Updates at Home

I've been meaning to write a follow-up post from the last one, but never really got round to doing it, until now lol

So the problems with the actual house is gonna be resolved soon, I think. The leaking has led to some damages, but the actual amount of water that has been leaking is reducing, I think. And my bro and my bathrooms are gonna be renovated, so hopefully while they're digging up stuff, they can figure out how to solve the leaking problems, and the circuitry in my room can be fixed too. Meanwhile, surviving by candle light isn't so bad either lol (I use it to practice taking out candles using by clapping it out, or by wushu-ing it)

Dal did have some weird problems for awhile. He started limping and kinda walking on one side for a few days, and he couldn't lie down or sleep in peace, so he would just stand up most of the time. Even when we brought him to the vet one night, he would walk fine, just that he would flinch a bit. The vet said that it doesn't seem like anything wrong with is reflexes, but he also mentioned that dogs sometimes pretend, or mask their symptoms. As soon as we got through door back home, he began limping again and kinda half-walked half-fell to the side LOL Such an actor. Even after another trip or two to the vet (and even a specialist) we still didn't really know what was wrong with him.

It wasn't until our maid came back to visit for a day, and when my (second) bro came back from Qatar, that Dal was back to normal, wagging his tail, barking at other dogs, and jumping about. So, we don't know if Dal was just going through a period of doggie-depression. We thought not, because my bro and I are home pretty much all the time now, so technically he isn't lonely. Maybe he just missed having people at home. Even so though, if that was the case, he should be showing symptoms again since my (second) bro has flown back to Qatar, so. I don't really question it, as long as he's fine and not in pain anymore lol Also I take care of him most of the time, bringing him out to pee around lunch time, and giving him his dinner if no one else is home yet, so that's what I've been doing at home lol

So the situation with my maid: we were pretty sure she was gonna fly back. My sister even made a little booklet with our photos and got us to write stuff in it. I even gave her my stuffed bear before I left for school, on the day she was supposed to leave. Fortunately, she managed to find an employer at the last minute, so she stayed with us for a few more days before leaving. During the first week with the new family, things seemed okay. Looking after kids is more fun for her, I think, at least it's not so boring. We even made an agreement with the employers that she can come over to our place on the Saturdays that she's free, since she'd probably go out with her own friends on her free Sundays, so at least on Saturday, she has somewhere to go.

Recently though, I think things have been getting tougher on her, because the previous two maids that were working there, left too, so now she's left to take care of the house by herself, and the employers themselves don't have good personal habits. According to what my mum said, apparently the parents can go out on a Saturday night to drink, and come back locked out of the house 'cos they forgot to bring their keys. The father leaves his cufflinks and his belt in his pants when he's changed his clothes. And I'm like ??????? How can you constantly forget your keys???? And get yourself drunk, like you have to be responsible enough to take care of your own kids!! And do you think that your shit won't get lost in the wash??? So she's hoping to just survive these two years of her contract, and then fly back home.

Anyway, since she's not here anymore, my bro and I have to find out ways to feed ourselves for lunch when we're home lol orz The first time my bro cooked for us, he didn't know how to use the new microwave that functioned as a grill too, so since he didn't know how to use it to toast bread, he just put bread in an oily pan, and fried it. It was quite nice actually, made it crispy, but also very oily. My bro was gonna do that a second time the next day, but as he was putting in the next slice of bread, he dropped it, and Dal snatched it up straight away. He gave up cooking after that, so the next time we were both home for lunch, I had to cook instant noodles, and heat up the sausages in the microwave. I'll be honest, that was my first time cooking instant noodles - so you can see that I'm even more hopeless than he is lol

We probably survived on some microwaveable food for awhile, until my mum left out some filleted fish for us to cook. Once again, it fell on me to cook since my bro wasn't going to. I ended up getting step-by-step instructions from Hans via whatsapp (ikr) on how to cook the salmon. That was my first time frying something with supervision and my god, is it terrifying for me. I put oil in the pan (but it didn't fully cover the pan lol orz) tried putting the fish skin-side down, but it ended up being skin-side up. Then it got stuck. I managed to flip it over somehow, and then the skin got stuck too. At one point I got so scared, I just switched the gas off, and didn't dare touch the pan, so the salmon wasn't fully cooked lol orz I don't know how I managed to get it off of the pan, but I did. And I guess I did cook something edible, even if I had to put it in the microwave for 50 seconds. My mum then later said that that piece was hard to cook 'cos it was pretty thick. Anyway, I was traumatised by it for about a week, until this weekend.

