I bet it's somewhat common to feel ashamed of yourself from time to time, but I know how annoying it can be to constantly be ashamed of yourself, of what you are and what you're not. The shame keeps budging back into your life when you think you've gotten rid of it and you just cannot help but constantly try to get rid of it by bettering yourself.

Maybe it's just me, but it brings about some form of self-centredness. It is why I keep secrets and avoid offending anyone so that I could maintain the illusion of being "good enough". Phrases like "good enough", "trying", and "it's just how I am" sound really old because these are reassurances I give to myself when I'm uncomfortable with myself.

So, I'm glad that I'm finally seeing a glimpse of what life is without shame. At the beginning of the year, I came out to three groups of friends under pretty different circumstances and only decided to continue pretending to be straight to everyone else for practical reasons. At least in some aspects of my life, I am no longer bashing myself.

After I completed my National Service, I've been kind of MIA because I wasn't being the most productive, neither was I truly "living". I was ashamed of how empty my life seemed from an outsider's point of view, so I avoid getting asked questions like "what have you been up to?" or I answer vaguely.

But at the same time, I feel that I have been healing (via meditation, healthier self-talk, fulfilling things I've always wanted to do, being away from NS, etc).

Anyway, I've started parkour, thus meeting some new people. I recently realised, after meeting new people, that filtering myself just won't do anymore. In trying to protect myself from feeling ashamed, I am shutting others out (again, what's new right?). So, I'm telling myself now to wear my objects of shame like a bad haircut. It's there, it's unavoidable, and it cannot really be hidden (you can't wear a cap forever unless you're this artist guy called Artgerm). So, just let it go like Elsa from Frozen.

In the meantime, everything seems okay right now. Shall talk about what I've been up to in detail in another post.

Labels: personality, reflection

I have a whole list of blogging topics and I'd intended to pre-write most of my stuff so I can schedule them, but I just had no motivation to blog nowadays. A part of me realises that no one really reads this thing so it's kind of like talking to myself, which is why I tried to create another blog so I could get people to read it, but I lost interest in it two months later. Of course, I still want to be blogging but sometimes I just feel stupid.

Buuut, let's just put that aside and blog anyway. At some point, I'm intending to learn xhtml and all that so I can actually use Blogger's "new" template, because currently, I'm still stuck at the super old "classic template".

Anyway, recently, I've been pretty addicted to different things. For two weeks, I was obsessed with Dark Souls 3, so there were days when I just needed to be doing productive stuff but I just kind of decided to play Dark Souls 3 instead. Luckily, it's a very challenging game and I got stuck at a certain boss so my interest just faded away.

Then, somehow, I stumbled upon a youtuber called Marcus Butler, and from there, I got introduced to some British youtubers. Before this year, I never watched and followed youtubers and I hardly subscribed to anything, but I just figured that youtubers who post random sketches and all that are actually really entertaining, so I started following Connor Franta (I googled "good-looking youtubers"). Being the sort of person who rarely commits to any entertainment, I didn't watch much of his videos after subscribing. But this month, I decided to, and from one of his collaborations with Marcus Butler, I realised that Marcus is really funny and went to subscribe his to channel.

I've been addicted since. It's kind of scary.

Being addicted to shows, animes, and games have always felt normal to me, but being addicted to people is scary. Soon, I wasn't just addicted to him; via his vlogs, I got addicted to his friends too, along with the life he portrays.

The truth is, there's something underlying every addiction. In fact, there's something underlying every behaviour. This isn't the first time I got addicted to watching fictional lifestyles (although you could say youtube vloggers' lifestyles are not exactly fictional); I remember becoming obsessed with How I Met Your Mother and the group of characters hanging out in the bar.

So, I did some googling and learned that addiction to things is really about helplessness, and each addiction isn't separate. In other words, it will be a mistake to view my addiction to Dark Souls 3 as an unrelated issue to my addiction to these youtubers.

This leads me to the question: What is so helpless about me?

Without a doubt, I can say I'm not a person who's always in control of myself. I've always had emotional issues, anxiety, identity issues, etc, so I guess my mind is just using addiction to cope with it all.

