hmm typing this on a cooling night, after a gd chat with ruiyuan on various issues here and there. cup of water on the desk next to me. earphones on, playing the current blog song (because i'm stupid by kim hyun joong, from BoF. yes im very outdated i know, but better later than never right). everyone else at home is asleep. i guess it's a gd time to take a while to write this post, sort of to reflect abt the past 2 wks, and the future and all, after being inspired by the chat.
yes. emo-time lol. though actually i also dunno why i'm emo-ing. just feeling... that doing some reflection is timely now?
these 2 weeks, i'll say, have been eventful and routine at the same time. well i can probably list a lot of things i've done over the past 2 wks, like going back to hwachong for the induction programme as well as the annual staff meeting and having the mega awkward moment of saying hi to your ex-teachers who are going to be your temporary colleagues >.< as well as the 3 day teaching internship workshop which i got to make quite a few friends, fellow jc interns. which is probably one of the very important and good things that i took away from the 3 days at NUS. i can also talk about the ice cream making session i went with junzhi over at tom's palette, and how i attempted to try it out with hanzong and bok on monday at hz's house (horlicks icecream), alongside justin's painstakingly typed out pasta + meatballs recipe on his website, without him being around to help. or about catching up with yongbiao, kevin, ber and jinhui on wed night at amk over dinner and they're probably going hound me for not uploading the photos yet lol. (yup gd point, i better upload them soon.) or even abt going for lu guang zhong's concert with ruiyuan just now and enjoying his very good live vocals and stage presence over at dragonfly, st. james. (btw he was really good. and he quite successfully drawn the audience's attention and memories of the gig i think.)
hmm seems quite happening right. actually i had a pretty good time being part of all these myself. but i guess i'm just not really in the mood to go into too much details abt them la. mind's more preoccupied with stuff that i don't even know wad it is. weird feeling, but i think everyone has their moments too. like u just feel serious and reflective all of a sudden, and all the things that u've been a part of or happened to u (the tangible stuff) now seems less important than the feelings and thoughts u've gained from them (the intangible stuff). but, being the intangible things they are, sometimes u can't really grasp them all.
the 3 day workshop was quite fun, and im really glad i made quite a few friends from it. i hope when my own internship begins end of the mth, we all can find some time to come together and have a good time sharing our experiences. and im really glad to have met my old neighbour back at my old amk house, whom i havent been in contact since pri 5. that's like... 9 years? wow. and what a small world. but i'm really glad this internship has gotten us back in contact, and hope it can stay that way, yee wee haha. another pleasant surprise was to see bokai, my pri sch schoolmate and we had quite a lot of fun being on the same school bus.
louis vuitton handbags although we've met a couple of times over the years, but being in different schools and all, it was really quite hard to keep in contact. but i'm glad this internship helped to allow us to stay in touch too. so i would say those 3 days have been a good time, making new friends and reminiscing with the old lol.
going back to hwachong, as i said, is a really weird experience. mon's induction was still ok as it was more of meeting the key personnel (principals and deputy principals and deans and directors), who of cos dunno me, being the average joe i was in school. fri was a lot more awkward lol. esp during breakfast and lunch, when the interns had to queue with all the teachers, high school and jc side alike, for the food. so it's really kinda weird when u meet your ex-teachers, and the idea that they are going to be your colleagues for the next 3 months creeps in. sort of gets you to mutter "omg" in your mind. but i guess it just needs some time to get used to and hopefully a couple of weeks into the internship i'll be comfortable with it. (but firstly, it must start! been waiting and waiting la. not that i'm SUPER eager to teach, but it's more of like, it's really damn long. thankfully now i got stuff to pass time with.)
