a late welcome to 2k17

hello friends , it's been awhile .

2016 went by way too fast for me to really reflect on the many ups and downs for the past year . but i'm feeling thankful . i'm just deeply thankful and grateful i was able to build stronger bridges for those who stayed by my side and guided me along the way , showering me love that i didn't asked for in one way or another . thankful that i'm still alive . thankful for those wise words that makes me treasure life even more . thankful for my decision to take a faith in the unknown and not let fear and a concern for what others will think sway my choices . thankful for those that somehow still give a damn about how and what i'm doing . thankful for this world , the amaze balls people I've met on the road who inspire me and the places I've been that took my breath away with their beauty . letting myself be vulnerable has opened my heart to positive changes . I’ve grown to love myself and the way that i think so i embraced 2017 on a contented note 🙏🏼

and now coming to 2017 , i've been thinking for the longest time what my resolutions will be . & after into the second month of the year , i think i've know what they are .

i feel like i've changed , or i have changed . more than once , we’ve been told to be ourselves . more than once , we couldn’t figure out who ourselves were . more than once have we been lost and confused , grasping at the scattered pieces that defined who we were . but i am human . and in moments like this , i doubt the very nature of my human existence , that i have not fully comprehend my own identity and that scares me . for the longest of time , i have changed to blend in with the people around me . how am i supposed to know how to live when i don’t know who i am and what i rlly want ? so what happens when you start to lose yourself ? What then ? that feeling of doubt , it’s terrifying . everything around me , it hasn’t changed but at the same time , it has changed immensely and the changes are drastic . and in moments like this , we think , we doubt , we question ourselves . and eventually , our perspectives change . as we grow , deep down inside we feel as our emotions intensify .

i have so much love to give , but i’m going to start giving it to myself instead of people who couldn’t care less if we never spoke again . i’ve made permanent homes in people who only made temporising vacations in me , and that , needs to end . this year - i've closed my love and hopes for someone i held so close to my heart for the longest time and open up to someone else . and it began . all sorts of emotions and thoughts start breaking through the walls i've build up over the past years . how do you want me to open up when over and over again , i wasn't given the chance and support . i'm a girl after-all . i have feelings . i have thoughts that i kept deep down just cause i don't feel the need to pour them out . i have plenty of insecurities too . i don't get pissed and disappear doesn't mean i don't get jealous doesn't mean i don't feel hurt doesn't mean i'm really really ok . i have unhealthy habits/routines and i need time . i need time to change . i need chances . i'm not perfect , i can't completely change after a sleep . i've been independent for way too long to know how to love anymore . i've gave you yours where's mine ? maybe it's just me . but i'm out . i'm done .

my grandma through my eyes

grandma passed on .

i woke up all of a sudden on 24^th Sept wee morning hours & just when i'm about to head back to bed for another 30mins of sleep before getting ready for work , i took a glance at my phone and BAM at that moment i received a text followed by my dad's call right after . 

idk what went through my mind when i saw my name on grandma obituary . i was unable to come to terms with the fact she was no longer a part of the world around me . i struggled with the idea of death and the conceptual feeling we call grief . i've always fear the death of my loved ones and friends ever since my lower secondary bestfriend passed away . grandma death was the first i experienced among all my kins and now the thought of death becomes a subtle pain that lingers within me not knowing if the next breath is our last . what's even more heartbreaking is i do not know if and when i will have enough time to say my final words the fact that i do not know how to say goodbyes . i found peace only after reading this words of condolences among the few i received - " its okay to feel weak at this point , don't fight it ". & i had a good breakdown after .

