Train thoughts

Ever had that fleeting moment when you walk the streets and wonder whether the person walking next to you, behind you, in front of you, may just play a significant role in your life next time? Or people around you that end up becoming a part of your future?

I can never fathom the human life, except revel in the beauty of life, and the beauty of living. 

Life as a matter of choices

It's 2am now and I can't seem to fall asleep, it must be the tea I drank at 10pm that's causing my insomnia right now. So while I'm lying on bed now staring into black (literally) space, I decided that I will do some reflection on how this year has been so far for me.

Here's a picture just to depict what I'm looking at now lol.

This year has been one filled with extreme emotions, a year full of change, a year which saw me push myself past my limits and tip myself out of the comfort zone that I was stuck in for way too long.

I left my previous job in April, and for the first month I felt a sense of liberation and happiness. No more waking up at ungodly hours for shift work, no more replying emails, no more OT, no more reports to write. Everyday was just waking up, exercising, playing with my dogs, catching up on Netflix, eating and sleeping. Repeat. Repeat again. It honestly felt so good living a life with seemingly no worries at all.

Seemingly because deep down I had this nagging abomination of irresponsibility towards my life. Was it impulsive of me? Was it the herd mentality? Was I just finding all sorts of excuses for myself to escape from reality?

I couldn't give myself an answer. And honestly I don't think I had an answer for myself. All I felt was extreme disappointment in a girl who friends looked up to as someone who never gives up in anything that she does. And here I am, letting go in the face of uncertainty. I guess it didn't help that the parents were breathing down my neck and further attesting to the fact that I made a wrong choice giving up on a job that paid me well.

I was caught in this never-ending dilemma. One of trying to find any job quickly versus being ultra selective so that I can find a job im truly passionate about. But in this dilemma I find myself warped up in another dilemma. #dilemmaception What exactly am I passionate in? What if the things I thought I am good at doing and am passionate about turned out to be far from right?  

I pondered over these thoughts not knowing where I was heading towards in life. Kinda like a headless chicken running along a long, empty road that never seemed to cease. Before I knew it three months flew by and I was still at status quo. No job, no clue in what I want to do with my life.

Anxiety kicked in and thoughts of "just spamming resumes to any company" kept flooding my mind. I knew that was the wrong mindset. The same wrong mindset that led me to a bad decision, resulting in my departure from my previous job. But i didn't care. All I could think of was "I need a job, I need to get my life back on track."

I spammed resumes for a few days, and then some. But I don't know what happened but I guessed you could say I got lucky? Just when I was ready to accept fate and take any job offer that came my way, a company that I would kill to get in contacted me for an interview. 13 pages. That was the number of pages of questions I had prepared for the interview. I have never ever prepared so hard for an interview before. It was as if I was back in university again, preparing for finals. It was my dream job and I was dying to get in.

But as fate would have it, I guessed my luck ran out. I passed all the rounds of interview but failed at the final one because I lacked the technical skills they needed in the candidate taking up the role. What was I doing in the past three months when I could have picked up a new skill and ace this interview? Life is unpredictable as such, you take things for granted until the opportunity brushes past you, and by then regret comes too late and begging comes to naught.

I signed up for a course on that very day I got rejected by my dream company. It was a computer coding skill which I would never, never in the life of me learn unless I really had to. Despondency brought out the competitive spirit in me. I did not want to be the cause of any lost opportunities again. I'm really glad I did it, because coding turned out to be amazingly interesting and nothing like what I pictured it to be - boring and confusing.

In the midst of all this, I found a job. Not a job at my dream company, but a job I know I can confidently say I enjoy doing - not passionate about (at least it's too early to say now), but definitely not something I accepted "out of desperation". And looking back on the past five months, I regretted nothing. Phases of emotions I experienced over the past five months eventually led me back to a sense of calmness and balance. Five months was all it took to push me out of my comfort zone into this cruel world of uncertainty. 24 years of choosing to live in my own comfortable bubble ; now revived and renewed.

Life is a matter of choices. You choose what you want in life. To live within walls and be comfortable, or to step out and embrace challenges that come your way. You decide your life and no one has the right to intervene, because it is YOUR life and your own responsibility.

I am super excited about my new job and what is to come. And to my dream job, I guess you will have to wait for awhile. Perhaps by then my perspective and goals would have shifted, and my definition of what constitutes a dream job would have changed.

Guess I will never know until it comes.

Revived

Sorry for the previous emo post, so heres a beautiful sunset picture to take away all the negativity.

Guess I really needed a place to rant and my blog was the best option. I'm glad to say that with each emo rant, I recover and move on with life. Such is life right? Theres always sadness and unhappiness, but theres no time for regrets. You just got to pick yourself up and get going again, and with each failure, you trudge along braver and stronger.

