Happy Birthday, bestie!

Today marks a special day for someone close to my heart... My best friend in the entire world: Justin Lim Sung Jae!

Happy 22nd Birthday, buddy! 💖

How we met goes all the way back to 2014, at the Australian International School Malaysia (AISM). I don't believe we knew each other that well at the start, but we were in some of the same classes together, such as Business Studies, Economics and also Music.

I can't remember exactly how we got close, but I think it was because Justin wanted to become a chef and attend Le Cordon Bleu after graduation, and someone close to me happened to be studying there as well. That's how our friendship officially started! Food really does bring people together huh? Anyway, both of us couldn't wait to graduate that's for sure. We were then also in the AISM Jazz Band and we've performed together in multiple external galas and school events. He was the guitarist and I was the pianist. In Year 12, I kinda became his "tutor". In our free periods, I would be teaching him and pushing him to study, and in exchange he would cook for me haha (amazing food already btw). We were basically hanging out everyday together in school. The best thing about AISM was that I got to know you, Juzzy!

We're best friends because we're basically the same person. Like he always says, I'm just the girl version of him. He's the guy that would understand everything I say, even if I'm just rambling on about my thoughts, he would get it without me having to explain myself. He just gets me, and that's a trait that's really difficult to find, and one that I truly appreciate. I can literally call him up or shoot him a text whenever and I know that he will always be there for me, and to listen to me.

He's an extremely talented chef that also happens to always cook mouthwatering dishes for me whenever I see him (lucky me!), an extremely talented guitarist (and the best one I know) and a gym enthusiast, who was the one who introduced and pushed me into joining the gym. He writes workout plans and also diet plans for me, not before doing all his research and trying them out first. He's also the guy that will carry me home when I'm passed out drunk and being stubborn by sitting in the middle of the road (which happened in Korea btw hahaha 😂).

He's the one that inspires and motivates me to do better, and be better. Always encouraging me to think positive and to reach for greater heights. He also taught me to focus on myself first and to continue improving till I'm the best version of myself. He's been through so much hardships in his life, but he never once gave up. He takes on challenges like a champ and grows better through it. He has changed from the most negative person I knew to the most positive one now. He's also the guy that chose to apply for the Marines, which is the most difficult chapter of the South Korean army, just because he wanted a challenge to push himself and conquer it. Go big or go home, am I right? 💪🏼 He's also responsible and matured way beyond his age. He stands by his principles and doesn't budge. He is my inspiration in life. I've seen him change a great deal and come such a long way throughout the 5 years that I've known him and I'm super proud!!!

Bestie, you radiate warmth, you beam sincerity, and you emanate passion with every single thing you do. You are so amazing and I'm lucky to call you my friend and know that I'll always have you by my side. I'll be waiting for you to get out. Distance ain't got nothing on us! Instead, I believe it has made us even stronger. Cheers to an everlasting friendship, and here's to achieving all the dreams and goals we've set in life!

2018 : thank u, next

Hi everybody! You know what, I'm just gonna stop apologising for not blogging regularly as I don't see a point anymore haha. I can promise to TRY to blog more in 2019 as I will be starting fresh in a new country and a new region, so I will have more experiences to share.

WARNING: Long post ahead. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Everyone has been posting their years in review all over social media, looking back at 2018 and I figured I might as well do the same. I mean, why not, right? I will do a recap of significant events that happened throughout the year, according to the timeline. Some of these events deserve their own separate post, so I will work on that later.

Korea

In February, a friend (Elena) and I made our way to Korea for a trip. We flew there together, but once we arrived, we went our separate ways. I spent my trip with my best friend, Justin! I had the most amazing time ever. Justin took great care of me, fed me, made me sleep etc- he pulled me out of my zombie-like state that was apparently scary haha. To be fair, two weeks before the trip, I had not slept or ate well as I was trying my best to finish up a course assignment that was unexpected.

SCOPE

In case you don't know, SCOPE is the official student organisation of my business school which I was a Board member of. I planned my second, and last active member weekend, this time fortunately I had the help of my lovely committee. We booked a chalet in Belgium, and the place was beautiful. We had nice rooms, a ping pong table, table football, etc. It was definitely an upgrade from our previous place. If you asked me, what I miss most about SCOPE were the people, especially members from my pillar. It was an honour serving you guys. 😊 I also retired as the Social Activities Coordinator of the Marketing and Management Pillar around June and was proud to hand my position over to Ruby, who was in my committee. Three out of four of my committee members received Board positions and one finished her exchange and went back to Switzerland (missing you, Michelle!).

