心。

好想哭。但是哭了心还是会痛。

那就别哭了。别想了。把时间和精力放在别的事吧。

勇敢做回当初的自己。

don't know what i'm trying to do anymore.

Summer AY2015/2016

I haven't been here for god knows how long haha. And I'm finally back.. to update about my exciting fun-filled summer 2016!

First up, after finals ended was of course none other than my FST lab. Which was stressful but fun. We bought food products and analysed the presence of micro-organisms in them and wrote reports and stuff. And my lab group was supposed to comprise of 3 people, but 1 person withdrew from the programme and the school didn't update the namelist so my lab partner and I were left to tank the work supposedly done by 3 people. We were struggling to chiong the lab report out even at the very last minute. That day was pretty horrendous hahaha.

Then came my Vietnam trip to Phong Phu Commune with SCBE OCIP aka Project TAB 2016. As a leader, I had faced many challenges, right from the beginning such as canvassing, managing resources, selection and all that. And it was tough but I enjoyed the whole of it. Looking back, I actually enjoyed those times of busyness although I did suspect that my academic grades would suffer a bit. Now that I have nothing much on my plate other than studying, it feels a bit empty inside haha. Oh I am weird. Anyway, would like to specially thank my fellow co-chairperson Wen Chuan, as well as other members of my Main Committee (in no particular order): Ranice, Jinny, Wei Xiong, Wai Kit, Edmund, Yan See, Hui Qing and Hui Ling. Especially Wen Chuan who had to tank a lot of the nitty gritty administrative work and did most of the liaison on top of the heavy work load from CBE. We both had disagreements but we managed to resolve them peacefully. Thank you for working with me and tolerating all my shit hahaha. As for the things that happened during the trip and my overall reflection etc, I shall not post them up here. But also want to thank my amazing group of volunteers for participating in and contributing to Project TAB and I hope you have gained much more than you expected from the trip!

Then after that was my summer exchange at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea. I spent 6 weeks in Korea, with 3 weeks at school and the other 3 weeks travelling around hahaha. It was definitely my first time being so long away from home. I didn't exactly miss home itself (other than my bed) but I did miss the company I had around me - family and friends. But all was fine. Poh Geok (my travel companion, roommate, translator and so on..) and I cooked our meals whenever we could to save money. On weekends, we ate out and travelled a lot. Total expenditure I calculated was about SGD5.7k, with school fees, accommodation, air tickets all in. A little pricey, but that's South Korea where the cost of living was relatively higher than Singapore. We first landed at Incheon Int'l Airport, stayed there (like hobos) for the night, caught a morning flight to Jeju, spent about 3 nights there, flew back to Seoul and then spent the next 1 month plus there. After summer school ended, we went to Busan and Gyeongju. And then finally back to Seoul, and back home. I shall briefly summarize my experiences at each city below.

Jeju was a pretty large place for an island hahaha. Okay but that aside, it was a pretty bad option to take public transport aka bus around because we spent majority of the time waiting/travelling and ended up not covering many places that we wanted to, which was a real pity. Signs and everything were mostly in Korean so I had to rely on PG to get around. Weather also wasn't on our side coz we were met with occasional showers. Especially with majority of the attractions in Jeju being outdoors, it was difficult to cope with the bad weather. We met foreigners along the way and saw some familiar faces from mainland China as we travelled (together). Quite an experience as I didn't think we would have spoken to anyone else but ourselves lol. Transportation cost was also not too cheap there (I think it's more expensive than Seoul). Some places were developed, others were not. Self-touring is possible, but it's best to hire a taxi for the day - I think it'd be more worth it. Or rent a car or follow some bus tour or something. Places I'd wanna visit (again): Mt. Hallasan, Seongsan Ilchubong (on a non cloudy day!!), Seojikopji, and majority of the attractions I'd missed at southern Jeju.