Of course, addictions are common. Everyone feels helpless over different things. By spending too much time away from my own life, I was able to "live" in another world (nothing new, right?). I don't have to think about how I'm wasting my life away while I'm finding a job (I'm done with my 2.5-month break / attempt at writing a novel), I don't have to think about how I haven't been writing my novel, and I don't have to think about healing/fixing myself (one of my goals during this gap year). It's a major distraction from really important stuff. The way to fix it is probably to deal with the root of the issue.

I really don't know why I'm blogging about this. I guess through this post, I kind of talked about what I've been up to ever since New Zealand, although not completely, as well as give some insight about myself without spelling it out. It's just a rambling post, I guess.

Labels: personality, rants, things that happened

I started this year so positively that I couldn't believe how well things were going despite every Chinese fortune teller warning the people born in my lunar year about what a piece of shit this year is going to be. And then, bit by bit, I broke, not because I experienced the shit that was forecasted, but because I realised I was the shit in the forecast.

When I was still schooling, my parents would repeatedly let known to my siblings and I that the "people out there" are bad; they would do what they had to as long as it benefitted themselves, stooping low enough to manipulate and dominate. I was never new to any of that.

But having been in environments where everyone tried to be nice to one another, I was able to convince myself that I was more or less a righteous, "correct" person. This past year in which I was surrounded by people who are less careful about how others feel made me realise that I wasn't. Instead of learning about the "people out there", I finally got to know the person in there. I guess that is why I broke. I hated myself.

And yes, I know I take things too seriously, but that is part of my genetic makeup or neurolinguistic programming or whatever else it is.

I also realised a few things, the first being that everyone is a bad person. When we quarrel or fight or debate, I tend to question myself. I always felt like I was wrong, and because of that, I tried harder to convince myself and the other party that I was right, therefore becoming more angry. The truth is, we're all wrong and we're all "bad", because nobody is all good. We're both good and bad, as old as it sounds. There never is an answer to who is right and it hardly matters how things could've went instead. I pondered and pondered but everything I pondered was irrelevant.

The second realisation is that by letting all these self-doubt break me, I'm letting it rebuild me. In alchemy, this is a process they call the Black Phase, in which we let external forces (the "fire") break us down, and then we let internal forces (the "water") break us down even further before we finally proceed to the White Phase, in which we start to separate the relevant substances and the "mess".

These past few weeks had been difficult for me because I suspected something went really wrong when I was really young because I had been having lots of symptoms of childhood trauma. Also, I couldn't remember much of my childhood. Everything seemed to point that direction. I tried to remember and bits of "clues" returned to me. At one point, I got kind of obsessed, but fortunately, I just snapped out of it and decided to leave it hanging for a while and just be happy.

One result of this intensive reflection/obsession was my third realisation, which was so obvious: I want to heal people, not entertain them. So, I guess it's goodbye media and hello psychology. Let's see where that goes.

So, yeah, let me just be laidback and composed and free of myself. Hopefully, soon, I'll be able to be happy without trying.

Labels: future, personality, rants, reflection

An ongoing issue in my life is that I always feel the need to live up to people's standards, but I never feel good enough. I am very temperamental. I've also always been ashamed for too many reasons.

So, what I first tried to do was to fend off people who worsen my perception of my own worth. When I was a kid and people criticised me, I would scream and cry and complain to my parents. In school, I would be that quiet boy who does his homework so the teachers would like me. If I were a teacher, though, I would strongly discourage such a self-destructive behaviour. Basically, I would try to adjust myself and the world so that it would love me.

But in life, you don't control everything. When I was in primary school, I think I avoided the negative people, which I learned is everyone, so I was a loner. I didn't want to be a loner after that, so I endured the negative in secondary school and fought with my friends pretty often. I lost a lot of friends. That was until I found friends who felt as insecure as me. In a way, they helped me accept myself and align myself to the world of self-dissatisfaction. You might argue that that's a bad thing, but it's actually good because if you can't accept reality, you remain disorientated.

Through the following years, I continued struggling to boost my self esteem, being angry, feeling inadequate, and trying to convince others (and myself in the process) that I'm good. But in the meantime, as much as I know my flaws, I am very aware of my strengths. There are many; people just don't see them.

I'm often frustrated that everyone seem to be so clear about what's wrong with me. My campmates constantly criticise me, and half of the time, they are right. I kept trying to prove myself, but at some point, I began needing to prove to myself because the amount of criticism is disgusting - say what you want.

