MY FIRST CONCERT

Yes, I admit it. I'm a 17 year old girl who had never been to a concert ever, until last month.

On the 16th March 2015, I attended one of the most amazing artists' concert with my cousin at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre and that is the one and only Ed Sheeran. The young, British pop singer finally came to this tiny country called Malaysia. This is a very rare event as not many artists come to Malaysia. When I found out Ed Sheeran was coming to Malaysia, I freaked! I just had to go because I mean c'mon it's Ed Sheeran we're talking about here. I talked about it with my friends in school the next day, we were all so psyched about it! Until we saw the cost of the ticket, RM290++.

We were bummed. How could we afford such ticket? And the surprising part was, despite the price it was sold out within days! That ruined our day even more, well for me of course. Soon we just accepted the fact that we weren't going to see the very famous British pop singer.

As days went by, all the Malaysians could talk about was Ed Sheeran coming to town. Not to mention my family as well. However, everything changed at a family gathering.

My aunt worked for Maxis and she has received free concert tickets to see Maroon 5, Taylor Swift and Tae Yang. So the moment she mentioned Ed Sheeran I was hoping she had tickets. Well she did! But life decided to make things hard for me. I couldn't get the tickets for free but I had to work for it. She suggested my cousin and I to enter an internal competition to win two Ed Sheeran tickets. All we had to do was perform an Ed Sheeran song in PUBLIC! That was it. A part of me wanted to do it but at the same time I didn't want to. I was never a person who liked being the center of attention and now I had to perform in public?! But I knew if I wanted to see Ed Sheeran perform live, I had to do it. For my own sake.

In the end, I did it! And to cut the story short, two weeks later I found out that we had won! I screamed so loudly, my schoolmates were looking at me funnily. And that's how I managed to go to Ed Sheeran's concert - for free but with hard work of course.

My cousin and I went to KL Convention Centre at 10am. By the time we got there, the line was pretty long so we decided to start waiting in line. We waited for 11 hours to see Ed but of course we did make some new friends from the Philippines.

Soon it was 8.30pm and it was time to enter the concert hall. The moment I stepped into the hall my heart started beating. Was this true? Was I really going to see Ed Sheeran right in front of my eyes? Or could all this be a dream? We stood at the fourth row from the front - it was really up close to the stage. The crowd started shouting and screaming and the vibe was getting intense. Tick tock tick tock. Time was slow waiting for Ed to come out.

The next thing I knew Ed Sheeran was RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES! He started to sing and the crowd went wild. We screamed and sang along to all his songs at the top of our lungs with sweat running down our face. We had the time of our lives. The concert lasted for an hour and a half. And every moment of it was AMAZING. The way he sang, played his guitar, rapped and beatboxed were all on point. Definitely worth waiting in line for 11 hours.

  

 We even managed to end up on Ed Sheeran's instagram!

HOW I DEVELOPED MY INTEREST FOR TENNIS

My family has always been a fond of sports, except for my mum. It's not that she hated it but I grew up thinking she did as I never really asked her why. So as you can see, the interest of sports came from my dad. Back in the days when I was growing up, my family and I would go outside and take an hour or so to play a certain sport, most likely badminton as it was the only sport my siblings and I could play very well. As for my mum not being a fan of sports, would stay at home and read a book or do her gardening.

However, the interest of playing sports died in the family and technology had taken over in the past few years. Ever since we never went outside to play again. Except for my dad. He always had a passion for sports, especially tennis. Now this is where the story begins.

My dad has always loved tennis. In terms of playing or watching it on TV. He has always tried convincing us to give it a try but technology had won over our hearts more than sports did.

However everything changed in the year 2014. I was in the midst of the final exams and preparing for the school's Appreciation Night when my dad was getting for that time of the year. Every year, around the month of September, a group of tennis players would come down to Kuala Lumpur to attend a tennis match which is a part of their world tour. And again, he tried convincing us to go with him as he managed to get really good seats for the match for free- don't ask how because I wouldn't know either. In the end, he managed to convince my mum to go.

Soon the day came where all the tennis players had arrived. My parents had gone to the first few matches. The moment they got back home, it was like my mum had been converted into a tennis geek. She was so impressed with the way the tennis players played. It was so intense that adrenaline was rushing in her blood. And of course, ever since she's been bugging me to go for the next few matches. I was hesitating at first because I didn't know anything about tennis and knew none of the players. But I went anyway for the sake of my parents.

The tennis tournament, ATP Malaysian Open 2014, was held at the famous stadium, Bukit Jalil. The moment I stepped into the hall, I was asking myself whether I was prepared for this. Its not like going for a tennis match was a bad thing but I'm a person who can get hooked to anything and it would take me a long while if I want to get rid of this obsession. For example, my obsession with one direction back in my early teenage years- so glad that's over.

To cut the story short, I did enjoy myself at the tennis match. I was so pumped up that I didn't want to go back. But that didn't stop me. My parents were so glad I enjoyed it they bought me tickets for the semi-finals ad finals match. From that very moment, I, unfortunately turned into a tennis geek as well. However it didn't stop there. Even though there weren't any other tennis tournaments for the year, I still watched my favourite tennis players- Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Kei Nishikori and Milos Raonic- play live on TV. My parents and I would wake up in the wee hours of the morning just to watch the match due to the time zones.

So there you have it. If you are reading this and don't have an interest for tennis, I suggest you start having one now because I guarantee you, you won't regret it.