I had a mixture of emotions overwhelming me the past few days/weeks, and it got unbearable at one point that I couldn't wring myself out of it. It was so bad that I could not bring myself to do anything. I had no energy, all I wanted to do was just lay in bed and sulk. My mind was filled totally with the issue at hand, and I finally told myself that I had to do it for myself. To get out of this mess. I won't really talk about what this issue is since its in the past and I should just let bygones be bygones, but long story short was I did it. I did it and made the effort to pull myself out from the wrecked mess.

The outcome wasn't very pretty, I felt embarrassed and angry with myself for being so stubborn and making myself look like a fool. I knew deep down inside that the final outcome would be like that, but I knew I had to choose one option: be embarrassed or get out of this misery. Of course I chose the latter, because I wanted to move on with life. There's no time for regrets, there's no time to waste on such ridiculous stuff that was filling my mind. My life was worth more than all these.

I'm truly glad I did it in the end, because amidst all the embarrassment that I felt, I knew I was truly revived again. Recovered and getting myself out of this mess. I saw the issue clearly for what it was, accepted the outcome, and moved on with life. Now I feel like this big burden that had been weighing down on me for the past year was finally being lifted off my chest. And I know I can finally put down everything and move on with life and be happier.

Life is a continuous lesson, with each failure comes success. As the saying goes, "The only way is up".

The only way is up, Jas. You will only become better.

Despondence

Putting down your pride to do something you feel embarrassed about, is the worst feeling ever.

Sometimes I really really hate my never-give-up personality, why do I have to be so insistent in things, when I know what the final outcome will be? Why am I trying to force things to happen, when I know they won't? Something at the back of my mind just keeps telling me "just try, you got to make the effort first in order for things to happen." And "if you never try you'd never know."

And this is where it sucks. Because I'm putting myself in a vulnerable situation and just preparing myself for failure. There's always that possibility that everything will come to naught after i tried, and that feeling is the worst ever.

I know this feeling too well, so why do I keep allowing myself to get into such situations?

Post Holiday Blues~

So I am back from a month full of holidays, and im having severe post holiday blues right now. Served my notice in my previous company at the beginning of April, and I hopped onto a plane to Korea to catch the cherry blossoms. It is the sixth time I am in Korea, but the first time I am visiting during Spring season. Haha I can never get sick of Korea, really. It is a place that holds special memories for me, and I feel so comfortable there it really kinda feels like second home.

Anyway, the cherry blossoms were beautiful, but not breathtaking enough for me to want to see it again. Maybe it was because I caught the cherry blossoms nearing the end of its bloom, so the flowers had already lost its vibrant colors and were just a dull pink shade. But I count my blessings, at least I was fortunate to be able to see this sight once in my life.

That was the highlight of the trip. The rest of my trip was spent shopping and eating in Seoul, which, as boring as it sounds, it really isn't. I went to Korea with my exchange friends, so we pretty much knew our way around and knew where all the good food and shopping were at. Seoul is a shopping and food haven, so if you do want to know where to go in Seoul to get the best deals, hit me up and I will be glad to share them with you! :)

After a week, I was off to Hokkaido to meet my family. We decided on a family trip at the last minute because we realised there was a extended weekend due to Good Friday. I had always dreamt of visiting Hokkaido because of the unbelievable scenery pictures I saw on the internet. True enough, Hokkaido's scenery was nothing short of amazing. The sights I saw were simply indescribable in words, so I shall let my pictures do the talking.

 Mt Tengu, Otaru

 Noboribetsu, Hell Valley

 Shirahige Waterfalls, Biei

Blue Pond, Biei

Of course, I had some pretty good seafood and chirashi rice bowls there as well!

Ikura Hotate don

Oh, to add on to my already awesome holiday, I met some of my favourite Kpop idols there haha. Yes, I was a secret Kpop fan. Okay I mean I do still listen to Kpop songs now, but I don't think I am as idol crazy as I was last time. I think its really true that you will grow out of these stuff once you get older. I just kind of gradually stopped following the new bands when I started University. Now I only listen to songs from the older bands that I used to listen to when I was fervently following Kpop. And I happened to meet the band that I used to listen to in my teenage days!! So it was really a surprise for me, and I was definitely excited to meet them. Haha I took a photo with them, but I shall not post it here cos I think my face was pretty cui there LOL. So to save my ass, I will just keep them for myself hehehe. Unless you really want to see them. I might oblige and show it to you if you ask, but maybe only after I mosaic out my face hahaha.

