2019: a sombre yet hopeful recap :]

Hey peeps,

I did not actually die in college HAH. I am starting to feel like every other blog post will start from the same “9I didn’t realize how long ago was my last post” but I still am going to say it anyway. (I think it is the Indonesian polite genes that urge me to lol) but yes, it is nearing the end of the year and that means…. I am well over my first semester of college. Like w h a t? same fam. I too am confuzzled by the way time passes, all the damn time. Besides that, this is also my last year being a non-adult (by my own standards, of course). Holy hell I am honestly rushing to make all the dumbest mistakes (ever) before I will get double the personal punishment/disappointment from my 20-year-old self LOL. Well to begin, I got semi-scammed by the hairdresser who dyed my hair in the most un-blonde color of the century when I showed him the blondest of the blondes you can ever think an Asian person can go for, and yada yada yada the list goes on…..

But that is clearly not why I want to write another entry now. I just feel like I have been drafting this blog post over and over and over again in my head, but somehow I don’t have the courage to type it down on the computer. I could not get that peace of mind to sit down and be real to type an honest entry. Well, I made it this far, and I think I am ready to reflect more deeply at the end of the year, at the end of the semester, and at the end of the decade too. I think it is great to have new year resolutions now that we are expectant of better times in the future, but one thing I have learned over the years is that if we don’t tie up the loose ends of the previous year, no new year resolutions are going to make any memorable impact (not that they will last anyways LOL). So here goes nothing :>

As December approaches and the season got a little more festive, I thought I was all contented now that I can stop thinking about my philosophy essay (don’t get me wrong its my fav class <3) and the readings that piled, or the many club things I somehow squeezed time for throughout the semester. But that was not the case. Worse still, I think it was the first time I felt such emptiness in me. Like a donut, really. All nicely glazed on the outside, dripping with that fragrant cinnamon-y scent most people enjoy, yet hollow, completely poke-able from the outside. And I guess unforeseen circumstances poked that one donut hole in me. And it was a big poke. A poke that kind of tore the outer fried dough of the donut. And it was not an immediate poke, but rather the kind of poking that slowly gnawed into the innermost part of the dough until you can only feel the donut slowly breaking apart. It began with one poke and it spread through the entire glaze and its doughy substance.

And that was when I realized that I was not letting myself feel the sadness I needed to feel. As I slowly understood that it was a downtime for my emotional and spiritual state, I took time to acknowledge that this feeling of emptiness has been piling up little by little, but I was just too selfish to admit it initially. It is kind of funny honestly, to be able to say so easily that emotions are tender, and that people can feel sad sometimes, yet it is actually hard to believe it when it happens to yourself. People are such hypocrites sometimes, I included. But that is okay, I guess. I slowly embraced my slump, willingly or unwillingly.

So I took some time, and I thought about how I felt. And I am so lucky to have fond memories to fall back to, a God so great I was able to reach out to through prayers, and friends so dear to my heart who supported my backstep and my fall. Oh and my journal too. :] these things cushioned the fall. Still, it seemed a little odd to me that I am not the pillar of support who listened to others’ lamentations, but I guess I can tick the box of being sadness and emo 101 in my bucket list of experiences hah. Kidding this is obviously not the first time I felt sad come on I am not Barbie or some shit.

But what is different this time though, was the fact that I felt detached from myself as I saw myself fall. It is a weird phenomenon, but I also felt like it was right to do it that way. You know that gut feeling that you just know you have to trust. And I did. And the cold wind did blow hard through that donut hole. But that cold wind was a necessary one. It was pretty humbling, and it taught me so many things.

As I unraveled this emptiness, I tried to systematically approach this natural cycle of emotions, but I failed and that failure encouraged me to fuck it and go deeper. And I did. And I think I knew why I was feeling so. And that possible discovery was liberating at the very least; the possibility of decoding ‘myself’ led me to see myself honestly and sincerely, stripping down all the drizzles and going straight to the very essence. And the process of recovery began then.

This whole exposition can honestly sound pretty confusing because it is confusing to me too. The intricacies of human emotions never stop to amaze me, and as I tried to connect them to my more dominant rational side, I only learn that they want to be acknowledged and respected instead of rationalized. And that is okay. Truly, there is no one aspect of a human person that is superior to another. And I am so glad to have been humbled to experience a blow that made me realize and believe this fact fully.

I left out a lot of details because I don’t want to bore you with my personal stories yuck and I did not feel like giving a list of advice or what to do when you feel down too. Because I feel like everyone knows to a small extent how to deal with sadness, but what a lot of people don’t know is that time does the trick, at its own time.  (yuck did I just make a pun :>) and you need to trust the process, really. Every recovery is personal and time-consuming, but that’s what it is. So get frustrated with yourself, spiral down, talk to others if you want to, but always be in tune with yourself by the end of everything.

If there is only one thing that I can leave you and myself with, is that patience is so important when you exercise self-care. And this year I have learned to be more patient with myself throughout all that has happened. And I am so so so so blessed to be able to do that. So thank you, time, for waiting for everything to iron out.