At this point, I figure: Why bother? I have my flaws, and everybody have theirs. I make mistakes that not many do, but I see the world in ways that they can't. I'm an original, I can be so nice, and I dare to admit it. I don't need someone to tell me whether I'm good enough or not. I don't need to improve myself in ways I don't want to, because I've already done what I can. I don't need to fix myself or align myself to others' believes, and I don't need to reject the consequences because I honour myself and all the work I've done to make my immediate surroundings a better place for people, even those I disrespect. I'm done feeling inadequate.

I will remain as I am.

Labels: personality, rants, reflection

Stefanie, CX, and me (left to right)
Mid-Autumn Festival is one of my favourite festivals in Singapore, not because of its cultural significance here or what, but really because of the visual pleasure in lighting up lanterns. It's kind of funny how I love the idea of lighting up lanterns, yet I only remember having ever done it thrice, if you count that time when my friends and I lit one up for only a few minutes and the other time when I was in primary one and I "lit up" the kid's electronic version.

I just did a quick search on this festival. It's really about thanksgiving for harvest and stuff, but it's also a time for gathering. To me, celebrations are sometimes excuses to bring together friends and families to have a good time. The whole idea of yielding more wheat or whatever has no direct implications on us but it's just a nice thing to celebrate.

So yesterday morning was a bad day because of a lot of shit in NS which resulted in me having to do seven extra duties. I shall maybe elaborate on it in a future post in a 'Shit We Go Through in NS' post or something. Fortunately, Stefanie, CX, and I (some of my poly friends) had planned to go for a walk with lanterns in advance (to accommodate to my time), and we stuck to it despite me being the last-minute planner that I am.

Met up with Stefanie first in Vivo, near where she worked for that day, because CX was late, and just walked around Candy Empire until he reached. Had dinner at Fish and Co., which reminds me that I have a now-expired voucher for that place that I wanted to use but couldn't because it is a weekday voucher. I should've given it to someone. For once, tried something that isn't fish and chips. We kind of splurged, or at least I did, with the soup and drink and calamari which added up to quite a lot of money, especially for me now, who just spent $330 on half a PS4 (might elaborate on it next time) and $2427 on a new Macbook Pro (because my previous one is on the brink of death).

After dinner, we headed to Labrador Park, which I'd been wanting to go to again ever since Scrum! and that CMPA video that we did; I wanted to go for a reason apart from filming. I'd never went there by public transport/foot before, so it took a bit of navigation before we managed to get to...

Labrador Nature Reserve.

It's a nice place though, with nice lighting, pillars, lamp posts (our CMPA was filmed here because our main characters were lamp posts), quietness, and a beautiful eeriness. Stefanie was freaked out when we walked pass the soldiers' bunkers from WWII.

While we were lost and walking around trying to find "that place that I remembered it as", we were having an insightful conversation revolving around personality tests that relied on our imaginations. So there were questions like "imagine you're walking towards the sea" or "imagine you're walking with someone else and you're lost", and we would be like "we are lost" or "we are walking towards the sea" or something.

I like these personality tests. Many of them are pretty accurate and introspective, despite feeling constantly judged at by them. Apparently, I am needy and materialistic. But one of the tests which I found really interesting was one which asked us to imagine an old, familiar room, to which I visualised a rather empty one. It was meant to represent your impression of your childhood but I couldn't remember that well.

Back to Labrador Nature Reserve, Stefanie refused to light up the lanterns although the darkness and emptiness there was perfect. We kept walking until we finally got to Labrador Park, which I recognised.

It's nice. I enjoyed the whole thing even though it wasn't exciting or whatever. Us being us, we had to spend a lot of time taking photos for instagram, and coming up with captions which we didn't use in the end.

That night, I had really interesting, wondrous dreams where I travelled around the world, made all sorts of friends, learned so much about myself, participated in some festivals, worked on different things, and caught some really beautiful sights involving obstacle courses, stars, the moon, sunrise, and a whole landscape of houses from atop the hill.