grandma have been sick in the recent months. she spent most of her last months at home , most of the time sleeping , surrounded by family and ever-by-her-side grandpa . she reconciled with the idea of death and could slowly feel it coming but she kept it silent to herself . there was once i overheard her talking to herself that all she does is eat and sleep .. .. 
in the midst of all this , i realised my father was losing her mother . 
whenever i went home in malaysia to pay a visit to my grandparents , i witnessed the obvious change of grandma's body bearing the signs of past and present illnesses , from the over-swollen due to the side effects of the meds till down to bone wrap by literaly a layer of skin . it aches so much just by looking at her . i imagined myself at an older age and thought about how time changes one’s perspective on being a woman . but despite being ill , grandma never forgets to look pretty infront of her 10 children and many grandchildren and now loss count great-grandchildren or when she's expecting guests . she will always have a plastic bag containing her comb , gel , and most imortantly , mirror hanging by the handle of her wheelchair. she wants to present her prettiest self to eveyrone .

grandpa never leaves grandma side . he makes sure he gave her a shower ,  fed her , took her meds and one of their children or grandchildren is around to take care of grandma before heading to his orchard to water his vegetable plants and fruit trees . even so , he makes it a quick trip instead of hours he used to take . he never gives up on her once and they're the perfect role model i've always looked up to .

death comes fast out of nowhere . it will happen to eveyone . it's not a plan . i'm being an unfillial grandaughter . my pressence wasn't there during the chanting . but my soul cerianly did . & i couldn't be there to bury her body either . I wasn't there for her in her last moments . no matter what methods i tried , i hate the fact i couldn't get through the immigrations and be there . i regret not putting in 100% to perfect my hokkien . we could've chatted more 'bout anything in life if i did . come to think of it , i hardly know what kind of activities my grandma really enjoys doing , i can only vividly remeber one or two . i'm not as close to my grandma and grandpa as compared to my brother since he was taken care of by them the moment he's born but i'll definitely miss her telling me to " eat more eat more " at every meal making sure we'll never go hungry . 

RIP grandma , i hope you left with a peace of mind . you'll never be forgotten . also , thank you to those who gave me your kind words of condolences and being there for me during this difficult time . i do appreciate it .

" Maybe death is a beautiful beginning ; a fresh start where the people we cherish feel no pain and watch over us as we continue to live our everyday lives . "

oh wow, hello September.

This is wow . the last time i log in and posted a post is almost 10 months ago.

But hello there, I'm back & this time , decided to be a lil' hardworking and 'renovate' this lil' space .

I kinda ended 2015 on a wrong note with an unhealthy decision i made & so the start of 2016 was one hella ride for me all the way till now , 2016 is almost ending . but i made a promise to myself i need to clear these pile of mess before christmas , before a new year start . it's about time i start on a clean , healthy , brand new chapter of my adulthood.

Throughout this year , people come , people go - drifting in and out of my life , almost like characters in a favourite book . when you finally close the cover , the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book , complete with new characters and new adventures . then you find yourself focusing on the present ones , not the ones from the past . so i deeply appreciate and thankful to those that stayed and helped me out through this tough period . i promise i'll come back even stronger .

Time is G O L D

Sometimes I wonder where will I be 10yrs down the road . I've been thinking , that I've been missing . And  a huge part of this comes from this very moment at where I'm sitting rn . ( FYI to those not catching the ball , I'm sitting infront of a comp 9 hrs everyday doing C O D I N G ) .

 I'm a dreamer of weird thoughts and doing things the weirdest way with the weirdest dreams which includes the weirdest occupations I wanna be . A common question we all ask ourselves - what are we doing with our lives ? what are we going to do with our lives ? Of late I've been thinking at how I've grown // ya it's just simple growing up but know me well enough you know I hate growing up // and how I've disappear away after every phrase of my life . That ---> suck in a way somehow . How I'm not talking to my childhood mates anymore after I left kindergarten and not making an attempt to reconnect the string btwn me and them(of which , partly wasn't my fault) ; How I'm not doing my prayers and attend class after I graduate from sec sch ; How I'm in the progress of disappearing from co after my final year ; 

it's time to get my priorities right .

& how as the years goes by , one tend to think so much it's giving nightmares ( or maybe it's only me , me & yours truly ) .

