33. Numb

I always thought something was wrong with me but recently I have come to believe in that statement. As far back as I can remember, I always had a issue with..most things...and I'm not sure when it started. Its becoming increasingly unbearable and something at the back of my head just knows that well, maybe, something is truly wrong and it needs to stop before it takes over everything.

ACS: As much as I told people how much it sucked, in hindsight, it was one of the best things to happen to me in my almost 24-years of existence. I was able to travel to Seoul - a place i'd otherwise never be able to, and to testify that, I haven't stepped in that country on my own ever since acs organised that trip. I was able to go Malaysia to build houses for the less fortunate. I was given a lot of freedom in that school. I could go to school with pride, just because of the name acs. I could walk across the road for ice cream and nice food when people in other schools had to eat basic canteen garbage. I didn't have a strict uniform code. I could talk to my teachers as if they were my friends. I attended random talks and programs which seemed useless then but now I realize were never offered to most schools in Singapore. Because of the curriculum, I was able to train my essay writing skills and presenting skills which went a long way when I went to university.

Not everything was good there. I fell out with a lot of 'friends'. I couldn't maintain friendships. The one and only friendship I can call genuine - py - when he left singapore, I felt abandoned. I mean this was someone who told me everything, he cried in front of me and vice versa. He kept me sane in a place that was full of fake and toxic people. Kpop = gay? He was there to tell me he loved it too. Chinese presentation/oral exam? He was there to help me through it and to ace it. Family problems? It felt as though our family issues mirrored each other and thats why we understood why each of us was so full of hatred and angst. It was amazing that two polar opposite individuals could find a friendship between themselves. When he left, of course I still had friends, but nothing was the same. I think thats when I started to shut myself out from the rest of my classmates and depended solely on my ex boyfriend which is a completely stupid thing to do. Py's friendship with me was the only one I didn't screw up in all my many years of school.

I can say that I never really got out of that mentality. The mentality that I was still in acs - better than most people. I never really got out of the mentality that py and i are best friends when in reality, 11 years later that isn't the case anymore. I refuse to move on from that part of my life. I refuse to let go of the fact that my father didn't let me to go a concert because the band broke up soon after. I refuse to let go the fact that I made stupid decisions - staying in Singapore to attend a shit university because of a boy, not going to a almost-all expense paid grad trip, not attending my final year prom because of a boy, not studying properly because of a boy. Writing this already makes me angry. I mean if there's anything I took from this is that - never do things on the account of other people. I should've done things for myself. I am always basing things on the validation of others. And I wrote such a long history because it relates to what is happening today.

I did think something great was going to come out of me going to acs.
The opposite happened because I didn't do well enough. I didn't do well enough and on top of that I decided to stay in Singapore to pursue my degree in a private uni... People who did worse than me were going to move to a whole other country and deep down while deciding where to go/what course to take, I knew that I shouldn't stay, I shouldn't stay in Singapore for a guy whose in the army and how would any of that help me? My head was telling me one thing but I decided to listen to my heart. I decided to stay in Singapore and I tried to convince myself that psychology in jcu was something I wanted to do and could gain something from.

If you had asked me after IB what I wanted to do - I don't think my answer would be 'I don't know'. I would've said I wanted to be a journalist. That was something I wanted to do. I wanted to write. I saw my results and I knew I couldn't apply for the sph scholarship/internship. I saw my results and I knew I couldn't go to a local university to apply for any course. A lot of things suck but the one that takes the cake is telling your parents who spent thousands, literally thousands on 6 years of your secondary education that you got 30-something in IB and you basically just wasted their money sending you to a private institution. Another one that takes the top tier in situations that suck is trying to lie to yourself and your family that you WANT to do psychology, you WANT to help people, you WANT to stay in Singapore.

JCU: When I got into jcu, I thought a new beginning awaits me. It might not be top tier, top college/university but the least I could do was to excel properly. Getting into honors was like an obsession, getting Distinctions was a goal I had for myself every term. The only motivation I had for that was because I wanted to prove people wrong. I wanted to prove that I could do it too i could get good grades, I could get into honours and not be a useless bum. I often daydreamed or lay in bed at night thinking, in a acs reunion years later, I'd be a psychologist (full fledged) with a PHD and I would have proven everyone wrong. It was a mantra or a very good motivation for me - revenge is the best success - and i think I did a good job at working towards that goal. I wasn't remotely interested in half of the modules but I was interested in getting the distinctions and high credits. I was more interested in proving my worth and that is why I wanted to excel.