2019, you have been a tiring year I guess. I had so many girls’ trips earlier in the year in which I laughed so hard that I almost forgot what it felt like to not grin for a day. I had so many meaningful conversations with people who came and stayed, as well as those who came and would probably not stay. And I appreciate them all. I have experienced the lowest of lows too this year, and I have learned so much from it. I think I have been a little bit braver now. And I hope you are too, you who are reading this. Because you too have pushed through a year of troubles, achievements, disappointments, happy moments. And you should bask yourself in the sunshine of gratefulness for making it this far. Now onwards to a greater year, a year where the same shit may happen again but you are stronger and better in handling it with all the people who matter. Cheers xx

10 reasons why you should visit Nepal

A country full of stark juxtapositions... embodied by both the people and the silent survivors of the deadly 2015 earthquake. That is probably the best way to describe how Nepal is as a country as of now, as seen through my lens in my one-week-trip to Nepal.

 a random villager's house at Pokhara

sunrise slowly creeping out from a seemingly nearby mountain from the Australian Base Camp

another beautiful moment before the sun rises!

As many of you know, it is a country still rebuilding and recovering from the disastrous earthquake in 2015, yet there are so much more than mere shambles and messy infrastructure of Kathmandu that I saw and lived. I was initially shook by the state of disorderliness Kathmandu was in when I first step foot on the crowded pavements and unregulated traffic on the streets, but as I leave Nepal, I could not cease to smile at the beautiful bright skies, the warmth of the locals and the hopeful eyes of the little children I talked to during the school visits. To give you a context of what I did*, my schoolmates and I basically helped build a wall for a local government school pretty high up in the mountains, discuss current issues and talk about comparisons of culture mainly between Singapore and Nepal to students younger than or of the same age as us, as well as trek one of the mountains to the Australian Base Camp (I guess it was called the Annapurna mountain range?). 

It was a fulfilling trip as never have I ever see myself to be so deeply impacted by the small things a short trip can give me, given my skeptical nature on short-lived projects where my commitment is not a priority. This trip has allowed me to truly see the qualities of oneself from within, as there was imminent language barrier with some of the students, yet their sincerity and eagerness to learn about my culture and promote their beloved Nepali culture was invigorating, to say the very least. Yes, I only spent a day with the students, but that experience left so many unanswered questions in my head: when was the last time I actually feel that eager to learn about something I can search on the internet? Have I forgotten the joy of truly disconnecting from distractions and just focus on building relationships with new people? Have I lost touch of the extent subtleties of unexpected poignant moments can impact my perspective because I have been too comfortable in what I have been doing this whole year?

It was a mass of contradictions--my mind was puzzled after the overwhelmingly positive outcome of that short visit. I felt so liberated just talking to new people there. It was a humbling experience to realise how little I know of this world and how small my empirical reality of my own bubble actually is. Thus, I learned to learn, all over again. I came with the mindset of sharing experiences and exposing the Nepali students to international cultures by befriending them as they may not have appropriate platforms where they can have international friends, but in the end I felt that it was more educational for me instead of for them. If I have to choose one word to describe the whole experience, it has to be Introspection.

Introspection is something I lack doing, as the surprising experiences should not strike me as hard, especially since I used to live in a developing country with similar circumstances and beautiful sceneries. Therefore, I am thankful to have the chance to visit Nepal, where I can relive those memories of childhood and reconnect with long-lost friends I never get to befriend across the globe away as our differences in backgrounds really did not matter. I was quick to complain about things I have, quick to judge my own abilities, and even quick to analyse social situations, yet I 'forgot' that I am fundamentally flawed in connecting with my own self for the very assumptions that I have grown and moved forward from my past self. I guess that is because I focus too much on self-improvement that I do not see the bigger, more important picture of coming to terms with my past and piecing the mosaics of my past experiences first in order to build an improved front. Hence, by introspecting on my recent visit, it helped me sieve through the social problems underlying the society back at home, retrieving those desires to do something bigger in order to also impact others just like how the Nepali students impacted me. Thus after reflecting on this wonderful journey, the real question: what can you do to alleviate their slow growth and or impact their lives as much as they have impacted mine still remain. But this trip has certainly reconnected me to my “supposedly” humbler side who still look at the world as how it really is, instead of through a rose-tinted screen where i take things at face value while making excuses such as “yeah ill think of what happened today when i am less busy”.

As you can tell, i have drifted quite a lot from my intended title, but Nepal truly is a country you guys should include to your bucket list simply for the indescribable experience you will get, especially if you are not used to the landscape of a developing nation. It should not be “10 reasons why you should visit Nepal”, but “the reason why you should visit Nepal: people, scenic landscapes, ah just because Nepal.”

*I also did other stuff but probs I'll share with you some other time in a different post or... I may just keep it to myself

ps there are more pics of my friends and I on my Instagram if you want to check them out! Also I do not have any pictures with the children because their child protection policies are pretty strict in Nepal for fears of human trafficking.  :)