Labels: personality, places, things that happened

November - December: My BMT section mates
On the last day of 2014, I woke up at 5.30am, along with my fellow recruits, for training. It was an especially tiring day with a lot of marching and physical activities. We also got tekaned a bit. I guess that was a happy new year's eve slap. But hopefully, going through this suffering (which they like to say is "nothing compared to what we'll go through after BMT"), my platoon mates and I will gain a sort of strong bond. I guess we kind of did. Maybe.


There are much to be grateful for last year, such as those experiences I went through which I mentioned in the previous post, things that I often take for granted (my family, my friends, school, free time, new TV and games, etc), and an expansion of my mind and heart. Last year, my resolution, to sum it up, was to open up my heart in terms of passion and love and to appreciate money. That is a very difficult resolution to measure, but it's okay, because this year, I seek a slight lack in clarity and boundaries. I'll explain why later on.

Anyway, I guess I did open up my heart in terms of passion. I started trying to work towards my passion, although not to much avail. Still, I guess I've been trying hard enough, working on a web series but failing, working on two novel attempts, one of which I gave up and the other needing a complete rewrite soon, working on a script which I'm planning to see what I can do about, and basically just trying to get as much out of everything as I can.

Last year, I also thought I fell in love with someone, but I guess I didn't. But then afterwards, I think I really fell in love with someone I can't be with. Now I'm over it, and that is absolutely okay.

Unfortunately, I haven't been very attentive to money. I did work and tried to earn some money and stuff though.



August - October: Koji Cooks production team
Just to share a photo of the team behind an upcoming Channel 5 series which you should watch. I spent about two months plus with these people last year, so it marks another time period. If you can, do watch it from 7 January onwards, every Wednesday at 10pm.

• Although I've repeated again and again that I'm trying to accept myself for who I am (or maybe I didn't even mention it, I'm not sure), I'd been trying to change and become a better person and sometimes I try way too hard. This year, I'm going to slow down and just be chill about it.
• I wrote a post about opening my mind and being aware of suffering and unfairness and balance and all those a few weeks back, so I shall not elaborate on that. Shall not elaborate on opening my heart either.
• So this year, I want to up my faith and spirituality. I'll see what I can do about it.
• In case it's not obvious enough, I tend to have some OCD tendencies, including feeling the need to be very clear about everything. For example, when someone explains something to me, it will irritate me if he/she does not start from the beginning, even if I understand what he/she is talking about, and I'll be unable to focus because of that. Sometimes a bit of blur is what I need in my life. Although some might think that I'm a very blur person, I actually think it's because I try to hard to focus. It makes sense.
• The next two years are going to be about NS, so, obviously, I'll need to squeeze out whatever I can squeeze out of the two years in order to benefit from it. I hate wasting time being stagnant.

Labels: future, personality, reflection, things that happened

I don't like to call myself an introvert, and at the same time, I'm totally not an extrovert. I think I'm just someone who happens to have more introverted tendencies than extroverted ones, and I believe most people are a mixture of both. But there are certain things that go through my mind because I'm kind of introverted:

1. A high when I talk to an acquaintance for the first time
I know this is probably nothing to most people, but it's not easy for me to talk to my colleagues, my friends' friends, new CCA mates, campmates, etc. Most of the time, I can try, but our "conversation" is made up of one-liners.

Me: "Hi. Which course are you from?"
Person: "I'm from Digital Something Something."
Me: "Oh. Cool."
~ The End ~

So when I finally have a proper conversation with people, it's kind of a small achievement for me. Of course, some people are easier to talk to than others. It really depends on the context.

2. An over-protectiveness over my activities on the phone
Whether I am simply scrolling through Twitter, looking at fortune cookies (yes, I know), or contacting food sponsors, I get really paranoid when someone is standing behind me. Usually when that happens, I go mindless and stop processing whatever I was processing. I simply literally just scroll through Twitter, quickly quit my fortune cookie app, or stare at the screen as though I don't know what I'm doing.

3. A surge of worry when I gain an emotional connection with an acquaintance
This is not so much because I am afraid of people, but more of the fact that the more you have, the more you can lose. So feeling a new sense of closeness to someone means that the stakes are higher and if I screw up and pisses that person off, it matters more now. But of course, I know that it doesn't make sense because all that will happen is going back to square one. The thing is, the worry cannot be explained purely by logic. It just happens.

