Falling In

It's been more than a month. Today I wanna blog about myself. Me, me, me, me, and me. Life has been unexpectedly and ridiculously good. I went from being unavailable to being unavailable, but on a different context; it's scary really. Life really did surprise me when I least expected it this time round. Good job, life. You have outdone yourself. And I hope you continue to do so. It just gets better and better each day.

It's ironic, isn't it. When you reached the lowest point in your life, you stop fearing; because it can't get any lower, so it can only get better from there on, no matter how painful. Once you pass that, you start fearing; because you cannot afford for it to go back down again. Yet, that is exactly what will bring you down again. So you gotta learn to stop fearing irrationally. It's okay to be cautious, it's not okay to let fear take control of your life.

I think I'm close to being bipolar nowadays. Life got too good too fast. It may sometimes be overwhelming. That's when all the fears and reservations come in. But gratitude usually wins the war. From time to time, old things may decide to come back and haunt. But they are too weak, yet not without impact. I now have built up a stronghold within, almost nothing can get in or out. It's good the way it is. I do not dare to disturb the equilibrium. Yet I want to, I have to. Because somewhere within, I know this is not the ideal, that this situation still sucks, that I'm just been lucky to escape from facing all the troubles head-on. So I gotta learn to slowly shift this equilibrium upwards. Because it must only get better. Because I wanna be rid of all those haunting me. Because I wanna learn to let people in again, selectively. I can no longer let the situation drag simply to avoid facing things head-on. This time round, I really do believe I can do it.

On a lighter note, I've been loving Lifehouse songs more and more recently! They have an uncanny way of voicing out whatever's in my head, reinforcing it. It's awesome :) What's more, they have songs to describe the different stages that people go through, so there's always a song for you. Used to be Hanging by a Moment, then it was First Time, now it's Falling In. ♥

Amongst all the changes in me recently, I've grown more and more fond of beaches. I never used to be a very beach-person, even thought I've been to lots of beaches. Right now, I really wish for the chance to revisit all those places. The beautiful sea of Phuket and Phi Phi, the pristine beaches in Philippines, the quiet times in Tioman, the gorgeous view of Mykonos, even the super crowded beach in Bali. Feeling like there's so much out there that's bigger than me. Kicking the waves and imagining kicking my problems away. Smelling the sea in the air. Feeling the wind in my hair. That's the way life should be, every night.

Right now, I really just want to slowly savour my good life. No need to rush things, no need to be overly stressed out, no need to be affected by others. School's manageable, so it leaves a lot of time to be explored. I'm really thankful for this arrangement.

ALSO, I'm happy to say that I'VE CHANGED MY SLEEPING PATTERN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And not from bad to worse too!! This must be the miracle of the century. Wait, a century is a hundred years right? Okay, scrap that, make it: the miracle of the decade. To illustrate how 360 a change this is, let me tell you that for the first 3 months of this year, I was still on a routine where I sleep once every two days, for about 10-15 hours, and then I spend 38 hours not sleeping and being a zombie sitting in front of my com being detached from the world and/or going to school to pretend to be normal. Now, I can wake at 8am in the morning, although it's more usually 9 or 10, and  I can go to bed anytime from midnight to 4am. That's a huge, huge, huge improvement if you ask me.

Other than that, life's been pretty normal I guess. Took a respite away from the virtual world.

But I will be back soon!

Life's really looking up now. I've never felt happier and luckier to be alive and living.



Expect a post in the nearish future.
And I finally have a new banner and dp now.

This post is for myself

I frequently wonder how I have so much time while others always seem so busy. It's not that I finish all my work on time. It's just that even in the midst of all this, I always find myself drifting off to do other things. Yes, of course my work piles up. But IMO that's solely attributed to my lack of focus. Not because there is too much work. I believe that if I didn't spend so much time doing other things, such as wasting time to type this, and that if I concentrated on doing work, I would have gotten a lot done. I honestly cannot figure out how they have so much work to do, unless they are all just like me, needing, or rather, subconsciously, doing other things other than work and ending up having work pile up. It seems that way. So many in smu spend so much time doing 'other' things like socialising that it seems unrealistic. It infuriates me. Just because you spend more time socialising doesn't mean it's a valid excuse simply because it's what all smu students do. I can choose to spend all my time in school "studying" and being so busy and earning all the "bragging" rights and telling my groupmates I have so "little" time to do all that I have to do. But I don't.

Is it that loser to want to have free time of my own instead of the much-needed "socialising" and networking that smu students seem to be endlessly engaged in? It's like if you don't have any "complaints" (more like "brags" if you ask me) about how "busy" and "little" time you have, you don't really have much in common to talk about.

Of course, you cannot deny those students who genuinely spend all their time mugging and plotting their A+ some credit. But those are the people who usually puts in the most effort because they all want their A+ so who can complain about working with them right? They certainly don't take the chance of leaving the project in the hands of other people because they are too "busy" doing other school-related stuff.