3 years later, I only graduated with second class honours,lower. I mean, i was disappointed but as long as I had the word 'HONS' next to my name, it was fine. I did an internship at AWARE on my own volition. I secured a job faster than my peers and that made me feel as if I had things under control. Slowly things escalated - for the worst. I hated my first job. I didn't like it at all to keep it simply. I saw no bloody point. I studied psychology to help people but am I doing that? I realised how far away I was from any actual goal. I had to take masters and a phd before I could be anything close to the 'top' or near the finishing line in this field. Others with RA jobs didn't have to deal with stats and I really didn't need math haunting me again after all those years. My colleagues seemed to have everything planned out for them and I lied during the interview, I lied to them about my plans to further study and what type of professional i wanted to be.

I changed my job and I thought, okay, this should be better but was I wrong...I was so wrong. If you don't have the passion for something, there is literally no point in attempting to hang on to it. In my first job, I still bothered - I needed to make a good impression. I still tried, I tried to learn to figure things out. I wanted to produce good work. Fast forward to now, I honestly and very frankly can't give a fuck. I can't be fucking bothered about the work that I do. It all seems to be scratching the surface and no 'research' I do now is going to help the people that this research is supposed to benefit. This is how I am honestly seeing it - very pessimistic, very negative.

I don't know what made the switch in my brain think this way all of a sudden. Is it because my co-worker is getting better things to do than me? Is it because I don't have a proper office? It's a combination of everything and it has manifested itself into this. There are times I think to myself, I would give them my entire 1 month's worth of salary just so that I can quit without giving one month's notice. There are times that I think to myself, well fuck it, whether you do it or not doesn't matter and if you get fired so be it. I have done things I never thought myself capable. I have faked things. I have not turned up for work for WEEKS on end. This is just scratching the surface and I don't know how much longer I can take it before I implode.

I sleep at 3am everyday and probably suffer from insomnia. Not everything in the past 5 years have sucked but nowadays it seems so. I probably need help lol.

All this probably stems from everything that's happening in my life. I feel that I can't be happy anymore, I can't even understand the word 'content'. I don't play with my dog as often or talk to people apart from my boyfriend. IThere are days I feel things would be so much better if none of this exists. I have lost any form of concentration in not just work but daily life. It doesn't help that my parents' expect so much from me. It doesn't help that my sister is holding a full time job with a steady proper income. It doesn't help that people around me are seeing the world, living their dream life/job and I can't. It doesn't help that so many of my peers are doing better than me in every aspect and I'm not. It doesn't help that I am scrimping on money when it never used to be something I stressed about. Why did my mom have to retire? Why'd I have to gain 14kg and in turn, probably affected my self-worth and self-esteem a lot. Why can't I just elope with my boyfriend and leave everything behind - because we can't. I can't. There are probably a thousand more contributing factors to why I've landed myself in this position but the thing is I am already here. I am already helpless.

32. 희망

Aren't these just so pretty? 

When Hobi's sister, Jiwoo (@mejiwoo103) posted on her Instagram about these Jhope inspired bracelets, I knew I had to get my hands on them! However, it seemed that no one had ordered them into Singapore and the website didn't have any information on overseas shipping. If I ordered through a group-order it would've cost me about $23 per piece and I wasn't able to afford that knowing it was a LOT less on the website.

I chanced upon koreanbuddy and the lovely people over there basically act as the middle person to receive the items before sending it to you since most items from Korean websites can't be shipped over to Singapore that easily. Everything was so smooth-sailing from the time I submitted a enquiry to the time the parcel landed in Singapore!! I received it within a week (including weekends) and that is a feat, especially since I am used to slow and delayed overseas shipping. 

Do check them out if you would like to order anything from Korea that would otherwise be a pain to obtain. I'm already thinking of getting the new BTS Puma Basket kicks amongst other things...

<3

31. A Cassie and an ARMY

This was written on the 25th of August 2018:

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I'll just leave these photos here 

OT5 always

I purposely chose this pic because it portrays them as normal people

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I'm not sure how I got to this point, today, to decide to write a post about 2 very different groups; 12 different individuals. But here goes..

