AAACU - say whut?

"Our differences can make our life wonderful or horrible? Depends on the mind of the person."

Look at the title. That was my reaction when I first heard about this programme. It sounds like someone sneezing, "aaacu!" "god bless you" . =.= Plus, I found out that this programme eats up 2 weeks of my semester break!Whut?? I thought I was gonna have a bad time. Guess I was wrong. So wrong. :)

Well, I'm not gonna scribble every-single-tiny-thing that happened,just the important parts.

Enough said on the first time meeting them, I was REALLY awkward and trying my best to converse with the international students. Oh yea, they were from Korea, Japan, Philippines, Thailand and Guam. I thought these 2 weeks are going to be long and my forever alone time.

The next day onwards, we started our ice breaking session and went out for field trips. As days passed by, we learn a lot from each other. There are certain parts of ourselves that are different; our religion, beliefs, the way we eat, dress, respect and even study.
To some, these difference will create a huge gap, but it actually build a bridge between us.

When more questions are asked and answered, we started to learn and understand the different cultures between us. This create mutual understanding and makes it easier for us to communicate. Personally, I think it's awesome having friends of different cultures. It opens your eyes to things you've never seen. And somehow, helps you to better understand yourselves.

All of us are created as an individual that are different from each other.That's what makes this world more interesting.

We use English as our language medium, but there are certain times when we're lost for words. Body language gets into action,yeah :D And it's fun trading our language, we learnt the basic conversation of all language. We get excited when they speak in Malay, they get excited when we speak in their language XD

One important thing that I gained is inspiration. I was really inspired by the knowledge they have on their countries' agriculture; development and history. It gives me more drive to really learn on being the greatest horticulturist ever lived! XD  Also, we learnt how this world is affected by our actions in grasping the title of developed country. One thing for sure, we should stop pointing fingers and start thinking and putting ideas into action to save the mother nature.

Overall, it was a fun, knowledgeable, memorable and exciting experience for me.

Ouh yeah,for field trips, we went to lots of places like UPM Farm, UPM Equestrian Centre, Floria Putrajaya (3 times.haha), Alamanda,Putrajaya(movie day out!), UPM food service lab (we cooked!), Hatchery Farm in Puchong, UPM forest reserve (SISFEC), Batu Caves, KLCC Tower - Up to the bridge and 86th floor O_O, Central Market, Malacca City Centre, UPM Agriculture Park - herbs farm and mushroom house, Homestay in Kg Sg. Sireh, Firefly Farm in Kg Kuantan, The Mines(bowling) and back to UPM.

During the homestay, I experienced a lot of my first time : homestaying with a foster family, walking on Palung at thepaddy field, fishing with a bamboo(traditional way), catching eels with my two BARE HANDS, playing the traditional Gasing, riding an old bike(the heavy one) in the middle of sugarcane field and fell off =.= , batik painting and origami using coconut leaves.

It was really tiring yet enjoyable. I loved every single second of it. Still loving it :D

the happy faces of AAACU participants <3