4. A fear of mind-readers
I know this is super ridiculous and makes no sense, but from time to time, I get the gut feeling that someone is a mind-reader, and I'm not exactly proud of my thoughts. So I filter myself even in my thoughts, which is a retarded thing to do. It's gotten better though. I've learnt to control this paranoia. This doesn't mean I think mind-readers don't exist, because I'm still pretty sure they do.

5. A dependency on friends whom I've gotten over the above four things with
When I no longer feel the slight high when talking to some people, no longer feel the need to protect my phone activities (okay, this is not completely true), no longer worry about breaking the bond, and no longer believe they read minds, that's probably when I get close to these people. It starts to feel normal. I like to take it for granted, because taking it for granted means that it's part of the new state of equilibrium. This is when I become dependent on them, not as in I need to see them every day, but more of when I have a bad day, I ask them out. They'll not always be free, but I think I try most of the time.

6. A feeling of being smothered
There is another layer of "closeness" on top of the previous point. That is, being overly close. I feel smothered easily when there isn't enough space for me, and when that happens, I start to hate whoever I'm spending way too much time with. I believe most people are like that. This is why balance is key, and I suck at balance.

Don't get me wrong: I love people, and these aren't excuses for me to distance myself from people. These are legit challenges in my social life that I'm trying my best to put aside. I don't want to have to think and put logic and too much thoughts into simple friendships, because over-thinking gets kind of sad and unnatural. But I believe that an honest acceptance of how things are is the first step to remolding the norm.

Labels: personality

Okay, I should really be rushing transcipts now, but... They're transcripts.

So recently, my fortune cookie app prompted me to think about this thing called "what you've been dreaming about your whole life", and that actually made me think, a lot. I think I did realise what I was suppose to realise, and I kind of figured certain things out, but that's not completely the point. The point is, what I wanted and the kind of people I met affected me quite a lot throughout my life, and I have a few groups of friends/acquaintances that I feel grateful to have through these stages of my life. So this post is dedicated to them. Kind of a thank you thing.

I get the feeling that it may end up quite personal and emotional, so if you're not up for it, you've been warned.

To the people who made the worst days of my teenage years:
You guys were a turning point in my life, in both good and bad ways. I went to you unguarded, and stuck on days after days of your nonsense, but it was worth it. That's because you filled in a gap for me during those days. Without you, I would've been an epic loser. I feel like I've talked about this way too many times, so I shan't elaborate much.

To the mehmehs (although we kind of aren't the mehmehs anymore):
At first, I wanted to make this whole thing anonymous, but I'm trying to do this thing where I openly express my affections and stuff, so, yeah. I hope it works. Anyway, to put it in a really cheesy way, I'll say you saved me, in very subtle ways.

Before you, my main objective in life was to fit in like a piece, and be like everyone else so that I can live my life impressing those around me, and being "good enough" for everyone. It's not even a secret that for a very long time, I needed acceptance. But you guys unintentionally (or maybe some of you intentionally) showed me another way - accepting myself and, perhaps, finding myself.

And eventually, I found myself, and I think I kind of accept myself for who I am now.

So yeah, it's not a very dramatic thing or a one-off situation that improved my life, but the little things you inspired in me. I guess it's just you being you.

To my poly friends:
You guys are a complicated lot, to be honest. Thanks to that, you managed to bring a lot, a lot of changes to my life. As some of you pointed out, I changed throughout these three years - less stubborn/intense, less fragile, and stuff.

Which is probably true, because I feel like I'm no longer that transparent glass that shatters when you so much as rub it too much. I'm still pretty fragile, but not as much, I hope. I guess I've been promoted to a porcelain cup or something. And then of course, group projects and stuff, and a duration of me feeling forever left out made me realise certain things about myself and the people around me.

And the one thing that I'm really thankful for is that you guys helped me fulfill things I deemed as my goals ever since primary school. As I've mentioned, for a very long time, I needed acceptance, and perhaps some significance, and you gave that to me. You were the first who didn't look down on me in certain areas, and the first besides my family who willingly celebrated my birthdays and such (have I mentioned before how I forced people to celebrate my birthdays? :P). I'm still really grateful about the whole yacht thing.