Seoul is like another Singapore with a well-connected transportation system and busy working adults. There are pretty sites around and good food around too. It's easy to get around and lots of tourists and locals in central Seoul. The outskirts of Seoul are quieter with more elderly folks. Although I stayed here for the longest period, I haven't got anything much to comment about Seoul. At least nothing much comes to mind as of now haha. Nothing much to comment on my summer school coz my class mainly comprised of NTU students so it was like being in a mini NTU all again. Was also honoured to be in a school with a long history in South Korea hehe. And like many universities in South Korea, SKKU was built on a hill. We went university hopping around many unis so I am kinda qualified to say that lol. My accommodation at Seoul was the best out of all: CUBNB. The hosts were really great and helped us in many ways, from providing travel and food advice and the occasional 'special breakfast' and so on! Really enjoyed my stay there a lot.

Busan was a really nice place and I wished I had spent more time there! We didn't exactly cover some places we had intended on going. But the people in Busan were really nice (well, aesthetically) and friendly. I still remember that PG had to top up her T-money card in Busan but there was no train station nearby for us to use the top-up machine. We searched high and low for a convenience store that could help us with that but there wasn't any. Then this warm friendly ahjumma approached us at the bus stop and using hand gestures and broken English + Korean, she tried her best to help us, almost at the expense of missing her own bus. We walked quite a long distance later to find the convenience store and finally got the card topped up. Another incident was when we tried finding the Orkyudo Skywalk at Igidae Park or something like that and we were completely lost. I saw a guard post and asked the security guard for directions. Strangely, he invited us into his guard post to take a sit and rest. I was feeling a bit apprehensive about the whole thing but still went ahead with my defences up. He then tried to convey to us that it was a hot summer day, so he wanted us to cool down before he gave us directions to get to the Skywalk. He took out a slip of paper with directions or something (I still duno what it writes till today) in Korean and using some elaborated hand and body gestures he pointed out to us how to get to our destination. That slip of paper proved useful as we approached many Koreans to bring us there en-route just by showing them the slip of paper. And there was once PG wanted to get to a fansign venue to catch her idols but the directions were wrong and we were led to a primary school lol. Apparently there was a student also in the area heading to the same destination, so we followed her and successfully got to our destination. Places I'd wanna visit (again): musical fountain place all the way at the last station on the orange line since we missed it (sorry I forgot the name), night markets (!!!), any maybe more but I can't recall haha.

Gyeongju was a rather historical and quiet place. Our accommodation was located at this ulu, almost dilapidated area where the streets were quiet. Plenty of Gyeongju ppang (bread) shops around Gyeongju. We went on a city tour for one day and it was rushed like siao. We spend like what, 20 mins at an attraction wth. The tour guide rushing to get off work is it. Anw Gyeongju is a pretty hidden tourist site, and has a lot of tombs around. Would be worth visiting back again in another few years, since some of the areas we went to were in the process of excavation which goes to show that it's a largely undiscovered place as of now. 

All in all, this was how I spent my summer. Tata!

Rants; Y2S2

Whatever he said that day totally hit me.

Prof Zaher was asking us how we were doing academically. Though I never mentioned anything, everything he described was exactly what I was going through. Using OCIP as a means to distract myself from studying. Putting my priorities in the wrong thing. It felt incredibly relatable and real to me, as if he read my thoughts and was saying that to me.