going for the icecream making session with junzhi was, i think, quite a significant thing for me. cos of our busy schedules, haven't been meeting him for quite some time, so this was a good time for us to catch up. i hope both of us won't be too caught up in our work and can arrange a meeting with kenny as well sometime in the future. haha my good bmt buddies. will never forget those times... also, it was quite interesting in itself, since i belong to the category of only know how to eat but dunno how to make/cook/bake/wadeva. i shan't go into details, though i feel it was a good time for me to do some hands-on ever since my baking attempt, which was quite long ago le. i should think of something else to make and not let this wish to learn to bake become some passing fad, some short phase in my life. it's a useful skill and i hope i can persevere to the end loh. monday's cookout at hz's house was a good chance to test our results, and i must say i'm pretty pleased with wad we came out, despite the divine intervention by justin the chef. but really hor, i cant imagine 1 person cooking. we had already enough on our hands when we had 3 ppl (hz me bok). if i were to cook alone, i prob take like 5 hours to come out with a meal mebbe >.<
talking abt learning stuff, i feel like i'm always interested in certain stuff but it doesn't last. which is really bad. i dont want to have just passing fads, but want to develop them as useful skills i can apply in future. ok la, dj teaching me piano is really just casual learning of a few songs here and there, plus he got such a busy schedule anyway, so i also wont be able to have constant progress to be sufficiently good in it. but stuff like languages (like jap), though they are seemingly useless, but can be quite good-to-knows loh. haven't really considered abt taking it properly as a course and have weekly lessons, but i'm quite determined to not let wadeva i learnt over the past few mths in army go to waste. being able to speak one more language, no matter how irrelevant or seemingly unimportant, will definitely have its uses at some point of time de la. that's wad i believe in anyway. and lastly, being able to prepare simple dishes or bake simple cookies. that'll be something i'll never want to let go of. i think what i need is some encouragement? and motivation to really do it. cos after the not so good experience with my family members regarding the previous random urge baking session, i dunno exactly how supportive they are. i feel all i need is just some encouragement from them for me to be able to pick it up so much faster loh. it's like how jandi's family work together to prepare kimchi in ep 9 of BoF. i feel it's like a very nice warm family feeling, if a family can come together to bake something simple, like cookies or brownies, or prepare a meal. but of cos, i know, that's all rather idealistic thinking la. i do hope something of even the slightest degree of that can happen though. haven't really felt the nice fuzzy family feeling ever since we got back from vietnam. i guess during then, we were like "stuck together", so we tended to interact and bond more. but now, back in sg, we are all back to leading our own individual, independent lives. there just isn't that nice come-together feel anymore. i wonder when i can have that back again?
i agree with ruiyuan that vivo rooftop is really quite a nice place to have a gd chat for 2, fun interactions between a large group, with games and loads of laughter etc, and a really gd spot for one to be alone for a while and run things thru his mind. more simply put, to emo lol. it's tested and proven by me. been there, done it. so for anyone who wanna find a gd place to emo, it's quite a nice place. the whole dim lighting, cool night breeze, random screenshots of different ppl, from families to couples to friends to probably just a bunch of acquaintances there for some icebreakers, looking at different sights can get u to think about a lot of things. and when u are tired of looking around, can just gaze upon sentosa, or the port, and the numerous lights there portraying a stark contrast to the dimmer surroundings u have around you somehow will have a soothing effect on you. and u can think thru a lot of things. he suggested marina barrage too, but that's a whole load more inaccessible. mebbe when i become more confident abt my driving to do it alone, then i prob take an evening or night drive there bah.
took up some volunteer work for northwest cdc, where my mum works, at various ccs spread across the nw region of singapore. got bok to go along with me, so i wont feel so alone haha. i guess it's a good way for me to pass the time prior to my internship, and volunteer work is always good. i haven't really helped out in community events for quite a long time, ever since my service-learning days in sec 4, and a short stint of ocip back in j1. been meaning to do something ever since, but i kept gaving myself the excuse of army, and stay-in, so wkends not sufficient to do anything. now that excuse is no longer valid, so i guess it's time i should do something abt what i promised myself back then. anyway only been at it for 2 days, and will only work for 1 wk more till my internship starts, so it's very short actually. haven't really gotten to talk to many of the volunteers, but hope as well can make some friends, since our ages aren't that far apart. there are slightly older volunteers as well, so i would say we got ppl from various walks of life ba.