I am afraid that my life will go running in opposite diretions

I am afraid that who I am misses who I used to be

I am afraid of the demons within me

I am afraid with what retribution has given me

I am afraid of my own flaws

I am afraid my life is beyond saving

I am afraid of losing

and I'm afraid my breaths will start to collapse

Death . Frighten me all the time I tuck myself to sleep as much as I can't imagine people I love around me dying .

I have studies to occupy myself with but I just come to a point in my growing up where I stop learning just because I hate taking life so seriously vice-versa I hate taking life lightly just as much . Bitches , bastards , backstabber , the list goes on forever .

Everyone out there just wants to save themselves from trouble , and they abuse words and trust . That is growing up . That is survival . Because life is a bed full of roses , we just often forget that roses eventually develop thorns and hey , that is who you'll be the rest of your life without a turning point

PS this isn't what I intend to write at the beginning of this post but oh well somehow my fingers typed them up so , yup HA

20 . 11 . 13

Looking through my drafts and gallery I realise I've got quite a number of things not shared yet . Spare me a bit though , lots of things have been pilling on me since sem 2 starts . Things just dont get better as each month or each sem pass or maybe I'm stressing myself too much I dont even know .

I have to stop pushin' people away man and get all pow-wow when they moved on , as much as I need to stop drifting from people 'round me . Idk , I'm still stuck in that delusion & not moving on believing single-sided love does exist . Trust just isn't there you see , then when I finally met somebody and pour my hearts out , they left .
"To love is to suffer . To avoid this suffering , one must not love . But then again,  one suffers the loneliness from not loving . Therefore to love is to suffer ; not to love is to suffer but yet to suffer is to suffer . They say to love brings happiness , then , so is it to suffer ? But suffering makes one unhappy . Therefore , to be happy , one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness ." 
One will nvr get contented , too much of everything kills .
Theres so many thoughts spinning in my head rn , engulfing me but somehow I just dk how to spill them out . So many ppl just come & go out of my life recently why can't they either stay or don't even enter ? Feel free to come in , the door to my heart is always open , feel free to leave too . But but but just don't stand at the door . 
That feeling is pretty hard to bear . 

OBS 2 Sept - 6 Sept

Tryin' to catch up this space of mine as much as I can with all the late entries

I've draft-saved waiting for me to edit & publish 

ΔΔΔ

So durin' the term break on Sept , I involved myself with a 5D4N OBS leadership training course I told myself "confirm go" the moment I saw the email 'cause since forever I've been waiting for a chance to !

So both me & Kim signed up ! We were seperated from our groups though but I'm thankful I'm in a group with 16 awesome people !  

We got bonded and started ice-breakers the moment we settled down in our groups @ Punggol Jetty . So much yay for them alr . Oh did I mention we have to report to school @ 7am in the morn' ?! so much of monday blues . Intense horror to find the blue door bein' locked when our bagpack's inside thankfully we found the security guard & the bus didn't left w/o us .

The sequence of events may not be in order but it's somewhere there .

Day 1

Arrived at OBS spore campsite located @ Ubin in ferry with my team(GANDHI) already bonded , bein' all hyped and enthu to start the camp

Blah

Blah

Blah

All the intro , paper work and stuff .

Then the day is proceed with high elements - god , talk 'bout height

The before and after feel is pretty diff .

The moment we saw what we had to climb me bein' adventurous me was totally excited since it's my virgin time tryin' sth so high in outdoor ! Then when I get my ass up there with my partner (BEIN HANDCUFFED TGT) , pretty much brings everything lvl up quite abit . Imagine the restrict movements while having to climb the wood . 

The gap in btwn them wasn't small toooooo

& obviously everyone passed within the given time ^^v

Day 2

Gosh , while in the midst of  viewing never-fails-to-be-pretty-nature ,

guess what's the price we have to pay for enjoyin' this luxury ?

