Year 2007

Last year, when I was posting about previous year 2006, I ended my post with following words:"And so now at the end of year 2006 I am gratefull for this amazing year. I was given many challenges, happiness, some sad moments, ups and downs... I hope the year 2007 will be at least simmilar...:)"
And here I go, the year 2007 has past very fast and I am happy to look back how this year has been and what it has brought to me.
January - I made it: submitted bachelor thesis and ...Bc. Pavlina Beckova -yay! Carrying on with my Master studies!! Also Ski Trip happened, that gave me new friends that I hanged out with for coming cool months.

February - studying, living my ordinary life again...

March - Spain! First time in my life I went to Spain to visit one of my best friends - Pablo. Erasmus reunion was very nice!!!
- Another Erasmus reunion happened, this time in Prague&Strakonice - Joost from Holland came to visit me. We had a lot of fun and good time.

April - I started to teach English! I really liked it and I am convinced I will carry on when I come back from Malaysia. I won Photo Competiton at my University! I started to think about going abroad for an internship...
- Uppsala trip. Awesome. Hard to find words for that.

May - I got to know, that rest of this year I will spend several tousands km far from the Czech Republic, in Malaysia. First I was shocked with this idea, but.. why not? :) - Bye bye parties, finishing semester at the uni, spending time with my friends&family...

June - 23 year old lady is counting down. Sensation White. Holidays with my family, very nice...
- 3 2 1 ... and here I was. Malaysia & Singapore Trip.
- My new life has started. June and July were rather tough months, but I made it :)

July - Excitement from the new culture, but also missing home already - the food, culture, people... Fighting with cockroaches and stuff...
- NAC 2007 experience, Perhentian trip, Scuba diving course...

August - This month somehting changed. Something nice began. Happy month:)
- Going to Cameron Highlands, my new room (old-new) from IKEA!!! I attended Indian Engagement and the end of the month I spent on Redang "Fairytale" island scubadiving. The best ending of the month - Paul Van Dyke was playing in KL!

September - Mixed feeling from Earthquake in Indonesia & Health of Malaysians, Working hard, trip to Penang with Edu - first time I saw buddhist monks "in action".

October - Vietnam. OMG. What an experience. Things are different there. It is not like we know these ppl from back home selling cheep clothes... Different. Rice feelds and the poor conditions... I was happy I am doing my internship in KL.
- AIESEC gatherings, parties, Divali preparation - Indian Xmas...

November - Missing home... Feeling down... Prague exhibiton, meeting my Czech friend in KL, so nice! Taman Negara!!! Unbelievable - muddy Cave Exploration, night jungle walk... so nice! Full Moon Party in Pangkor.

December - NLDS 2007 & Zouk Out in Singapore... my dream came true - but I had to fight for it.
- Change in my stay. My mind set off on long journey to the other side of the World :) But let's carry on...
- Indian Wedding, Xmas preparation, Xmas celebration - Online with my family!

When I was wishing that 2007 would be even better than 2006 I did not know what I am wishing for. And indeed, it happened. If not better, it was as good as. My life is happy now and I am gratefull for all these experience!!!!
Sooo, Cheers for 2008 ;)

My Christmas in Kuala Lumpur

My Christmas day, 24th December was very pleasant and in the end I was falling asleep with a smile on my face. Here are images to show you closely what were Xmas in KL for me...
Xmas at work
Xmas Decoration on my bed side table. All this I got from my parents delivered.
Doing potatoe salad online with my family (KL 6pm, Strakonice, CZ 11am)
The ones I wanted to sped Xmas day (and I did:))
Xmas dinner with fellow trainees (I popped in to wish my friends Merry Xmas)
And then back to have an online Xmas dinner with my family. In the end it worked out very well and it was an unforgetable experience... Thanks to Internet:)

Malacca

My pre-Xmas days 22nd and 23rd I spent in old merchant city of Malacca. Very cute town, in past conquered by Portugese, Dutch, British and then finally got its independence.

Cute place, nice bunch of ppl - a lot of fun (especially sitting in McDonalds doing crazy stuff, shopping Xmas presents, running among old monuments to be on time for night light show or trying fried icecream!!! :))
Some images from our trip:
Malaysian Tshirt Design - very truthful
Malacca's red famous church
...and with us:)
With my kids Jasper and Seda :)
Would you believe I was sleeping on this?
With Love from Malacca...

6 months...

...that changed my life.