the reason why i mentioned this is cos somehow looking at some of the ppl i met, regardless of coordinators, volunteers, or the actual ppl we are assisting, it got me thinking quite a bit. more of how i envy certain ppl for their ability to connect with the general public and community, and reflecting on how i react or portray myself when involving myself in the job. i think it's inevitable, many if not most of us do carry different personas within us. i don't mean like split personality disorder or something, but more of different behaviours and manners one will adopt in different situations. all these different behaviours are in full control by the person de. at least i feel i have a need to, putting on "different masks" quoting miss peck, my facilitator during the 3 day moe course. i'm sure wensi agrees with me too, cos we've briefly discussed this before. but anyway, seeing how good some of the volunteers are when dealing with strangers, as well as remembering the various styles ppl adopted during the course when they had to go to the front of the class to present or teach something, kinda made me think if there's a need to think over what kind of me i wanna portray when i start my internship.
i know many ppl will probably just say, "just be yourself! why must act like someone else!" but this is a very idealistic way of thinking loh. even if i wanted to just "be myself", i think some change in my personality is in order here. the 20 year-old me has offended quite a lot of ppl in the past, when i was someone who didnt dare to criticise ppl for any flaws they might have, was over-sensitive abt how ppl looked at me and felt upset and very hurt whenever anything negative was being said abt me. someone who was always eager to please ppl, like some lackey, in the end not more than once being labelled a hypocrite. yes hyprocrite. how i hated that word when i first heard it, but i guess i grew numb after hearing it more than once. or twice. or... nvm. basically i was just this coward who liked to hide in my own shell, always trying to round any sharp edges that might hurt others, with the shell getting broken very easily and taking quite some time to mend.
damn i'm being really brutally honest with myself here.
this kind of personality will probably not be able to withstand any hard blows at all, be it in the upcoming internship, or future in uni, or even in society in future loh. how can i not wear a mask to hide all this ugliness. yeah, i should change. but how long does one take before he can transform into someone new? old habits die hard. similarly, old personas are really hard to change. so this whole circumstance has really really got me thinking. well i can't gurantee success, i'll probably be as cowardly and hypocritical as i used to be, but i'm determined to change. and not going to let myself be bullied into reverting back to my old self, my comfortable self. it's time to step out of the comfort zone and embrace new challenges. so i'm hoping that this internship will let me take away not just a whole load of experiences, but a new me as well. i won't want my students to think what a weak and nice to bully teacher they had.
ppl who really like me for who i am, thank you very much, i'm really grateful, and i hope with your support i can steadily head towards my goal. ppl who give up on me cos of the flaws i used to have and refuse to give me a second chance, well, all i have to say is sorry i've wasted your time for the past years being ur friend, and regrettably i'm just that unacceptable in ur eyes loh. mebbe our personalities just don't match and we are prob not meant to be gd friends to begin with, but just keep trying to force ourselves upon this friendship. there's a lot of interesting contrast when you have friends whom u havent met for years and when u all meet again, u all still can have that link and chat abt mostly everything u all got in common. and when some friends you can feel the drifting apart because of new environment, new friends, well even if u force upon urself to meet every few months or even every few weeks, the nice cosy friendship feeling is just not there. this thing abt friendships, should be a very close and mutual thing, but things are just not right when u all get together just because everyone happens to be free. or only on special occasions. if two ppl are friends, there shouldnt be anything forced. and they shouldnt take like last priority. i've been on both ends of the stick before, so i understand how sad one is on the giving end, always trying to make things work, not being appreciated or regarded, and how lousy and bastard one feels, knowing that he hasn't been keeping in contact with a friend and didn't make a point to arrange another a meetup when something cropped up.
i think i'm horrible at staying on point. digressing until liddat. i guess writing posts on emo-moods makes the post very different. maybe i'm drunk from the gin tonic i had at st. james just now, so i'm typing all this rubbish. i'll prob take this off once i come to my senses, mebbe tml morning after i wake up.
argh i hate myself. emoooooooooooooooooooooooooo.