I can vaguely remember how I fell into the kpop abyss. I was watching youtube, presumably on my mom's old, thick and heavy white Macbook in my old home in the living room sofa. I was either 10 or 11 years old. I chanced upon dbsk's Hug music video and the rest is history. I invested a lot of my mom's money in them, their merchandise, cd, almost everything they released unofficially and officially. I made a lot of friends on Livejournal that shared the same love for dbsk as I did. We sent each other Christmas and birthday cards and it didn't matter that we lived in different continents. Back then, kpop wasn't as widely known as it is now. Kpop was 'gay', it was weird and people didn't understand why I would like a group of 5 feminine looking guys. It was a good 4-5 years of being part of this fandom until their split, it was devastating for 15 year old me.... I thought they had unbreakable bonds and chemistry. I thought their company had treated them right, and I was proven so wrong. Their company's skeletons slowly came out and though I tried to support the 2 groups  (dbsk as 2 and jyj) separately, it was proven to be so hard. I never saw dbsk as 5 live and that still hits me with regret to this day. 

Even though dbsk split in 2009, I still went to jyj's live concert in Singapore. I went to as many concerts as long as the artiste came to Singapore. FT Island, 2NE1, the Korean Music Wave... I mean, its no doubt kpop was a big part of my life till 2011/2012. It was there for me as a sense of relief during the most stressful formative years of my teenage life. It allowed me to sieve out the fake friends from real in school, because if your friends don't want to hang around with you because of your taste in music, can they really be called 'friends'? It was a source of comfort. I always thought dbsk would be reunited eventually and to this day I still hold on to that small ounce of faith that it can happen. 

I stopped following kpop after 2011/2012 because dbsk's split really did it for me. There wasn't a point anymore and it was too much to bear for my 15 year old self to contain. I figured I was just growing out of this phase and them splitting was kind of God's intervention for me to focus on other more important things in life. At that time, it was the final 2 years of my junior college years (before university), important decisions had to be made and it was probably one of the most important exams I would've taken at the end of 2012. Even then, when my school organised a trip to Seoul in 2011, I jumped on that opportunity like bees to a pollen. My parents never allowed me to travel to Seoul on my own and they never expressed interest in going there. Even though my ultimate kpop group had split up, going to Seoul was a dream come true and it was so much more than just kpop and pretty faces. Till this day, I have not gone back but it holds a very special place in my heart. 

Fast forward to mid 2017. BTS was blowing up. I was seeing all these articles about them going to attend the Billboard Music Awards and suddenly this genre of music that was shunned upon, given weird looks, is suddenly...mainstream!? Its normal?? People aren't 'bullied' or made fun of for listening to kpop anymore?? I mean wow, what a time to be alive lol. I had not followed kpop for the whole of my university life (2013-2016) but I still listened to OG kpop groups as and when I felt nostalgic. In 3 years I'm sure tons of groups would've debuted and tried to make a mark in their world...and it had to be BTS that caught my attention? 

Spring Day was the first song I listened to of BTS. I was immediately enthralled. I wouldn't want to go into specifics but BTS and dbsk are SO different, I was surprised I even liked bts' style of music with the rap and all. My bias in dbsk was Junsu and he has the vocals of an actual angel. My bias in BTS is Yoongi and he's a RAPPER. Nonetheless, they were like nothing I had come across before and I was truly intrigued. Fast forward today and I'm sulking just as I was 10-12 years ago because 'when is bts ever going to come to Singapore for a concert?!' - to be fair, they have for 1 concert and 1 music event, I just wasn't aware of their existence at that point in time. I see parts of me now, as a 23 year old, mirroring my 12-year old self and it is hilarious. 

I love bts because of their rags to riches story, the fact that they came from nowhere, and that they were from a small company but they're taking over the world now. I guess this also stems from the fact that after dbsk's split, I refused to support anything that came out of sm entertainment although it isnt the artists' fault, they're just tainted for me. I love that they broke the notion that the whole kpop industry is manufactured and fake. The fact that they write their own songs and produce is an amazing feat for the industry. Also to produce songs that talk about things that many people would NOT want to come out and talk about is something the kpop industry needs to get on (e.g. the government, crazy fans, mental illness etc).

I have also come to realise that Yoongi is probably my bias now because i identify with him - his struggles with anxiety, depression and his music really speaks to me, especially the me at this point in my life. I read somewhere that a fan said she wished she knew about bts in 2013 when they first debuted and another fan replied that 'you found bts when you needed them the most' and that is the truth. 2018 hasn't been an easy year for me and I find a lot of comfort in bts. Mostly, it's their lyrics that i feel they took the mess in my heart/head and put it in fathomable words... 