I went shopping with my mum to get a new pan (really, I just wanted to get out of the house 'cos I needed to hatch my egg LOL). The pan was small enough that I could use it, and was non-stick so I didn't need so much oil, and things wouldn't stick to it lol Then when we went to isetan, they were selling salmon fillets marinating in basil and olive oil. Since they were pretty thin, and technically already flavoured, my mum thought it was a good idea to try it. We bought four slices, and cooked three of them that night. At least with some help and someone watching over me, I wasn't so bad. There was a point when I was supposed to flip it though, and some oil splattered onto my hand. It was painful enough that I freaked out and was too scared to flip it, but I still had to do it, so I did lol All three slices turned out okay, just that some where oilier than others. Since I could do dinner, my real test was today - cooking the last piece by myself.

It is pretty evident I came out of it alive LOL Although I did manage to burn the first side orz I got scared again when trying to flip it 'cos the oil was sputtering again (even though it wasn't in my direction) so I turned the fire off orz But then I had to light it up again 'cos the other side would still be raw if I didn't continue. So, I managed to finish it, and put it in the microwave for half a minute for good measure, just in case it was still raw. In the end, I had edible fish. As much as I want to be proud of myself for getting better, I can feel so much judgment that I can envision people having of me lol

Sigh.

As for my knee, somehow it got better over time. My mum gave me some cream thing, but that's only like a painkiller that in itself isn't foolproof. When I sit down and raise my leg from the knee, sometimes you can hear a cracking sounds, like the kind when you crack your fingers lol But for some reason, that now doesn't really happen anymore, which is weird. The true test was during pilates, when one of the exercises looks like this, which uses the knee, and surprisingly, my knee didn't hurt the next day. I don't think my knee has fully healed though, sometimes when we do exercises that needs you to put weight on it, I get a little worried, but so far I've been getting better somehow lol

Apart from all that though, school stuff has been okay. Evolution finals had fewer questions than we expected, stats was somehow more of analysis rather than actual calculations, and my effective reasoning paper was a head-scratcher, but I left early since I figured that extra time wouldn't answer my questions if I really don't have the answers lol Other stuff that has happened is our church's advent fair, where we sell stuff to raise money for a chosen charity that year. We do it at the end of the year during advent (the four weeks before Christmas), along with other things, like actually visiting the organisation, volunteering there, making videos to show during mass so that we can collect more money from the people lol

I helped out by getting some of the girls to sew Christmas ornaments. At first, I thought it would be pretty easy for them to do, but I think like 75% of the work was done by my mum and I lol orz They still did contribute quite a fair bit though. I handed a whole sheet of felt to one of the girls to cut out hearts and stars, and she basically used up everything in one day. I went over to one of the girl's house too, to sew designs on, and taught another how to sew the string that you use to hang the ornaments. All of that saved time, so that I could either study a little bit, or to sew the more difficult parts. Still, I'm glad that they were pretty happy we sold all of it c: My mum told me to finish up the remaining pieces when I'm free, and I even bought another bag of stuffing (which is so much softer btw omg) so I'll probably do some more. I should probably pack my luggage first though, since I'll be leaving for Hokkaido in a week. I can't wait, but it's the packing that I've been putting off :/ So, I guess I'll go do that now lol

The house is falling apart lol

A lot of things are happening at once, or at least it has been happening over this past month. The false ceiling is leaking water from my parents' bathroom, my bathroom light, fan, and ceiling light doesn't work, Dal all of a sudden got twitches and has been shedding a lot, and our maid is leaving us. She was intending to find another family to work with, but since no agents or families want to hire her, all of a sudeen she decided she's going home tomorrow. So yeah, the house is falling apart lol In the words of my maid, "the house is crying".

