hello! (:
it's been a long time since i properly sat down to journal. i've been rather lazy and undisciplined though i do have many thoughts every day hahah. ironic that i watched a TSL video last night on getting the talents to be disciplined and wake up at 6am for the whole week but i dont think that motivates me enough haha
anyway the past months have been rather eventful with many firsts (': long post ahead so be warned
1) finally took a class on latte art! it's something that i wanted to do for a long time. did it during my solo trip to KL and paid RM 300 for it (x2 cos the guy said he didnt receive my money and made me send again -.- pretty sure he was lying but fine) rather interesting course but i sadly destroyed my white shoes *cries. thankfully it was just $20 shoes
2) did a baking class when i was in KL too. not exactly a first time but proud of how things turned out (one step closer to my cafe dream maybe?)
3) did a public speaking in full chinese for the first time at a grassroots events for the summary of ndr. it was supposed to be lixin doing it but she had a terrible fall and cmi so i agreed to do it :O at first i thought it was only to like 10pax but when chris sent a photo of his audience i got damn scared cos it looked like 30-50 pax but im glad everything turned out fine for my sessions. all the aunties and uncles were very supportive and cute (and thankfully they didnt have any hard questions) :D im kinda proud to say that im bilingual too hehe
4) finally managed to do foundation day after last year's hiatus. we went to kayak n clean the kallang river. so fun but tiring haha
5) visited a new city Kluang in malaysia HAHAHAH thanks to MY as usual (my jb-loving friend) we becoming more and more malaysian lol. it was a short weekend trip but we managed to squeeze in an organic farm tour, a coffee factory run and had my fav bkt ((: but on the bus back the jam was so bad though it was only a 2h ride. i had to pee so bad even though i went to the toilet before the bus ride and i was praying to God so hard not to let me pee my pants. really hope this kind of situation never happens again. im more afraid of losing my face than spoiling my bladder :3
albeit all these, i do have some worries as well
Finances - i think it's hard not to compare when you're out with others but im starting to feel underpaid and discontented with work now that i hear people get big bonuses and better salary increases and then at my workplace it's always budget constraints and delayed salary increases. i know im doing better than some others and i keep telling myself that its more impt if the competition is a healthy push to do better and not in a bid to outdo nor to make ourselves less happy. but it's so funny how i used to live with intern allowance or fresh grad pay and i thought i was quite well off. adulting now means phone bills, insurance, credit card bills (and for me, rent - but i dont regret it) but ah wells, as long as one is happy then it's good enough! just live within your means :)
10 sept was also world suicide prevention day. a few years ago i probably would have dismissed this but as there is more and more awareness on mental health, i have to come to understand my (ex) emotions a bit more. not a lot of people know this, but i knew of two (and a half) people who took their own lives.
the first one was leo, my senior from uni. i got to know him through teck as leo and nate were joining the samsung competition and they need a female&junior name to add to the group. tldr "we" won (i really didnt do anything) and we got to have a sponsored trip to korea to visit their industrial city Suwon and even have an internship in samsung sg. unfortunately the internship was a waste of time (they really were forced to make a hc for interns so i didnt learn much) and leo didnt even get a chance at the internship cos of his citizenship status. i first learnt of his death through fb when suddenly many friends were posting on his fb page saying rip etc. i didnt really know what was going on until his sister confirmed the death with the funeral deets on his wall ): i rmb going down to the funeral parlor at sin ming, none of the family members shared the cause of his death and i only knew it through a mutual friend a few years later that he was actually struggling emotionally to keep ahead in the rat race despite all his humour facade and positive vibes
the second one was chels whom i learnt of her suicide through xian. in many people's eyes she was weird and introverted but i always just thought she was one with very deep thoughts. it's always funny looking back at how i didnt know she and cs (her brother) were related though they both had the same rare surname. i knew her brother first through xian and then chels at cru but they were so so so different that i never associated their relationship. i even bullied cs to carry my luggage when we were in japan (oops). i dont talk to cs anymore but i hope he managed to move on and heal (':
and the half was the recent policeman who shot himself at marina bay ): the article didnt post the guy's name but when i saw the name online i suspected it was jm's brother cos it was another rare surname. and then i saw my ex-coach posting on it and i realized that it was indeed jm's brother ): just wanna share what she wrote to her brother and i sincerely hope her family does find closure! i admit that it's a difficult topic to touch on and though morbid, i do hope that more cases will help to desensitize this.
i grew up with very traditional parents who never showed their care openly. whenever i try to show displeasure they would always say things like "everyone else also dont have this problem, why only you have" or whenever i wanted my personal time and not have visitors or to go visiting they would say things like "it's not that i ask you to plan or go out of the house, you just sit there and do nth". it was very tiring to voice my opinions as they would say that i like to argue and partially because of this i chose to move out. i havent actually tried to tell them my actual feelings and i think i need a few more years to reconcile this but actually many times i think if they had someone else's daughter, their daughter might have not taken things so well lol. i know that they dont mean it and it's probably the way they were brought up but im trying to not let myself be influenced and absorb all this negativity :/ wont say that im a saint either but im trying to do better every day (':
and that's pretty much about my life now i guess. im not someone who posts stories about my life on social media every day so til next time when i have the discipline to sit and write in the middle of the night (that's why i cant wake up at 6am lol)