HIKING WITH >5KG BAGPACKS ON OUR SHOULDERS

+ point for us bein' the lucky batch that get to use brand new bagpacks though .

FYI , the bagpack alone weighs 1+kg itself alr

Practically hiking the entire day with quests needed to be solved within the time we set for ourselves beforehand as well chances cards

(the whole hiking trip is like a Monopoly game) which requires us to randomly switch our bagpacks around the group which suay suay ends up some girls have to carry the guys bagpack .

& usually the guys carry more heavy stuffs so .... the remaining hours after the change was TORTUROUS la please

Original plan was agreed hiking to all the way to Chek Jawa but limitations 

along the way made us agreed to quit that idea

BUT STILL , we didn't quit the idea of seein' beautiful scenery !!

it's like a must when you're in Pulau c'mon

So instead of hikin' further , we hike higher ! Faster but not as easy

& I guess I don't need to exaggerate how perrrfect the view is

The amount of joy we shared when we're the first group to reach was beyond words , nobody gave up though everybody thought of quittin' but NO WAY 'cause #YOLO we're gandhi !

Day 3

After land expedition was sea expedition the next day .

As tough or as much or much more tougher than the land expenditure .

Kayak for straight 6hours sure is another achievement unlock 

Bein' in the leader boat with 2 of my mates def was a challenge

so glad nobody really blame it on us though we make mega mistakes like leading the wrong route which looks like a maze and the map is superrr confusing thus ending up we had to race against time in order not having to carry our overweight kayaks on our back ; kayak against the thunder-storm-ultra-mega-windy-rain which blow us in the opp direction easily ; having teammates with spoilt kayak and the sea won't stop invading in and the kayak's sinking but we're in the middle of nowhere there's nth we can do but to switch ppl around to kayak the spoilt one ;  fightin' against the currents that push us further & further & we can't stop to take a breath 'cause once we do so we're 10 strokes further ; havin' the fear to pee cause I'm afraid I'll drown anytime .

Day 4

We have to built our own rafts cum kayak .

One mega one & two mini ones .

Once again , the weather was against our will which have everybody drained to the point - fill in the words - . & cause our rafts are man-made , def it's not perfect so somehow we were all towed back drained & wet .

* on the last night *

groups crashin' dorms time !

♡♡ GANDHI !! ❤❤

Good quality time spent on the last night with htht .

It's amazing how we were bond enough to leak out our secrets to one another , trusting each other . First impression they had on me was actually " Dao a.k.a hard to get along " HAHAHA

The girls

(Front : Cindy , Gaya , lil' dragon , Gladys , Faith , Naz 

Back : Vivian , Stephane , me , Liz )

The Boys idk why it's so blur T^T

( From Top : KahYong , Nathan , Haikal , Raymond , Shahreal , Joey )

Day 5

Morn' was spent on another set of high element > debrief > lunch >
shop-for-our-obs-shirts > byebye

Finally the last day & mixed feelings were def there . 

Meet Jeff , our trainer .

I have to say he's the strictest trainer among the 4 & we had lesser play time than the rest . He just won't stop emphasizing that we're here for leadership course so it's 50% hands on 50% "lecture" . So 3 of the 4 nights were basically cracking/squeezing of our brain juice .

Many things learnt from him though , thankful for those tips in such a short time .

Oh did I mention we get to attend this OBS course cause we have to lead in this annual Poly forum . & most/everyone of us don't know 'bout that till we arrived on the first day .

These 5 days have been really awesome . Passin' quicker than we thought as usual .

I've met 64 more NYP-ians & made 16 new friends .

Most prob the best camp I've attend yet .

