“It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey”, well said Nurul Izzaidah Zulkifli, 16 years old from Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Tengku Ampuan Intan, Kuala Berang, Terengganu.
Nurul Zulkifle
Malaysia
It has been a-great- 6 days on the ship. I should’ve written a blog sooner. Now, I have so many things bottled up in my mind, like a volcano ready to erupt. Every moment were spectacular and well-carved in my mind. The past days had been so life challenging. I’ve been trying so many new things. I’ve always been the girl who stays in her comfort zone, so terrified to try new things. But now, the expedition has changed me entirely. I’m becoming more open to new things. I can’t actually believe I joined the hike towards the santa claus’ house. It took me an hour and a half to actually arrived at the santa’s house. As the phrase goes “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey” this applies greatly to my “santa” hike. The house was just actually a small green house. There’s no lights or electricity. But the route that we took to go there was picturesque. You could never find this view elsewhere. I found myself sitting on a rock at the edge of a cliff just looking down to the sea of icebergs. Maybe, for anyone else, it’s probably nothing. But for me, that moment is perfect. Coming from Malaysia, it’s very rare or probably you never see ice/snow once in your life. Here, it’s all about the ice. It is A BIG DEAL for Malaysians to actually witness all these icebergs in front of our eyes.
During this expedition, I have seen around 3 whales including the humpback and fin whale. Then, another highlight during the expedition is definitely when we made our first landing in Ittileq Fjord. At that moment, my body was still adjusting to the coldness, everybody else were wearing only 2 or 3 layers of clothes, but I needed 5 layers of clothes. Of course for some moments, I had these thoughts in the back of my mind “Can I actually survive this coldness?” “Am I going to freeze to death?” Gladly, these thoughts are completely false. There are just so many things that I want to write. and last but not least, I actually celebrated my birthday on ship.
YEAY. It was a full sea-day. There is nothing better than spending your birthday on the ship in the Arctic. I wasn’t a huge fan of celebrating my birthdays. Then, there was this really cool surprise that the SOI staff did. They prepared a cake and made everyone sang Happy Birthday in Malay language. I swear, I would never forget this for the rest of my life. I felt so touched. I’m super grateful that these people are so concerned about our students well-being and I’m just loving the way they spread the positive vibe while gaining so many education at the same time.
Another thing which made me so proud of myself is I’ve become more friendly. I’ve always have difficulties to communicate with strangers and making new friends. I guess I’m just scared of others impression about me. Now, I’ve made so many friends from all over the world.
Our first hike in Ilulissat was amazing. The ice fjord was spectacular. My 2nd hike was the one to the santa’s house and my 3rd one was quite great too. Yesterday, we went for our glacier hike at Sirmilik National Park. It took us around an hour and 15 mins to arrive. But, we couldn’t get closer to the glacier as it is quite dangerous. It was once-in-a-life time oppoturnity for me to see a glacier up close.
I’ve been in different kinds of workshops since I got here, the kayak one, the digital story telling and so on. The digital story telling workshop has helped me a lot in finding a way of telling a story in a creative way. I’m super grateful that I’m learning so many new things that I couldn’t get anywhere else. Yes, you could read all the facts in a text book or google them up. But it will never be the same as the live experience.
-Nurul
- See more at: http://studentsonice.com/arctic-exp…/soi-arctic-2015-day-9/… (Photo courtesy from Students on Ice)
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