For awhile this past month, I felt pretty bad. I got some knee pain on and off some time last month, and even though it doesn't hurt anymore, I think muscle at the back of my thigh has had to compensate for it. That was one of the things. And at first I thought it was 'cos I was stressed with work, and some things happened that reminded me of how much my social anxiety and fear of stepping up for things has affected me lol And I think the reason why I've been feeling poop these past few days is because I didn't really want to see all these other things happening, 'cos there's so much to deal with. I feel poop 'cos I don't want to feel all of this - and I guess I will have to eventually, I am getting there, but in the meantime, I gotta keep it together 'cos I have work to do.

But I'll manage, hopefully things can blow over.

University: Recess Week

Right now I should be working (practicing my evolution questions for midterms, doing up my presentation on pseudoscience lol) but my bro was just talking to me, and I thought it would be a good time to write some stuff down. So this post isn't just going to be about school, but also about my bro and some stuff I came to realise after the midterm retreat that I went for held by the Catholic society in school.

2 kool for skool

Where I am now and where I was on the first week has been different: things became a lot more settled after week 2, I think. And I'm fortunate enough to not have a very stressful semester, partly because of the way I wanted to structure my timetable (I was thinking of leaving the afternoon of Wednesday to Friday free so I can find a job, but that didn't happe lol) but also because of the mods I have. I only have two major requirement mods, a freshman seminar mod, that isn't compulsory but contributes to my faculty mods, one general education mod, and Indonesian lol Next semester though, I know will be a lot crazier, with four major + faculty mods allocated to me (two life science, one chem, that GER thing) and have to bid for another faculty mod that I die die must get next semester. So yeah, in comparison, this semester is less crazy than the next.

Learning Indo has been quite fun, actually. At least I get the chance to talk to other people, (and to Hans wkwkwkwk) and learn something completely new. I think it's easier to learn than some of the other languages offered, because 1. it uses the Roman alphabet, so there's no need to learn new characters like in Korean or Japanese, 2. the words themselves aren't that hard to understand, I think. But I suppose the challenge comes from the usage, like not just in sentence construction, but also remembering what certain phrases are. The grammar aspect isn't that hard, once you understand a certain grammatical rule, it's not that bad, but the conversational part is kinda hard to remember. Like if you ask me, "how do you ask what classes someone is taking?" (which is one of the things we learned to say) I cannot remember what the phrase was. If you asked me to read the phrase though, I'd understand it, but remembering what it was in the first place and to use it, is another thing lol

My GEM mod on effective reasoning, is easy when it comes to understanding the "theoretical" aspect of it, but being able to apply it by identifying what is going on in the examples. So I suppose that's the hard part about it, and I don't know if the theoretical aspect is gonna get harder as we go on lol orz

My freshman seminar mod is basically about the process of scientific inquiry, and what sort of science comes out of it when you follow the process (good science), not fulfill certain parts of the process (pseudoscience), or take matters into your own hands (ugly science). Right now is about pseudoscience, which I'm supposed to do a presentation on one example of a pseudoscience, but guess who's writing a blog post instead lol It's been interesting, and at least has given me an opportunity to write an article that is (somewhat) scientific ('cos we're allowed to do on things that are based in psychology, but trying to explain the science behind that can be difficult), and I realised that I need get back into writing something, anything. I need to practice writing again lol

Evolution is kinda hard to study, 'cos almost everything is new, and we do a chapter each lecture (that's two chapters a week) and of course reading a textbook as it is is hard to do. I suppose I'm also fortunate enough to have the time to read through the textbook, so I have to make good use of my time. Stats is bleh for everyone.

Tuesdays are my long days: I have my stats lecture at 8, and my freshman seminar mod that ends at 6. And I guess in some way that's a good thing for me, because group meetings for the science faculty Catholic group is on Monday and Tuesday night (you can choose either one to go for). Since I'm in school till 6, might as well go right lol

Midterm Retreat

This was an interesting experience for me, and it was quite different from the freshman orientation camp run by the Catholic group. Long story short, I suppose I learned a couple of things from it:

1. The role of Catholicism in my life plays more than just how I live my life and what it motivates me to do (wanting to be a person for others and helping others who need me), but also a place to go back to. I suppose I kinda saw Catholicism as having two parts: your own relationship with God, but your relationship with other people and a need to be a person for others. I think for quite a while, I always thought I had the first, and that now I had to focus on the second, but then I realised that that wasn't what I needed. After a while, you need to go back, not get ahead of yourself, and remember to focus on you as a person, not just who you want to be.