After living half year so far from home, I realized that yesterday it was exactly half year, since I have been here, in Malaysia.
I feel, that i gained soooo much. The new cultural perspectives, amazing work experience, great friends for life, love and much much more.

I think I have changed a bit so far
*I am more self-confident in the way I am behaving, thinking and presenting... (but not too much, no worries:P)
*I value Czech culture a lot
*I learned that the most important is to "Be Myself"
*I went through moments that made me stronger (hygiene in Vietnam, crawling through narrow cave full of bats and mud, stressy days at work, coming Xmas)
*I am thinking, dreaming, speaking in English 24/7
*I learned that it is hard to go for what you want and to decide, for things you want, eventhough the decision has IMPACT on certain group of people.
*I learned that you have to plan propperly to travel and enjoy 8 months
*I am thinking in Marketing perspectives, which makes me feel to be more into things I am working on
*and many more...

I am pretty sure, that this experience I would recomend to every single person in this World. Thanks, AIESEC for changing my life!

Christmas in Malaysia

It was just a matter of time, till I get down to the topic of Christmas. Back in The Czech Republic we celebrate Xmas as the most important family and religious festival. Mainly with my parents and my brother it is the main main family event of the year. This year I am not with them in person. I am in Malaysia and this is how it feels:

1)I am in a Muslim country (Majority doesn’t celebrate Xmas a main celebrations of the year)
2)I could see Malay Xmas (Hari Raya) Indian Xmas (Deepavali) and now… Christian Xmas – welcome in the multicultural country. And this is the reason. Here they celebrate everything, but nothing properly. No unification…
3)I can see a lot of Xmas decoration everywhere
4)BUT the main reason (birth of Jesus Chirst) I haven’t seen anywhere yet. It is just artificial Xmas trees, a lot of glittering lights, colourful chains and cheaply looking American carols playing in the restaurants and shopping malls
5)Everything is on sale => ppl go shopping (OMG so many ppl in shopping malls I haven’t seen since I have been here!)
6)…but for me, I have NO feeling of Xmas. It is actually getting me slightly uncomfortable, when these ppl celebrate Xmas (important festival for me) with the feeling similar to St. Valentine’s day (taken over & just for the sake of celebrating it&getting leave from work)
7)The only feeling of Xmas was, when I was packing presents I bought for my family and sending to them back home. Every Sunday we are chatting over Skype and lighting up candles according to advent tradition! These are my little Xmas in Malaysia.
8)The plan for Xmas Eve is to have a trainee dinner and then online dinner with my parents, this is what i am looking forward to.
our borrowed Xmas tree (with my present already-suitcase:))

Indian Wedding

Very interesting and nice experience. After Indian Engagement I was invited for the wedding itself. Kanesh and Geeta were getting married. Geeta is a sister of my colleague Sutha.
Firstly many prayers happened, then the couple were blessed by the priest and instead of our exchange of wedding rings, the groom tied to the bride a bracelet and that was a symbol of the marridge to begin. Then we went for a indian wedding dinner...
For me it was a cool experience also because it was the first time of me wearing a tpical Indian dress-saree!

Zouk Out 2007, Singapore

Zouk is a club, a famous one. There are three Zouks in the World - in London, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. It is one of my favourite clubs. This Saturday night was a special one. In Singapore on "Sentosa Island" on the beach was organized a big gig.
First I did not think I would go, even though I really wanted. In the end, I followed my dreams and decided to go. We bought the tickets, bus tickets to Singapore and here we were. Line up of DJs was quite promising - Carl Cox (Godfather of UK techno) Armin Van Buuren (No.2 DJ of the World, while he saw him in KL about 2 months ago) and others.

With Edu we arrived to the island round 10:30 and explore the 4 stages with different music. We faced a slight "money exchange" challenge (we had hard times exchanging Malaysian Currency into Singaporean one), but things always works out:)
Later on at the spot we met our friends from KL and Sinagapore and were partying in group. At 2:30am on the main stage Carl Cox started to play and I got into ectasy, which lasted till the dawn:)
I have never danced the WHOLE night till the morning. But the DJs were pretty good. Carl boosted the whole beach and later on Armin while playing Trance people went crazy too. Jumping barefoot on the sand, appreciating Red Bull and seeing the dawn at 7am was a great experience. In the morning my feet were having hard time to walk, but luckily they managed and we came back to KL with a bus, where I was sleeping the whole time.
Thanks for another dream come true :)))