To a separate group of friends, also from my course:
I lied a little during our sharing session, but I'm pretty sure it's really obvious. I think some of you lied as well. But that night, which may have been insignificant for some of you, was pretty important to me, in the sense that I said things I otherwise would never have shared. Thanks for opening that channel up for me, but still, whatever is said that night stays in that night.

To my internship friends and acquaintances (production, not office):
For one of my first few times, I really felt like a team, rather than an individual in a team. Thanks for that. It was really important to me.

To my parents:
I'll never forget that you were there through some of my harder days, like that time when I felt super lost after quitting from NTUC, or through the first few days of my internship, when my phone and laptop gave out on me when I needed them most. And then there's the whole thing where you woke up super early to cook lunch for me because I told you that my warehouse workplace didn't have canteen. I can never say anything decent to you like that, but thanks a lot. Sorry and I hope that one day, I'll become better.

Yup, so that's the list of people I wanted to thank after my moments of sentimentality.

Back to transcripts.

Labels: personality, reflection, reliving those days

Labels: emo, personality, reflection, reliving those days

Labels: future, personality, reflection

I've got to be honest and admit that life got better for me after I switched into the props department. Just like that, second round zoomed past, partly because the pace was slightly faster. Round 1 of filming was relaxed but draggy, and round 2 can be stressful but fast. Both are good and bad in their own ways.

Anyway, it's just 8 more days before filming is officially over! As much as there is a hint of sadness, in the sense that we are probably all going to part ways, I'm kind of looking forward to it as well, since I'll finally get to live like a human.

Through this internship, I've learnt quite a bit about being a good person. Because everyone works so hard in the production, things like kindness and attitude are what we count on to make us happy (along with food). When I was a PA, what I really hated was people not cleaning up their own mess. At that point, being a good person meant being responsible for your own actions. I hated it when people complained about the food I buy. At that point, being a good person meant being grateful for what someone has done for you, even if it is that person's job.

Being a good person also meant helping one another. When I was a PA, I constantly argued with drivers and sometimes hawker stall owners because I was stressed and because we expected each other to do a good job. For example, there was once the driver expected me to know the direction to the location, and I expected the same thing of the driver. Thus, we ended up lost and stressed up. The driver started shouting at me and I retaliated.

When I am in props, I deal with people issues less. However, due to certain things that happened/did not happen (which I really shouldn't elaborate on), I've come to feel so frustrated at irresponsible people who affect me with their irresponsibility. Being a good person means being professional.

Finally, I've also developed a more empathetic mindset. Because I no longer want to be pissed (or scolded), I read deeper into people's actions, and I hate less. The irony is that I used to read people too deeply and had to shallowfy my opinions. I guess I'm a better person now.

And one final thing I've came to observe from admirable people around me is that being a good person also means being confident.

To end of abruptly, here's a picture of a beautiful scenery:



I feel like writing another post for the things we do for filming :P

Labels: internship, personality, production, reflection, things that happened

To be more accurate, I should say "morningmare" instead of nightmare. My internship started last week and production started this week. Woke up as early as 4.30am because our call time was 6.30am in the office. I had to buy breakfast too.

My internship is at a production company, Threesixzero Productions. My job is the production assistant (aka assistant producer, which sounds so cool), and I'm basically the saigang guy - buy breakfast, find sponsors, buy lunch, collect meals, push trolleys around, set up garbage bags, and so on. But, although it sounds so depressing, I kind of enjoy my job now.

Can't believe that into the third day of production, I'm already feeling so used to it all and comfortable with most of the people. The production team is a bunch of nice people, and there's so much to observe and learn, such as the ways of a good director, assistant director, and how wardrobe and props work.

And my job scope is making me grow. I'm naturally a person who's afraid of details, but due to my job scope, I had to be meticulous and delve into the littlest details. It's making me a more detail-conscious person. The fact that there's hardly any free time at all also made me learn that if I can't have it my way, I've just got to love what I have.

Speaking of which, I was so bothered by the whole "I don't have free time" thing. Basically, we start at 6.30am and wrap at 7pm. After wrapping, we have to head back to the office to prepare for the next day. At our earliest, we leave at 8pm. Reach home at almost 9pm, and have to sleep soon because I have to wake up early the next day. And then another complain I had was that I had to buy breakfast and lunch, up to 30+ packets at one go and lug them into the office/filming location. Sometimes (such as today), I would make mistakes and have to go back and buy more.