Bali

In March, I travelled to Bali to attend a wedding, where I was also one of the bridesmaids. It was great to have another break in the midst of studying to meet up with friends from Malaysia. It was a beautiful wedding and I'm glad I was given a chance to be a part of it.

Gym
April was the official month that I started going to the gym. Justin had been pressing me to do it since Korea but I just didn't have the time. Anyhow, since I started, gym has been my life ever since! It was really difficult at first, but it was also exciting as I was curious to try new things and see how far I can push myself. With Justin as my personal trainer, customising exercise and meal plans for me, I was certain I was in good hands. Soon, I found myself going to the gym three to four times a week, with three hours per session, and it became an addiction. When I was back in Malaysia, I went to Celebrity Fitness in One Utama, and boyyyy do I love that gym! They have great equipments and the employees were super nice to me. During my internship, I would wake up at 4:30am, get to the gym by 6am, train, then I'd be off to work. I preferred it that way as the early morning sessions got me pumped and feeling productive, ready to take on whatever the world brings. Plus, I love how empty the gym is in the morning. Sometimes after work, I would attend classes such as spinning or yoga with my Shu. ❤️

Keukenhof
After almost three years of living in the Netherlands, I finally made my way to Keukenhof in Spring. It's mainly a tulip festival and is basically one of the world's largest flower gardens, decorated by around seven million flower bulbs per year. The flowers in the garden create a beautiful world of it's own. I went with my girl Julia and we had such a nice time admiring the gorgeous scene, taking pictures and even having a small relaxing picnic by the park. After that, we stopped by Utrecht for dinner (it's another small yet charming city in the Netherlands).

Sam Smith
Sam Smith has always been my favourite singer. His voice is angelic and I find his songs so meaningful. In May, I attended his concert at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam, and OH MY GOD, it was unbelievable! He is the kindest and most down to earth celebrity ever. The concert was just magical, his live voice sounded the same (or even better) than in his recorded songs.

Case Competition
If you've been following my blog, you would've probably known about me getting into Maastricht University's International Case Competition team. In April, I had the privilege to help out during the International Case Competition @ Maastricht (ICC@M). However, in October, I was selected to join the Hong Kong International Case Competition (HKICC) with my dream team: Daniel, Niklas and Jonas. It was definitely an unforgettable experience and I was extremely happy to be given this amazing opportunity! It was my first case competition, but I fell in love with it and now I'm thinking of venturing into the Consulting field after I graduate.

Internship
From mid June to the end of Aug, I was a marketing intern at Mondelez Malaysia, the parent company that owns big brands such as Oreo, Cadbury, Twisties, Belvita, and so on. I was in the biscuits (BEST) team with incredible colleagues. I got to handle multiple projects on my own, and my proudest one would probably be Oreo Colourfilled. I also volunteered, visited the Google office, made lifelong friends, learned a ton and grew as a person, not to forget I also had the time of my life (the free snacks were pretty great too 😛).

Hong Kong / Macau
After HKICC ended, I stayed on longer and completed my first ever solo trip in Hong Kong, and also a day trip to Macau. It was honestly kinda scary and also kinda boring, but I might be biased as something sad happened during that trip. Anyway, I don't know but personally I found HK a little disappointing. I may have set my expectations too high.

Cologne
Made my way to Cologne for the first time to celebrate Carnival. It's just one of those days where people dress up and get shitfaced drunk haha. I was in a phase of trying new things and I went with a group of people. The festival was quite okay I guess, but the weather was really bad, it was cold and drizzling the entire day which was kinda annoying.

MaRBLe
I was accepted into the Maastricht Research Based Learning honour thesis programme. The benefits of this programme include us having the "freedom" to choose our own topic and also getting assigned a personal supervisor. Students of MaRBLe dive deeper into the academic research aspect. However, we would also need to write a longer thesis as compared to other students. Speaking of which, I'm still looking for respondents for my survey! If you are a Malaysian woman and is currently working in Malaysia, please click on this link and help a girl out 🙏🏻, I will elaborate more about my chosen topic once my survey collection period is over.