And then there's those who spends all their time stuffing the resume with all sorts of activities and hoping the activities compensate for their lack of grades. Besides, their more zai groupmates, or should I say whoever wants the grade the most, will carry them. Well, fuck you.

Just this morning, I realised that of all my grades so far, few actually reflect my competency in that subject. Rather, it all boils down to which prof I got, how interested in that subject I was and hence how active I was in that class, how horrible (or good) my groupmates were, and how much the prof likes you. And lastly, how much luck I had during the exam probably will move my grade up or down about one level. Ultimately, what fixes the grade is all the other fluff component and your competency only can move it slightly from whatever grade it is fixed at. It makes me wonder, how much is this piece of paper that I will get at the end worth, really? $40k of school fees time discounted plus any opportunity cost incurred during the 4 years, or am I being scammed?

I deserve to be happy and so I will be

From the moment we were born until the moment we die, I think it is safe to say that everybody goes through rough patches. That is completely normal. I do, too.

From going through rough patches, we all gain different things. The most widely acceptable one is that we gained a lesson learnt. Sometimes, it becomes a factor in shaping your life. Or other times, it gives you an additional insight into yourself and/or those around you.

Sometimes, we have to come to terms with things that we cannot change. Sometimes, it seems that there are so many things to come to terms with and so many things to put down.

Amidst that, I guess the most important thing you have to come to terms with yourself, is that you deserve to be happy. It is easy to lose track of that amidst all that mix of emotions.

Without that, any happiness gained will be ridden with guilt. Chances are, even if the opportunity was there, you might not have allowed yourself to be happy. Maybe you didn't dare to, for fear of having it taken away from you again. Or maybe you were oblivious because you were wallowing in self-despair. And then you wonder why can't you be happy. You start thinking I just want things to be okay, but they are not being okay at all. Perhaps the very reason is because YOU are not allowing them to be okay at all.

When others hate on you, when bad stuff happen to you and you could blame no one, you could end up blaming yourself. It becomes so hard to say a simple I deserve to be happy, too.

You start to wonder what is wrong with you when nothing is wrong with you at all. The only thing that was waiting to be changed is for you to give yourself a chance.

This post is a reminder to myself, and to everyone else going through a rough patch right now. Never forget to tell yourself everyday a loud "I DESERVE TO BE HAPPY AND SO I WILL BE HAPPY", because you deserve it. That's right, you do.

As a human being, I deserve that basic right to be happy. It is my right and no one can take it away from me. I'm never gonna give it up no matter how hard it may be.







Suck on that, haters.

Roma, Caput Mundi; or is it?

This is not gonna be a wordy post. I'm exhausted.

No post is complete without a big ass photo of me so let's get that done over with

And then a picture of nice looking geleto from L'Orso Bianco so you can associate the good with the good

Something a little less visited

All the space in the world is belong to me

Unmistakably, Trevi Fountain

THE San Crispino

Guess where?

Yep, Pantheon

Drink ALL the water

Piazza Navona

Um, is that what the Spanish Steps are for?

Piazza di Spagna is the horror, full of irritating people in your face. Even if the place is beautiful, nobody can appreciate it under that kind of atmosphere.

Walked through a strike, only to find .....

Walked round the other side to find .....

Oh well, another day it is then.

Across the Tiber river to Trastevere where great food lies

Awesomeness.

Carbonara

Crème caramel (I think, can't remember)

Castel Sant'Angelo

The magnificent Colosseum

The Roman Forum

Not sure what went through people's minds when they were thinking 'I wanna preserve these rocks as it is and not try to rebuild what was once an empire. Instead, I'm gonna exhibit it and publicize it so people can come and feel scammed and have no idea which rock is what or even why they are looking at piles and piles of rocks which mean nothing to them'. Hmmmm.

The old and the new

The Palatine Hill

Did you noticed that the sky always looks damn nice in almost all the pictures???! Wished I looked up at the sky more often, it's one thing that really makes Europe beautiful. Their sky never fails to amaze me, especially when it's sunrise or sunset. (Yes, I actually saw sunrises).

On a separate note, why are their trees so disorganized wtf.

They need to relearn their chinese. No fucking idea what else can jiang shi mean besides vampire. Unless it's the owner's name then in that case fhl.

Thought seriously, there's waaaay too many Chinese living in Rome, why are they all only settling in Rome?!?! (But can't complain about the cheap, probably fake souvenirs).

Ok end with picture of pigeons who have such a good life there

(unlike in France where they eat them)
(really yummy though, can't blame them)

Tbh, Rome is one of the places I liked the least after having been to so many places. Ironically, it also happens to be the place I stayed the longest.

(And probably would have spent the longest blogging about).