I know well enough from the dbsk saga that some groups don't stay together forever. I only wish that bts be together as long as it is possible for them to (i.e. the legendary Shinhwa, 20 years...and counting). I know that just as I look back at my Cassie days with bittersweet memory, I will also look back at my ARMY days in maybe 10 years time, without any regrets. 

X

30. Year: 2018

This as written on the 28th of April, 2018:
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I decided to post here, and not on any other platform because this page was me in my rawest form. I wrote for myself and nobody else. I wrote because I was hurt, angry or elated. I wrote because it was a way to unleash my negative feelings and even though they were only for my eyes (well, most of the time), it gave me a sense of peace afterwards.

Welp.

So here I am, its 3 years after my last post on this blog. It baffles me how fast time flies. I was reading through some of my old entries when I was in university and it just dawned on me how much time has passed. When I was in university, looking back at ac days seemed so far away. Now in 2018, everything from that period of time in my life seems even more like history and further away from my being. It seems like I am looking out from another person's point of view into my current life. If that makes any sense at all.

2018 - I am miserable.

I am still in a relationship, I am working. Yet, I am miserable. I am also halfway to being broke af (thats a slang word now, haha). I am overweight and am tired all of the time, not just physically but mentally as well. Its as though through experiencing how it is to 'adult', has weighed and weared me down. I don't want to face the reality that consists of my job's impermanence (I'll get to that), that people around me are growing older and that fucking sucks, that I have to pay my own bills and ultimately, I SUCK at organising my spending. Basically, I can't manage things.

I worry I won't have enough funds for my future - a house, maintaining a car, bills etc.. A WEDDING BANQUET even. I don't know how I am going to do it and that scares me. My job is contract based and not something I can deal with or do forever. At the very most I stay till the end of the project and that's till year 2020. However, I doubt I'd be renewing my contract in 2019. Further studies don't seem like a great idea especially in terms of finances and then I'd be jobless, and add that to the list of things that worry and make me miserable. I don't even like what I am doing, and if not for the reputability of the company and the benefits (which I do admit are pretty damned good) that come along with it, I am so unhappy at this place. I do not feel productive in the very least, I am not contributing to the ~greater good or society~ and that just places everything I've learnt at university down the drain because I'm not using it and I am not using my degree for what I set out to do - my naive brain at freshmen year thought a Psychology degree was a grand idea to help struggling souls but that could never be further away from the truth of what I am ACTUALLY doing. At one point in time this job was everything I wanted but now I realized that stemmed from the pressure of being jobless in a shitty current job market and that I needed money. I now realize the importance of education - yes, not everyone can make it to a ivy league university, not everyone does well in 'exam's and not everyone who goes to good universities succeed later in life. Except, people around me whom I know attended great schools ARE excelling in life and those who aren't? They went to shitty institutions. To be fair, I guess this is also a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I am also miserable because I am fucking lonely.

Lonely because I no longer keep in touch with acs friends. I no longer keep in touch with my best friend and I still refer him as that title because this weak bitch (me) isn't capable of letting things/the past/people go in general. I don't have great colleagues and overall, I am just lonely. I have a boyfriend, but I'm pretty sure it isn't psychologically healthy to depend on one person for all support. I am pretty sure it is damaging to just have one person in life to depend on (apart from family). I just want to have lunch with likeminded individuals. Or maybe someone I could fangirl korean bands/dramas with. Or someone who can do my manicure and pedicure sessions with me so I don't feel like I need to muster my best Chinese for the manicurist. .. I can't tell him my petty worries, my paranoid thoughts, and everything I have written here because it comes across as slightly psychotic, irritating and naggy(?). Who would want someone who's down most of the time and whose emotions change like. *that*.

I've bottled up so so so many feelings. I miss my best friend - old news, why repeat it? I think I'm broke - just save more, why worry. I hate my job - reiterating it isn't going to change things. The list goes on. Thus, I just keep them to myself. It is easier that way. Until it reaches a point, now, where I have to pen it down or I'd probably go insane.