That being said, I aslo realised that sometimes I should open up to other people, and not just be the listener all the time lol Even though I may not have major issues right now, I also have to recognise that there'll be a time when I can't carry absolutely everything, and to allow myself to be vulnerable as well.

2. Honesty with yourself. It's more than just recognising things about yourself or the situation you're in, it's also about accepting them. I think sometimes, there is this unspoken expectation for ourselves to be okay all the time, and if something is wrong, then you're the problem, there's something wrong with you, because you know, everyone else seems to be fine. And because of this expectation, we put on a facade, of what is "normal", and leave all the problems hidden within us. This is the first layer of being honest with yourself: admitting that you're not okay.

I think the next layer, is not to just admit you have problems and hold them in your hands, but to accept it and surrender yourself. Of course, that's always hard to do, especially when you feel like you need to get rid of certain problems, that are a part of you who you are. How do you cut off a part of you? Which I suppose goes onto the point of my bro.

My Bro

So, my brother has been coming to talk his feelings out with me recently, for a few weeks already. Basically, he met this girl on Tinder (I know, not the best place to find the kind of person he needs, but I think he got p lucky with the person in question), and his anxiety started acting up. Basically, she's not that responsive on whatsapp due to the nature of her work as a dentist, and that sort of made him paranoid, thinking that she wasn't interested in him. But the good thing is that he knows how to differentiate what his anxiety and bad experiences tell him, and what the truth is, just that the problem lies in having to always make that distinction, and knowing how to kick out the bad thoughts. And I suppose it's been harder for him to cope with that recently, since he doesn't have school or anything to distract him during his month-long break, but he knows what he needs to do, in small ways like just going out to the library, instead of staying cooped up at home. Long story short, he knows what he needs to do with the feelings he has, but doing it isn't easy. Which I suppose in some way, is kinda different from what he told me tonight.

I think he's been getting comfortable and used to the idea of knowing that she won't be able to reply him all the time, and that he just has to accept that that's a thing that he needs to do. It's not just head-knowledge anymore: he knows that she's busy, she's her own person, she likes him even if she doesn't show it through whatsapp, he shouldn't over-think what she possibly thinks of him, he should do his own things and develop himself instead etc. And tonight, he came in telling me that happiness is about learning to accept the situation you're in. Like during previous nights, we've kinda discussed how as people, we think that things are okay because we're in control of the situation: it's going the way we want it it to go, to follow our expectations, and anything that strays from it (when it goes "out of our control") then things have gone to absolute shit lol 

But I guess the problems we face aren't things to be solves, they're things to overcome, and sometimes you can only get past it by pushing through. Like his anxiety: it won't go away, it's not something that can just be taken from him, but it's something that he needs to learn how to manage. His past hurts and bad experiences, yeah, they've left scars, but he knows he can't hold onto the judgement he has of the person who had harmed him, and that he has to let himself heal. So as of now, he recognises and accepts the situation he's in, that he doesn't have direct control over, but he knows that he should still be doing what he's capable of doing in the mean time.

I think it's not exactly new insight, like at some point in time I also came to the realisation that there are things you just need to accept or overcome, but seeing it play out in someone else's life serves as a nice reminder. I am glad though, that he's opened up to me, and that he himself is growing, even if it seems slow, in hindsight it's quite fast lol Anyway, that's how the past six weeks has been lol

University: Week 1

I can't believe it's only been a week, like somehow, it's felt longer than that? Although, there has been a lot of things that has happened.

Last Weekend
Saturday night, knowing that I could bid for the last vacancy in the GES I wanted, I sent an email to the lecturer asking if I could sit in the first lecture even if I haven't secured a spot in the module, and she was fine with that. Fast forward to Monday though...