United Kingdom
Kickstarted my winter holidays by flying to London right after my last exam in Maastricht. I was in London and Bristol for around a week each. I celebrated my last Christmas in Europe by having a Christmas dinner / "weekend" at Bronson's, where I came to know a bunch of crazy yet fun peeps.

Spain
Hola from Barcelona! Part Two of my winter holidays was traveling to Spain. My sister and I first spent a day in Madrid, then we made our way to Barcelona. All I can say is, I'm IN LOVE with Barcelona! My New Year's Eve / Day were spent here, we even tried out this Spanish tradition, where you eat 12 grapes, one grape per second, for the 12 seconds leading up to New Year's. It was super interesting, so we bought grapes on NYE and attempted to do that. It was more difficult than it sounds tbh lol I probably shouldn't have bought non-seedless grapes.



A lot has happened in 2018; I've laughed and I've cried, I've loved and I've lost, I've made new friends and I've also lost old friends. 2018 has been a rough year for me- I would even say my most painful one to date. However, I still appreciate the good times and will learn to take the bad times as lessons for future growth. Sometimes, we are too caught up with things that are happening around us that we begin to lose sight of what's truly important. I'm still incredibly blessed and lucky to have everything I have.

As for friends, 2018 has indeed been a turning point for me as I've come to see clearly who my real friends are. To those who were there with me at my best and also picked me up at my worst, I'm grateful for each and every one of you. You know who you are. ❤️

With a new year comes new experiences, new places, new memories and new people. I'm closing the last page of the old chapter and starting fresh with a blank page. It's exciting to know that anything can happen because the possibilities are endless. Here's to becoming the best version of myself. 🥂 I'm looking forward to an amazing 2019!

MISSMAVERRR GOES TO KOREA

It has been one month since I came back from having the time of my life, and I still miss it everyday. 😢 Please excuse my shaky hands, it was super cold (lowest -24°C). 🙈 I've been to Korea a few years back with my family, so I wanted to focus more on seeing Seoul like a local on this trip. I thought I would upload the vlog first, then when I have time, I will blog about where I went, what I did (and ate) there. 

ENJOY! x

CHINESE NEW YEAR & VALENTINE'S DAY

Hello guys! I'm sorry for being MIA for the past few weeks, I was in Korea for almost two weeks, then ever since coming back, I've been trying to adjust to the time difference. I'm still very jetlagged. I fall asleep in the evening and wake up at around 3am, then just stay awake the whole night and the cycle continues. I guess my mind and body hasn't really left Korea yet. Anyway, I'm back to blogging and I will be posting more posts soon!

Here's to wishing you guys a Happy Chinese New Year! ㊗️ 恭喜发财，万事如意，心想事成，狗年好运旺旺来啊！🐶 Huat ahhh!! I really like this year because it's the Dog year, and dogs are my FAVOURITE animal in the whole universe! I could totally see myself growing old surrounded by a house full of doggies! 😍 I'm dying over here watching all the CNY Snapchat and Insta stories posted by people back home in Malaysia. 😭 This is my second year missing out on the festivities and unfortunately it won't be my last. 🙁 I still have one year to go, but next year I will be on my exchange somewhere else in the world, so it will be a new change hopefully. I miss all the delicious food and snacks, and especially the reunions; getting angpows (red packets) is just the cherry on top!

So I had a week off from university due to the Carnival Celebrations in Europe. This week was really filled with events. It started off with Carnival, then Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year! I basically just stayed at home the entire week, mostly in my bed, just chilling and resting. My housemate and I were planning on going somewhere this week, but it was kinda last minute so we thought just taking this week off to rest. You would've seen the zombie Maverlyn if we actually went somewhere. I wish I was still in Korea though, coz I rushed back for just 2 days of classes then it was the holidays again. I could've skipped those classes tbh. 🙃 I really hate how my uni prefers to give us the schedule for our next period only two weeks before, so we can't really plan ahead. Since my friend and I already bought our flight tickets last year, there was nothing much we could do about it.

