Aisyah Marrisa Effendy

I have a phobia of eating kopiko candy. When I was 6, I choked up eating the candy and then straight away ran to my mum. She hit me on my upper back a few times and the candy came out off my windpipe. It was scary but my mom didn’t seem scared or anything. 😂 We were at kampong. I think it was during raya I guess. My cousins and I were eating the candies at the verandah. When I went to my mum, I don’t exactly remember how I told her I got choked. I was super panic at that time. Luckily she understood the situation well. I almost never eat kopiko candy after the incident. I avoid any hard sweets too. I finally ate one last year just to remember the taste. Haha. It was still good. 🤣

When I was still in primary school, there were two famous Ice Cream Uncles who sold ice creams and snacks from their motorcycles. We call them Uncle Matkool or Uncle Ice Cream . These ice cream uncles would do their businesses around our neighbourhood. They would ride around our parks, streets, blasting their Matkool songs every evening. I think mostly people of my age in my neighbourhood would recognise them. We would know they were around even when we couldn’t see them. It was all because of the music they played. “ Matkool, Matkool, kawanku. Mari kita ikut Matkool! Main-main selalu. Syoknya, syoknya ada Matkool! ” So there were two famous uncles who competed against each other every day for sales. They would usually park their motorcycles in front of our schools after school hours. These uncles would without fail, be surrounded by hungry school kids EVERY. SINGLE. DAY . Me? I was among these hungry kids too! 🤣 So, because there were two Ice Cream Uncles (usually), we differentiate ...

When I was in my first year of degree studies, I was finding it difficult to adapt to my surroundings. Nothing felt familiar at all. The introvert in me became super apparent during this time. I made friends with many of them (locals and internationals) but was only close to few of them. Those few were international students like me too. However, it was easier to mingle around Asian peeps than other students who came from the other parts of the world. Reason being? I don’t know myself. I became really good friends to those from Hong Kong, Thailand and South Asians. There were many occasions where my fellow classmates which includes the locals, asked me to join them socialising at Loco’s (our university student bar). I was very reluctant to go and had rejected their invitations numerous times. As a visibly & practicing Muslim, I wanted to avoid these kinds of places. However there was one time when I finally gave in. I was feeling a little guilty and perhaps, arrogant(?) for not joi...

Few years ago, when I was in Bayswater, in the city of Westminster, it always felt like I was at home. Many people from home who’ve been there may know the reason why Bayswater feels like home. Bayswater is a town where many Malaysians, precisely, Malaysian students are familiar with. It’s where our Education Malaysia London, also popularly known as Malaysian Hall, located at. Many Malaysian students reside in Bayswater too. There’s even a student accommodation under MARA nearby. There are lots of restaurants there, that offer Malaysian cuisines too, hence the reason why there are many Malaysians in Bayswater. There is a high possibility for you to find at least a Malaysian in that town, at any time of the year. I don’t really remember exactly when this was, maybe during winter 2017 or maybe around spring 2018. We just got back from our trip, either from Germany-Austria trip or Paris trip. Me and my Malaysian friends went for a late night stroll around Bayswater for a breather while at...

Few years ago, there was one time when Zico, Ferron and I just left Tukdin (a Malaysian restaurant in London) and had a walk around London for sightviewing. We were all from different nationalities and knew quite a few simple phrases of other languages. When we were casually strolling along a street, there were only us and a man walking in front of us. Being the usual us, we spoke and messed around with each other using multiple languages at a time. Most of the time, the languages we used were English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Thai, Malay, Korean, Japanese, Spanish. We were talking quite loud at that time. I remember us saying "sumimasen". To our surprise, the man who walked in front of us suddenly turned around facing us, with a face saying, "yes?". It turned out the man was a Japanese guy! He heard us clearly saying "sumimasen" and thought that we were actually trying to talk to him! We were all very surprised and we said sorry multiple times to the man for ...

Salam and hi everyone. First of all, sorry for being on a hiatus for so long. Today, I just feel like sharing my opinion on something that has forever been debated on all social media platforms. This is going to be rather long so move on to another page if you’re feeling lazy to read  hehe. So here’s my take on:-   “ Is it the women’s or men’s fault for rape to happen ?” My answer? Both should take precautionary steps.  But hold uppppp! My justification isn’t something similar to other people’s - this is based on my personal observations and readings on many people’s reasonings. And of course, this is only my opinion, from my own perspective. Feel free to agree or disagree for we don’t always share the same perspective. :) I hope if you’re reading this, you can try to view this issue from a different angle. Okayyyy, enough with my babblings- My take on this is with religious views being put aside. It is purely from my own logical thinkings. However, this isn’t to say that...

I dedicate this writing to my dearest juniors in KMS, batch 15/17 both A-Levels and IB Imperials. :) We have always been given a choice. Have you tasted failure? Well, everybody experiences failure at least once in their lifetime. Question is, what is our decision afterwards? Worrying about it over and over again wouldn’t bring us anywhere. Yes, it’s devastating. No one said it was easy, but everyone kept on saying it was hard and difficult. Now, that’s the problem. Saying something is difficult often is not healthy. “Why did I choose to do A-Levels? Why did I choose to do IB?” Past is past. Decision has been made. You were forced to take SPM but most probably you weren’t forced to go to KMS. You knew that it was going to be hard but that’s your choice, right? We signed up for this! Always be optimistic in everything that you do because positivity leads to healthy mind and soul. You can’t work with a weak mind. It’s our choice to go to KMS, so we must defend ourselves and ...