Monday
Round 3A of bidding. Ah yes, I was intending to use that round to bid for my SP, which unfortunately, wasn't available at all. That GES, I checked the bids for it. Lowest minimum bid? 606 (thats almost teh deviles's number!!!!!) So I ended up replying to the lecturer saying that I probably won't sit in since I can't possibly get in as a freshman lol (darn seniors saving up their points and spending it all in year 2...) So in the meantime, I applied for Indonesian, and  continued with school as per normal.

First lesson of evolution was quite interesting, at least I like the female lecturer we have. My GET, eh, since it was a back up mod, I guess I can't expect much out of it. At least I have an OG mate with me, so that makes things less worse. By the time that ended, I was on my way to the station, and decided to check my email, to see if the lecturer replied. She did, but I checked too late.

Her email said that I could still sit in, but by the time I reached the station, the lecture was gonna start in like, 10 minutes. I thought to myself, okay, 10 minutes I can make it back in time, right? Well technically yeah, if you take the bus in the right direction. I took the bus to the end of its line, and thought that maybe I should just go home. I emailed the lecturer (honestly I don't know what's with me and unnecessarily emailing her omg I realise that maybe I sent too many indeterminate emails)  saying that I saw her reply too late and that I won't be coming in 'cos I was already on the way home. So, I had to take the bus back to the station. But guess what? The bus was gonna pass by the lecture theatre, where the lecture was being held!! I told myself that if I didn't get pass by the lecture theatre by 4.30pm, I'd go home - but I got to the LT on time, so screw it, I just went ahead and sat in, half an hour late lol

During the lecture itself, I felt like maybe this was a mod worth fighting for, like I should at least try to appeal for it, and whether I get it, is up to whoever is in charge lol Even if the mod depended quite a bit on doing things outside of school schedule, like going to nature reserves in your own spare time, I thought that it was something worth doing, and that if I want to get myself involved in science in Singapore (or at least reporting stuff) this is something I should do. But that would have to wait till I had the chance to appeal, on Thursday.

Tuesday
National day lol Everyone else was out and about playing pokemon, I stayed at home, 'cos 1. I didn't want to go out so far lol and 2. Istilldon'tlikethatpersonwithapalindromicnameandIdidn'tunderstandwhypeoplewerestillgoingtotheirplacejustforpokemonlikeomggg Also, I had switched off my phone to charge, and during that time, Joanna had messaged me saying they were at Botanics. I saw that message like one and a half hours later, and when she replied, they had already left lol

I went out with my bro that night, while NDP was being aired, to just walk around our neighbourhood, like from our house, to the main road, walked a bit along the main road, and then back in. At first when he said that we can go on a poke walk, that we would be going to botanics, but nope, just around lol But I suppose I'm p fine with just the two of us walking around, and hatching our 2-km eggs lol

Wednesday
Not much that day, since I planned for two tutorials that day. There was the GES lecture in the afternoon though, which I went for. I left early, 'cos the shuttle bus timing closest to 4pm was 3.20pm which would be barely enough time for me, so the next earliest bus was like 1.35pm lol Guess what though, I missed that bus, so I ended up walking all the way to the bus stop at the main road. I even got on to the wrong bus, and stopped at a bus stop somewhere near the Adam road hawker centre, and decided to walk to Botanics from there. It wasn't that far anyway, and there was a starmie at the hawker centre that I wanted to catch, so that worked out well LOL I spent about an hour walking around Botanics, draining my battery from about half to 37%, but I caught quite a couple of pokemon, like a dratini that I never caught before!

Then I headed to school, which in hindsight, I didn't have to go for, 'cos all the lecturer did was brief us again on coursework, grading, and the situation about how she's still waiting for a reply on whether she can increase the intake of students. Basically not really new information. I did drop by the co-op to buy my evolution textbook - and even if our OG mate found it online, I'll still use the hardcopy lol ('cos at this point, I pretty much have to.) We were released early, and by the time I was on blue line, I missed the 5.30pm shuttle bus, so I ended up in Botanics (again) for another half an hour and just walked around, until heading to the bus stop for the shuttle bus to go home.