Anyway I've been sleeping later and later these days that I am getting so tired even after a 7 to 8 hour shut eye. I really need to figure out why I'm doing this to myself. You know, I've been thinking about moving back to hall so that maybe, just maybe, a change of environment and free from stresses at home would be a good option. I never told anyone this (probably) that there were many reasons I moved out of hall.
1. I disliked the feeling of going home every weekend and staying there for a couple of days, eat sleep drink study and then go back home. It felt like as if I was treating my home like a hotel that I visited weekly. Given that our last maid left in 2014 and we never hired anymore, I also had this urge to contribute by doing some housework and making my presence worthwhile. Coz my family members always think I'm too dependent on them and I am a leecher who doesn't do anything at home. Only mug and mug and mug.
2. I was honestly feeling a little homesick. What with my sister leaving for Australia back then and the lack of home cooked food, bad room ventilation, constant haunts by lizards and so forth made me miss home a lot more. Things between bro and parents also turned sour during that time and I fervently hoped I could be physically at home to help alleviate smtg or ease tensions. Not that I never tried adapting to staying at home. I did. I tried to make myself as comfortable as I could, and my family tried to make me bring a lot of things over to aid my settling down in hall but honestly it didn't suffice. I was still feeling homesick. Or maybe I'm just reliant on people at home if you see it that way. Idk man, I'm an independent person (I would think so) but my hall stay experience has made me doubt myself.
3. I knew I was losing discipline staying by myself and slept and bathed as late as I wanted. Which was not healthy. And not to blame the roomie, but I was never quite in the mood to study somehow. When I first moved in, I felt like I was staying in a chalet so studying never seemed like important to me which probably partly explains my sucky grades in y1s1.
4. Hall people and I were just awkward. I never made any friends there, other than the occasional hi and bye with my neighbours next door. Despite attending hall camp, I never expected myself to become a hall phantom in the end.

1.45am thoughts

Do you ever feel like you've got so many battles to fight in your life, that it's probably better off if you left this world?


I'm starting to think I've got mild depression.

Year 2 sem 1

Holidays started. And ended. And now sem 2 begins.

Well my sem 1 was rather hectic with 26 AUs of school load and OCIP responsibilities. Not to mention that I stopped tkd as well.

Then finals came. Had 7 papers. It wasn't great. Typo errors for two of my final exam papers. And can you imagine that the prof didn't make an open announcement to correct the mistake?? Like they're trying to cover up for themselves or smtg. That just sucked. So I felt that those papers were marked unfairly since not everyone had the equal chance of doing well. When word spread that there was an error in the paper not corrected during the exam, some emailed the prof, his reply was "I will mark accordingly". What bullshit seriously.

The holidays came. Lab classes for FST for the first 2 weeks. Some stuff regarding the issue of friends dawned on me, and left me feeling perplexed and more cautious about my friends now. Then headed off to Australia on a road trip to Sydney from Gold Coast with jiejie and B. Came back to SG 10 days later. And that was about it. Then school began not too long after.

I hope this semester will be kind on me. Oh but come on, I've known enough that uni is hardly ever kind on me. This semester I'm planning to take 23 AUs. Hopefully it'll be better. More ocip responsibilities due to more deadlines.

Actually I wanted to type a really long post on my long train ride thoughts and some reflections made along the way. But I'll just keep it to myself and find some other time to post it probably.

Anyway I also attended Amanda's 21st birthday yesterday. Happy birthday! If she's reading this.

2nd week of school only and I don't think I'm starting the sem right. I need to straighten things up and get my head back into studies and etc.

Till next time,
Yi Ling (:

Falling so deep into this abyss of no return

It's the exams now.

I don't think I'll do well this semester.

My attitude and mind are not attuned towards exam condition.

Screwed.

I'm so gonna regret this. And moan and complain. But to no avail. I just hope history wouldn't repeat itself.

Remember: no point crying over split milk.


// currently just lying in bed, gonna sleep &  typing this in the darkness. There goes my eyesight too.

midnight thoughts;

When you love someone, be it a friend, family or lover, you...

• Seek comfort in their presence, whether it's words of reassurance, or physical comfort in the form of hugs etc
• Feel secure knowing that they are there with you
• Feel belonged
• Look for them to be yourself
• Look to them for your daily dose of fun/joy/laughter
• Advise them when necessary
• Pick them out on their bullshit and help them get their shit together when they need your reminders
• Seek help from them to fix the problems in your life, be it techie issues, academic problems etc
• Understand their needs and wants
• Are willing to go through thick and thin with them
• Be there for them
• Love them for their flaws and habits and everything that makes them, them.
• Put yourself/your heart out there, knowing that you might get hurt
• Wish the best for them no matter what happens
• Don't ever want to leave them
• Hope for the best that you'll remain in contact and things will turn out better in the end.

Love is not a feeling; love is a choice.