But I guess I'm getting used to it.

Tonight is a luxury because I have time to blog. Tomorrow is a break, in which I'm supposed to do some minor working from home. And then Sunday is when it all starts again.

But still, so far so good~

Labels: internship, personality, production, things that happened

One good thing about having a blog is that you can type preachy stuffs in it so that next time, maybe one year later, you can go back and read it again. From that, you may learn stuffs that you have forgotten. I wrote a lot of preachy posts last time, one of it is title 'cracks'. I was talking about my previous phone and how there was a crack on the camera. But because there was a crack on the camera, some of my picture look nicer than if the crack wasn't there.

Labels: personality, preachy

My philosophy used to be to "make the impossible possible", which I failed to an extent because I wasn't brave enough to do so many things. Then I changed it to "think positive at all times", which was super hard. I found myself forgetting this philosophy altogether. But because I had these philosophies, I was able to improve my life by changing myself. If I had not tried to make the impossible possible, I wouldn't have had such high expectations of myself, and I wouldn't have studied hard, pursued my passion, go gymming, and face my flaws. If I didn't think positive, I would've been a depressed piece of pancake.

I think those philosophies helped, but I guess I should diminish my insecure nature, in the sense that I realise I don't have to "settle somewhere" to live life okay. So, for now, my philosophy is to be spontaneous, especially now, since my life is really messy. Not in the emotional-mess kind of way. Rather, it's the "there's so many things to work on and I don't know where I am" kind of mess.

That was exactly the kind of mess I like to shun from. As much as I thrive under a busy schedule, I only like it when it is a busy but organised schedule that ensures that I have enough time to complete and do everything I want to do. Also, I used to find this kind of mess pointless. Let's say part of this mess was that I had to control my temper. I tended to get lost in my goals + other commitments to the point that I completely stop trying to pursue them.

But of course, that someone I mentioned in my previous post also convinced me that a lot of things were not pointless as I put it. There is a point in everything, and he was right. As much as I did not reach my goal, I moved from my spot. I think it's like running intervals. I may not be running far enough for long enough, but I'm running at high speed, and stopping, and running again. I guess that is the point.

Back to the point of being spontaneous, I believe that I can no longer be the control freak that I am over life. It's slightly hard to believe, but I hardly find myself checking my assignments compulsively against the marking checklist, or compulsively reflecting on my personal goal's progress. Or setting tasks for the day. Or planning to do question 1 on Monday and question 2 on Tuesday.

So things should just happen. Control freakishness is not the way to go. At least for now.

Labels: personality, preachy, reflection

So yesterday marked the end of my dip-plus's second module, Work Relationships. It had been a really great module, and this year in this module had brought my class so much closer. I've got to say it's mostly thanks to our awesome lecturer Ms Tan. She was always trying to get to know everyone through her psychology lessons and theories. And even though lessons are mostly passive, they are somehow fun because everyone is just laughing with one another.

We learned about psychoanalysis, therapy techniques, human nature, families, and heard one another's mini problems. Sometimes I actually do look forward to this class. At first, it felt pretty awkward to be in class because everyone was distinctively split into cliques and my clique wasn't even that close. But then we slowly developed friendship and stuff with the whole class. Everyone respected one another and were pretty open.

And then we had a new classmate, Michelle, this year. Unfortunately, this is her last semester in school, so she would not be continuing with us to the next semester :( But she has already completed that semester actually.

Yesterday was the last lesson as well as a skill-demonstration test a.k.a counselling test. So we were counselling one another and it was pretty intense. Everyone had to take the role of a counsellor and a client at two different turns. As the client, we had to talk about a problem we are facing - a small one.

So, I talked about how it was so difficult for me to keep a conversation going - no surprise there. And my counsellor was pretty good. I was trying to touch at the superficial points, but he was able to dwell deeper and deeper, though he didn't have enough time to explore with me stuffs I never knew.

As a counsellor, I got a client who had this problem which I also have, so I was pretty much stuck and just went round and round the bush D: Shouldn't have focused on finding solutions :/

So, back to talking about this module as a whole, it was a module that made me understand so much more about people and myself. Certainly useful and inspiring. Looking forward to the next one.

Labels: pcap, personality, reflection, things that happened