Thursday
Finally, the day I can appeal. Went to school for our evolution mod, appealed for GES during that time (although now that I think about it, maybe I should've taken a little bit more time when it came to writing my reason for appealing, but to be fair, I didn't really know what kind of reasoning they wanted so lol ) and went around school a little out of it. For some reason that morning, I woke up with my head feeling heavy, and I think it might have been because of the vaccination I had on Tuesday, and my exposure to the sun on Wednesday. I still went with Ju to look at the student's life fair, but we didn't stay very long before we went to Clementi for lunch, and then headed back.

We were coming back to school in the evening though, for this mentorship programme that we signed up for within life science. The group I have, I don't really know them, except for one Indian girl I talked to quite a fair bit. But I guess I also know that there are other people I now know of in the same ST session as me (I didn't see them today though, but then again I was rushing to school since it was at 8 in the morning, and I took public transport!!) It's also nice to know some insight from a year 4 student, and listening to the seniors. We ended up reaching the station by about 9.30pm, so yeah, we were there for quite awhile.

Friday
My appeal failed. So, Indo it is, which isn't such a bad thing, after today's lesson, but that's later in the morning.

My first official ST lesson this morning, at 8 (sigh) Not much new information. The lecturer just recapped some stuff she said in the webcasted lecture, and even the stats she talked about was nothing new to us, just same old stuff from JC. I guess to be fair to those who went through poly, or the year 2s that are sitting in, they do need a refresher on the basics. But so much of it could have been cut down and shortened, and if she did, I wouldn't have needed to rush for my make up Indonesian class. (The Indonesian lecture slot I had bid for was on Tuesday, so we had to go for one of the make up ones on Thursday/Friday - but it's all the way in arts, in a building I've never been in, on the sixth floor.) I left before she finished talking, and just rushed to arts. I even ran up the stairs of the hilly portion leading to the canteen.

Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed today's Indonesian lesson. Everything was p straightforward, simple sentences, the meaning of the whole sentence can be deduced (each individual word, not really lol) and I guess I felt some sense of accomplishment pronouncing things correctly and being able to follow lol Maybe I was under the impression that learning a new language was hard, and I was always afraid of pronouncing Indo words in case I butchered it lol orz But yeah, I left the class feeling p happy with myself. I was supposed to meet up with Jessica today, 'cos I wanted to pass her some stuff I bought for her from France, and she was at NUH anyway - but I forgot to bring the things :I I also did another dumb by topping up my adult-fare EZ-link with $20, forgetting that we have a student one. (I haven't gone to get it yet though, so I suppose my mistake wasn't unreasonable lol)

Yeah, that's how my week has been so far. After typing it out, I don't really know what to make of it lol but it is what it is, and at least things have turned out okay c: (Until tutorial balloting is over, but that's another challenge on its own orz)

University: O-Week and Week 0

I didn't know if I can blog about my science orientation week, since you know, drama about orientation camps, but I guess I can say some things.

Initially, I thought I was gonna be awkward 'cos you know, talking to and meeting new people. And I guess when I sat down to one of the guys during lunch and tried to talk to him, there wasn't much to go on, like he was almost interested in nothing after working at a Crocs store almost all day every day. I guess that kinda gave me a bad vibe of what the rest of the camp would be like: awkward conversations, having nothing to talk about with these people lol That was until, I sat down next to the guy, who listens to ancient Chinese songs, and discovered he's actually a weeb. Then talking to people on the train during one of our trips out and about, we learned we have a lot of people who watch anime. At least that made me feel more comfortable than compared to the Catholic camp lol orz Also Julia was there, so that made me feel better c:

Our OG also won the very first round of games on the first day, even though the remaining games were won by one OP house... At least that was something to our name lol And to my surprise, I actually felt disappointed when we were told the camp would be cancelled halfway. And that's coming from me, someone who was hesitant about orientation camps and socialising with people lol

Anyway that aside, bidding for modules has been a painful experience for me. During round 1, I was hoping to bid for my SP and one of the freshman seminar mods, and I ended up not getting either :/ During round 2A, I thought I would only need to bid for my GEMs, but then I discovered I could bid for my freshman mod too!! So I did bid for that lol And one of the GES/H, that I didn't know was a popular mod - but I Had no idea it would be so popular, and surprise surprise, I got outbid again. So now, after 2A, I ended up bidding for a GET that I didn't want to do, but I guess I can live with it, 'cos it's kinda TOK-based lol Also I learned that Crocs Boy is in my class too, so I guess having someone in the same position as me (it was a back-up plan for him too) makes me feel a little better.