Hokkaido was pretty awesome also because I got to spend time with my family. I can't even remember when was the last time we all went on a holiday together. So it was great spending time together and having fun! :)

I was back in Singapore for a week before I left for another short getaway, this time to Batam. I was there over the Labour Day long weekend with my closest clique of friends, and we went to a kelong to stay, to experience life as it was back in the old days. I admit I was initially skeptical if i will enjoy the trip, because how fun can doing nothing at a kelong be right? To a city kid like me, no wifi/internet = no fun. I kept worrying about how I am going to contact my friends and family when I am there, how am I going to update my instagram story etc.

Luckily, my worries were all for naught because doing nothing can really be so fun. And I don't mean it sarcastically. The three days there passed in a blink of an eye because we were having so much fun just playing board games, lying on hammocks, playing frisbee, talking about life, chilling and star gazing. Some of my friends even tried their hands at fishing there. And it felt really, really good just disconnecting with the outside world for that three days, with no worries about job hunting, no stress about errands to run and emails to reply.

And contrary to what most people think, the kelong was very clean and comfortable to stay in. There was no aircon and only limited hot water everyday, but that wasn't really a problem to me since I am not very reliant on aircon anyway.

My friends brought their boyfriends along as well, so it was really nice getting to know all of them better through this trip! Hopefully in our next trip together everyone can bring along their boyfriends hahaha! (stress for the single gals to quickly find a partner haha)

So with that, I am finally back in Singapore after a long period of travel. The month of April just flew by like that because I was having so much fun traveling the world. How nice will it be to just travel for the rest of my life haha. And because I was away for most of the month having fun, I am now having severe withdrawal symptoms and am finding it hard to get back to reality. Everyday I just feel like lazing in bed and not doing anything. Haha but I am slowly getting back on track! I think writing this blog post is a good start and progress. Cos at least I am exercising my brain and fingers instead of spamming dramas in bed. Next step will be to start planning my fitness and diet schedule and get back to a healthy lifestyle. All that feasting in the past month had some detrimental effect on my waistline, so I better stop procrastinating or I might just end up having to revamp my wardrobe with larger sized clothes haha. Oh, and time to find a job too. I really hope I can find a job that I will really love and be passionate about.

Okay I should probably stop chattering away and get some real work done. Till the next post! :)

Happy Thoughts

Just thought I'd post a quick update here. I finally got my ass to the gym today after a week of inactivity. Cos of my shift work which starts at 330am, I couldn't get used to it and constantly felt so tired I could not bring myself to visit the gym.

But that is all just excuses and I know it myself. If I want something badly, I would do anything to achieve it. I was reading this blog earlier and the guy said: "You're in control of yourself, so if you don't achieve your goals, don't blame anyone else. Fucking blame yourself and all your excuses. You have no one else to blame but yourself."

SO.DAMN.RIGHT.

Hate to admit it but there is nothing about that statement I can go against. My goals are set by myself, and if I don't reach it I have only myself to blame and no one else.

I told myself I had to do it today. I got to start so that that inertia will be gone. And otw to the gym it was really painful. Like you have no idea how big that inertia was. I was 90% gonna give up and just go home to sleep. But I kept thinking about my goals. How much better I would feel after a workout, even if it is a short one.

And I am so freaking glad I went, even tho it was just a short sesh. I felt so happy and healthy and energetic the moment I started gymming. I always forget how happy I feel to be in the gym, or just exercising. I forgot how much I loved this lifestyle of mine, pushing hard everyday and feeling good about myself.

Although my diet wasn't good today, little steps at a time. You can be sure I'm going to the gym again tomorrow, and it's a new day, new start, and I'm gonna tackle that diet weakness of mine again.

• Remember those people that are waiting for you to prove them wrong•

128 days, bring it on jas.

Dreams Vs Realities

             

You dream of the perfect guy, but you end up with a reality of choosing someone less than perfect.
You dream of the ideal body, but you end up with a reality of a less than perfect shape.
You dream of good grades, but you end up with a reality of mediocre results.
You dream of the best job, but you end up with a reality of choosing stability over passion.

It sucks.

As a person who over-thinks into every single thing, you can expect how these thoughts bother me everyday. The "What ifs" of life, the constant thinking of why things don't go the way I want/expect them to.

Well, the fact about this is that there will never be an end to this constant expectation of life. The definition of Dream, is "an aspiration". Dreams are a manifestation of what we imagine our lives to be, dreams are what we hope can become a reality, but more importantly, dreams exists so that we have a goal in life to work towards to.