I looked at some of my facebook posts today, albums from 2011. I miss that point of my life so much. I really think that having exams/studying etc - if that is one's greatest worry - that is so minute. I miss py so much, I miss the uncensored chats we had, the tears we shed together, the pain we've shared and all the crazy moments in between. It is so stupid, so stupid to miss someone who maybe doesn't even think of you anymore. It's so stupid. But I miss him, I miss her, I miss so many people who kept me grounded and kept me sane.

I am going to end this here. I am going to cry my eyes out if I continue typing.

Maybe another time, another day when thoughts are more coherent,.. I would type again. Write again.

29. Christmas Spirit

Last 15 minutes of 25/12 and it just dawned on me that the year is ending in approximately a week.

The year has passed in the blink of an eye, its scary. Everyone's getting older, my parents, sister, my lovely yorkie baby Cookie is going to turn 6 soon, my boyfriend, my grandfather and the thought of time just passing by me scares the crap out of me.

I'm only 23. Only. And still, an existential crisis seems to be upon me already.

Work is a bore and I wonder how time passes so fast when work itself has been a total dread. I thought that moving to NUS would be better for me and my psych endeavours but all it has reaffirmed is what I knew in Nov 2016 when I was under NTU.... I don't really want to have anything to do with psychology and or research in general. It's tiring, unrewarding and I frankly don't have the passion for it. I've also been an awful employee I am not sure if I can last another year in NUS. The gr8 thing is the financial stability and that's about it. This is a dilemma for another time.

Have a Merry Christmas one and all.
Sorry this is an abrupt end to the sickeningly short post.
3 minutes to Boxing Day!

28. DBSK

I've not felt so nostalgic in such a long time.

Suddenly I found myself listening to jay chou, mayday and more significantly, dbsk. If you knew 2006 me onwards you'd know i was a huge kpop fan and specifically, in love with this band called dbsk which consisted of 5 members. it was a time when kpop was uncool, gay whathaveyou. they were one of the only things that kept me sane and believe it or not, happy. i was a fan for YEARS, collected their merch and even bought a ticket to see them live - i eventually did not b/c my dad was paranoid about going to bangkok during the protests and i to this day have regretted not seeing them but did 14 year old me have any say? none. this is b/c in 2009, 3 of the members filed a lawsuit against their company and the 5 of them did not move together. I don't know how a band could have such an effect on me. The 3 happened to contain my bias so i naturally followed them more. but it was always 5. the 5 of them were best together. When the 3 came to singapore for a concert, i immediately jumped on the opportunity to see the best vocalists of dbsk.

If in the near future, they come back together as 5, i will cry happy hard tears. they were legends to say the least. i will never ever forget this part of my tween years because i was a fan for a good 3-4 years before they split and whenever i chance upon their music every now and then, the feels are too much for my cassie heart.

It would be their 14th anniversary as 5 tomorrow, 26/12.

I am now going to hide in a hole of my own pity party and listen to their music endlessly. Hello, 2000s kpop. OG fans, join me.

27. Work.

This gif could not be anymore accurate than what I am trying to convey in this post. Work. Looking back on all the posts from uni days and even ac days got me feeling nostalgic and emotional - yearning for the kind of freedom that comes with being a student. Honestly, if the most important thing to worry for is exams or the next proposal/presentation/essay to be submitted - that is a simple simple period of time in your life that one should never take for granted. I wish there was a way for me to relive my memories, in person, a la Harry Potter style... especially when the working 'adult' world gets too much to handle, it could be such a comfort to relive past memories that remain dear to me...

Of course it is not characteristic of every office-goer to feel like crap on Monday morning, insisting on that cuppa coffee. I am certain there are individuals passionate enough about the work that they do so much so it's a calling, less of a chore. I salute these individuals and I can only hope that in the time to come, in future, I am able to find that sort of balance for myself and find pride in the work that I do so that it doesn't become such a pain/chore to wake up every weekday, take the public transport and work from 9-5pm staring at screen.

Sometimes, more often than not, I second guess the reason I am here, whether there is any difference in the work I do on society and an entire existential crisis (DAN HOWELL VIBES) series of emotions fill my heart and my head is less rational than it should be. In a time of economic uncertainty, I end up feeling GUILT because if I have a job, what's there to complain, there's so many people who'd kill to be in my position versus being an unemployed blob. Then I just shut these feelings off and go about my day like.I know.what.I.am.doing. (I don't). 

Till when I can feel truly HAPPY in my work-shoes, then I guess I'll rely on coffee, tauhuey and memes to get through the day.

X