By the way, I'm still working on my Korea content, I will be posting a blog post and the vlog together. I'm still figuring out how I wanna write the travel post and also finishing up my vlog, any suggestions are more than welcomed! 😃 Just contact me through any of my social media sites by clicking at the icons on the right side of this blog, under "Let's get social". Please be patient guys! 💖

On Chinese New Year Eve, I wanted to cook more than ten dishes like how it's usually done back home, but with only me and my housemate eating, it just wasn't practical. I wanted to spruce things up a little, so I decided to cook the Korean dish - budae jigae (army stew). Justin taught me his recipe when I was in Korea and I loved it! There were some minor adjustments, but I'm glad it turned out really well. My housemate said she really missed eating mussels back in China, so I said I would give it a try to cook it. It was my first time cooking both these dishes. It's so awesome when your best friend is a chef. 😂 When I was cooking the stew, I called up Justin and he taught me step by step. I'm so lucky. ☺️

You could say that Chinese New Year is when I miss home the most, as compared to my birthday, Christmas or any other holidays. I guess this is because I've grown up in a really close family, and I love how all family and friends make it a point to gather together during CNY, no matter how busy everyone is. It just feels like home, warm and loving. Usually in Malaysia, I would have reunion lunch with family from my mom's side, then dinner with my dad's side.

On the first day of CNY, I would first go to my grandma's house (mom's side) to 拜年 (bai nian) coz she lives right behind my house, then I would go to my grandma's house (dad's side) in Jasin. Dinner would usually be in a restaurant. On the second day, I would spend the whole day with my mom's side, and then at night we would have some heavenly steamboat/hotpot. 🤤 I was sad to be missing out on all of that, but my parents did Skype me so I can say hi to everybody. However, I was adamant on at least keeping some traditions alive. I spent my whole morning making some CNY snacks such as the fried spring rolls with sugar, and also making tang yuan (glutinous rice balls) from scratch.

Be safe and enjoy yourselves on this festive season! May your year be filled with love, happiness and everything your heart desires. 

WEEK UPDATE : CASE COMPETITION & PARTIES

Hi guys! So my Christmas break ended and classes started again last week. Life has been hectic as usual for me, I've been having different activities every day and night this past week. On Monday night, I attended The Wall Street Kickoff Party, hosted by SCOPE Maastricht. The concept was pretty cool, people dressed up like business people, the prices of drinks fluctuated every five minutes like the stock exchange, I guess it fit perfectly with our image since we're the School of Business and Economics (SBE).

If you read my previous post, you'd know about my ICC encounter session. I had it at the beginning of last week, and it took about half a day. I'm not really allowed to disclose information about that session, but I can say that it was quite an eye-opening experience for me. It was a humbling experience being in the presence of brilliant students, and I think everyone did an amazing job. The selection methods used were very different compared to many of the other interviews/selections I've been in throughout my life. The tasks provided were new, exciting but also mentally exhausting. By the end of the day, my brain was fried and I felt completely drained. It also probably didn't help that I still had my fever, so my head was literally burning up. Anyway, there was more clarity after the session as the trainers explained to us everything we needed to know, such as how they chose us, what we're getting ourselves into, what's gonna happen moving forward, etc. We also had two students from last year's team join us and share their experiences, while also being in charge of one of the tasks.

The trainers didn't take long to make up their minds, as by evening time, I already received an email congratulating me on passing the selections and that I GOT IN!!!! Myself, along with 15 other students are now in the school team, and will be representing Maastricht University for competitions throughout 2018/2019!!!! OMG this is so surreal! I honestly can't believe this is happening, I'm filled with excitement but it's also super nerve wracking coz shit is real now. I'm actually gonna go on competitions and speak in front of many people hahaha. However, I'm confident that after all the training sessions, I'll improve and it's gonna be a beneficial experience for me, I'm so looking forward to it!

Our weekly Preuv nights started again last Tuesday, and it was the showdown between my committee (Internal M&M) and the IEO committee. We had a cross pillar activity on Wednesday night, it was a Casino Night with the theme Casino Royale 007 - James Bond Flair, I think it was quite a successful night as everybody really enjoyed themselves gambling (me included) lol. The next day was New Year's Drinks, although there were no lobsters as promised 🙁 , I had a really good time coz I was so drunk haha. I might've had just a little too much wine and rosé to drink, apparently I was told I walked into a glass door? 😂

In general, I'm proud of my amazing committee. ♥ They're all so nice, so creative, hardworking and ever-ready to help. I'm so honoured to be your coordinator, and I couldn't and wouldn't have asked for a better bunch of lovely people to work with. 😘  So much love for you guys! 😍