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You dream of the perfect guy, with a set of almost impossible criteria to meet. But you end up loving a guy who is just average looking, and may or may not have met your list of initial expectations. It is perfectly normal to dream and want the best for yourself, but why do most people eventually settle for less than expected? This guy may not be the most handsome guy around, but he cares deeply for you. This guy may not be the most humorous guy around, but he is able to make you laugh and smile everyday. This guy may not be the smartest guy around, but he shares the same frequency of thoughts with you and you are able to click with him. Your criteria of the perfect guy starts to change, but it is not because you have decided to settle for less, he simply becomes the dream guy that you have always wanted. The same idea goes for girls. The learning point that I gained about relationships, is to never ever change yourself for someone else. The guy, or girl that you want to spend the rest of your life with should, and has to love you for who you are.

Someone once told me that I was being over-friendly and guys may get the wrong idea. Heck, that has always been my personality and I will never change myself just because of what others think of me. As long as I know my conscience is clear, and no one gets hurt in the process (unless it is something bad and worth changing), I cannot help it if you choose to judge me and think of me in a negative way. That only goes to show that this friendship/relationship is not worth keeping because we cannot reach a common level of understanding. I will continue to stay true to my personality because I know one day, there will be someone out there who understands, appreciates me and loves me for who I am.

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Not happy with how you look and always dreaming of getting that toned body? Then you have set a goal for yourself. Exercise more and eat healthily, and you are one step closer to your dream body.
Most of my friends around me know I have been battling a long history of eating disorders. From anorexia to binge eating, my weight has fluctuated non-stop over the years. I admit I do get deeply affected by unkind comments like: "Wah, you put on a lot of weight hor?" or "Why you never maintain your weight? Last time look so much better." There were countless nights where I spent crying, feeling sad and asking why does it have to happen to me. However over the years I start to realize that I cannot stop people from saying what they want. They do not even know that you are facing such a problem. Are their words going to change anything? Are you going to give up on life and wallow in self pity because you cannot accept criticisms? Nope, never for me. In fact, these comments gives me the extra motivation to push towards my goals. Everyday I am still fighting and pushing hard for what I want, because I know that nothing is impossible as long as you work hard and put your heart into it.

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Feeling upset with your results in school and always dreaming of getting good grades like your peers? Then you have a goal to work towards to. Find out what is wrong with your studying methods, learn from better people around you, clarify your mistakes, put in double the effort as compared to your classmates. I did not get into university the first time I applied because my results were not good enough. It was one of the darkest moments in my life. All this while, my education life was smooth sailing. I moved from primary to secondary school to junior college... and naturally I always expected to continue on to university together with my friends. I took it very hard on myself initially, feeling embarrassed that I was the only stupid person amongst my friends, angry that I worked as hard as my peers yet it all came to naught. I was honestly so lost at that point in time, because this situation that occurred was never in the grand master plan of my life. I'm glad I have the most supportive family and friends who pulled me out of this black hole that I was sinking into. They taught me that there will always be setbacks, and life will never, ever go the way you plan. But the most important thing is to never give up. The hard work that you put in will eventually pay off. I decided to face my failures bravely, and continue to work hard towards my dream of getting into one of the top 3 universities in Singapore. Eventually I did achieve my goal, and now I have successfully graduated from NUS. In retrospect, this obstacle was actually a blessing in disguise for me. I may have taken the longer route as compared to my same batch peers, but I have gained numerous life lessons and new friends that I wouldn't trade the world for.

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You dream of getting the job that you are so passionate about, but you are faced with the dilemma that it does not pay as well as compared to a job that you have less interest in. Would you rather choose the latter job and feel so sick of reporting to work everyday, or would you choose the former, enjoy the work process and slowly work your way up the career ladder? If you choose to follow your passion, you are one step closer to your dream. If you choose the job that may pay you better, you sacrifice emotional happiness for material happiness. I guess both ways of thinking aren't wrong. When you choose your passion, you gain immediate joy but you may struggle in the long run because life may become unsustainable . When you choose to accept the higher paying job, you gain stability in life but work becomes meaningless and less enjoyable. So what choice will you make?


I am one of those who will say, "Money is not important! I rather do something I like rather than feel miserable everyday." Some of you may laugh at my naïve way of thinking. Well maybe it is. But I guess for now, when I am still young, free and not tied down by having to support a family, learning and chasing my dreams matters more to me than money. Who knows, in a couple of years, I may not be able to confidently say that this is the route I want to take. Maybe when I start to feel that I am responsible for someone else's life, I will decide that stability precedes passion. Ultimately, no one can and should influence your decision. It is your life, and your choice to make, and whichever path you choose, you have to be prepared to deal with the final consequences.

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The only thing that stands between your dreams and reality is you yourself.

Dreams exist to give you a meaning in life. It's hard to imagine seeing your dreams become reality, but I have seen some of mine come true. And these are sufficient enough to keep me pressing on to make the rest of my dreams become reality. As long as you do not lose sight of your end goal, anything is possible. Your dreams can become your reality too if you start believing in yourself. :)


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