghetti etc and it was splendid. We picnicked by the lake until the sun set and I even filmed a video of our time there but somehow I’ve lost it but here’s a photo collage by Beneh:

The first (and currently, last) time I went fishing it wasn’t by using a contemporary fishing rod by a lake or pond or anything. My first time fishing was on a fishing boat in the middle of the sea using the traditional bottle and string method. My uncle and aunt had flown down (or up? Geography what is that) from England so my dad and my other uncle thought it’d be fun to bring them fishing the traditional way. Needless to say, our catch at the end of the day was non-existent, but it sure was fun.

 

Okay, another half-assed one. I’ve never actually done real CPR to a real person before but I took a CPR course once for St. John’s and I did CPR to a dummy and I passed and yep

I started learning swimming at the age of 11, with Jia Yuan at ASRC. It was a 12-lesson schedule held every week, and I remembered it being one of the highlights of my primary school life. At first I was a flailing fledgling (say that ten times fast) but in the end, I turned out to love it. It always made me peaceful, even now, whenever I go swimming– except of course when there are a lot of people around screaming and shouting and bumping into random body parts (um).

And you have reached the end of this post! Phew!

Okay, first off, let me get this out of the way by admitting that no, I do not know how to play the guitar despite the fact that I own one. I guess my owning of this badge is justified by the fact that when I was 15, shortly after PMR ended for me, my uncle (who is so musically gifted in every way that he taught himself to play the guitar and piano through online courses only and is currently part of a band) gave me one of his guitars as a present and so I started to learn how to play the guitar through tutorials on YouTube.

My motivation only lasted for a day.

Not even gonna lie, I was so enthusiastic at first, and the first song that I chose to learn on YouTube was Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day and it went horribly. In the end, I got nothing out of it and tried another tutorial of Pressure by Paramore. I obtained the same results and proceeded to give up, all of this within an hour or so. I feel like I’m turning into Dan Howell because what all my readers should do is list down the things I do and never do them. Perseverance and determination, what’s that???

But to justify by laziness and lack of motivation, my guitar is a classical guitar and thus doesn’t sound the same as an acoustic guitar which most people use to play with but excuses excuses excuses.

And that is the story of how I got this badge (alternatively known as HIGTB) (if you know what I’m referencing).

While I might not have received any formal education on the French language in school or any institution or academy, I have learnt a thing or two about French through online language courses (ikindalikelanguages.com) and also by downloading the Learn French app onto my phone.

For some reason still totally unbeknownst to me, French is my second favourite language next to English, which is kind of ironic because the stereotypical French dislikes the English but for some reason, I’ve always found the French language fascinating and also really elegant and classy (although maybe it really is a “just in movies” kind of thing). I’ve never had the chance to utilise the language in real life so far, but who knows, maybe I’ll end up in France one day? (?????)

I’m still not entirely sure how one gets awarded a Lifescouts badge; do I get the badge once I have successfully and completely acquired a certain skill or do I get the badge as long as it’s something I have done before? In this case, it would be the latter option for me.

Bonjour, je m’appelle Michelle, bonne journée, au revoir! 

I think most people who follow my blog would already know my driving story; how I acquired my license and my adventures with Harry Mobile (yes, that is what my car is called and yes, it is named after Harry Styles) but for the sake of this Lifescouts badge, I will sum up my driving experience as well as I can.

I signed up for my license at Ilmu Baru, spent about four months attending talks and lessons and all that until I fixed a date for my JPJ test. I failed it the first time, was a mess because of it, and then later realised how silly I was for overreacting, and passed with flying colours during my second try. I had gotten my car a week before my first JPJ test, so on the day I got my license, I was already starting my Alor Setar exploration adventure. Not that there was anything much to explore in Alor Setar, but still, visiting the places you’ve visited a thousand times felt different when you were the one behind the wheel.

I started driving to school and tuitions then, and after school finished, I was (to quote the fabulous Ben Starling of Paper Towns) the designated driver for my friends on our small town adventures together, and now that I’ve started work, driving to work was now a routine too.

I think my “gila steering” days have completely passed me by, but there’s something very comforting about driving because it gives you a sense of control, and it’s proven to be quite a therapeutic activity.