Though I bet we won't really talked much even if there's a wapp group ,

glad that we shared these 5 days of beautiful memories :')

To attend an OBS camp off my must-do-list yo ;')

( Sorry for the lack of photos , the rest are with Faith & she haven't pass me yet )

Panphobia

I am afraid to say that I live in fear everyday

I am afraid of lizards/anything reptile-like

I am afraid of who I am

I am afraid of who I'll become

I am afraid that who I am misses who I used to be

I am afraid that my life will go running in opposite directions

I am afraid of my own sanity and morals

I am afraid that I rely on myself too much

I am afraid of people

I am afraid that every one in the world will be against me

I am afraid to die

I am afraid of what karma will do to me

I am afraid that I will be lost

I am afraid of the demons within me

I am afraid that no one will ever trust me

I am afraid that hope and faith will abandon me

I am afraid that one day my soul will be half-empty

I am afraid the weather gets too humid

I am afraid my breaths will start to collapse

I am afraid with what retribution has given me after I die

I am afraid that I'll go to hell

I am afraid of my own reflection and flaws

I am afraid of uncertainty

I am afraid of affection turning its back on me

I am afraid that I can never be happy again

I am afraid that I wish I had never been born

I am afraid that my mind will always be clouded with meaningless thoughts

I am afraid of growing up

I am afraid of losing

I am afraid that I want to leave this world

I am afraid to live

Life is a sack filled w shit

As I take a step each day towards the ending point of this long journey , the insights towards nature gets clearer . Every step I take , the view to the world gets a lil' bigger . People whom I thought will nvr change , changed - it's ok if it's a lil' but the change is so much , & its bad .. & it really scares me if one day I changed too or maybe I already did or everyone around me that I've regarded as friend , changed & leaves me . How selfishness can engulfed somebody to another person I've never knew . Someday I wish to know the reason why they change . Maybe they don't know either . I don't wish to lose a friend . I tried to believe nobody's perfect and my friend will always be my friend no matter how much they changed . But recently , I start to think I was wrong . I can't stand how one changed to a selfish acting cool wannabe . Why , idk .

Everytime I set foot on ecp , my legs will always bring me for a walk towards the south all the way till nsc came to view . Nostalgia will then swallow me & the less than 200M dist will always feel as if I've walked 1KM . Sailing was always my passion & just when I finally got a chance to sail the waves at 13 , my mum decided to crash this lil' dream bubble in my head . Devastated , I tried all ways and 2 yrs later , I see YOG coming . My mum will never know how it feels to be able to concur the ocean . That's where the only time I feel free , letting the sun kiss my skin , and the wind brushing against them . Those new friends I made from all over the world and memories I've created with them , watching races , speeding in referee boat etc. in nsc will always be remembered . & now I regret so much for not disobeying my mum & continue what I want .. Too late , Indeed .

I start to doubt myself if this position really fits me . Wtvr I say always seem to deem as rubbish/nonsense . I tried my best in bein' serious , sometimes you guys just didn't make that effort to at least believe me . It's ok if the whole world's against me . At least put in some effort to not treat me as invisible , at least . Questions bein' ignored , pressence bein' ignored , suggestions bein' ignored , advise bein' turned down etc etc etc . Hello my friend , I'm just sittin' right beside , I'm online . I really love how I'm bein' ignored right smack in btwn . Feel me sometimes , try puttin' yourself in my shoe & then tryin' to pretend everything's ok when all this shit is happening to me . Damn ,  nobody really cares . 

Silhouette

" Loneliness is underrated " - Tom Hansen 

It's so scary at times when know you have to face the world alone , against all odds .

It's you against the world & the world against you .

Occasionally you need to remind yourself that you were the one who carried you through the heartache . You are the one who sits with the cold body on the shower floor , & picks it up . You are the only who wipes those fallen tears . You are the one who feeds , who clothes , who grooms , and you should be proud of that - Having the strength to take care of yourself when everyone around you is tryin' to bleed you dry or too busy to notice that it is the strongest thing in the universe . 

That is where you learn to fend & love yourself more than anyone else .

Something we can never have answer to , yet put ourselves through shit to find out .

Where's my world of fantasy ?