All that I needed left was my SP, but I just learned that it's not available for bidding in round 3, so that's out the window. However, one of the GESs I wanted is available - but only one spot, and I don't know whether I should risk it. I mean I'll still try and bid for it, but as to whether I get it is another thing. Also if I do get it, it means I'll have missed the first lesson since it starts on Monday, the same day as bidding, and I don't want to miss a lecutreeeeee My back-up though, is taking Bahasa Indonesia LOL Honestly that's not a bad idea, since I have an Indo boyfriend and I should learn how to speak his language. Also taking up another language is not such a bad idea, it's a useful skill. But I guess I'll just have to wait till Monday to see what happens.

TL;DR bidding for modules is horrible, causes me a lot of heart pain and stress lol Just hope that next sem my compulsory mods get allocated to me... Module bidding is very sian and has characterised my week before school actually starts. Oh well :/

Sayonara, u weeb

So, Hans came back on the 14th last Thursday, and stayed until the 19th this week, to collect his school cert and come visit me lol It just so happened that by the time he came, we had two days of wake already, so he came on the third day of the wake, for the funeral the next day, and even went to church with me on Sunday. I think he was pretty okay with it though, 'cos like during the wake, he spent quite some time talking to my older cousins. (Also, one of my cousins was like "why no pictures of you two on your (my) instagram" hence the photo last Tuesday lel)

On Monday, I went with Daryl, Bei, (and Hans came later) to collect our certs, and it was kinda nice to see old teachers, and I was surprised they weren't bothered by us sitting in, even though it is kinda disruptive. Anyway, once again, talking to Mr B has made me aware of how unproductive I've been lol He asked me what I did these past few months - probably expecting me to say I've found work - but the first thing that came to mind was my sewing, so I told him I had been sewing lel I felt kinda self-conscious and critical of myself some time this week, partly because of that. But I know I did more than that these six months, surely, even if it didn't include a job. And yeah, I just realised I could've told Mr B I went to France, or that I had helped out in a running of a camp, but no, the first thing that came to mind was my crafts :I Although to be fair, I had forgotten when was the last time I talked to him (beginning of this year when nothing at all had happened) and the most recent thing was my sewing, so that made sense.

Anyway, we went to sing karaoke (I'msorryClaire) at NEX, and at first it looked kinda dodgy, but it was pretty well-lit, so it wasn't so bad. We sang mostly old songs, a couple of new ones, and had fun 'cos you know, none of us were there for serious singing (although maybe I'm 2 gud so it wasn't as funny when I sang lel)

On Tuesday, I went with him to buy my bro a large craftholic bear, 'cos his therapist had gotten him a small one, but a large guy like him needs one his own size, you know? And I had been thinking of getting one for him ever since he got the small one like a few weeks ago, but was wondering if it was worth it. Turns out it was, 'cos not only does he like it, he says he uses it as his blanket when it's too warm for a proper blanket, but cold enough to need some coverage LOL Also I wanted Hans to get me a stuff toy 'cos I don't really have something from him that I can see daily (except two McDonald Hello Kitties, I'm saving those to sell in the future), so we went around a few places, and finally settled on a pink flamingo from the airport ouo (like really, the airport of all places? But I like those generic animal stuff toys, not the ones from a series 'cos then I only see it as a character, not it's own being) We settled on the name Fran, because even though I saw the flamingo as a male, Hans saw it as a girl, so we just left it as Fran for Franz and Francesca. Say hello to my first genderfluid stuff toy LOL (Most of my soft toys are male to me, don't ask me why)

Also, my maid was hospitalised 'cos her skin condition got real bad. Like on the first night of the wake, she felt a chill, and the next day her leg was swollen. I think it's possible that she might have cut herself on the wood used to make the platform at my grandmother's place, which is how it got infected, 'cos I got a cut myself too and didn't feel the pain until the next day lol But anyway, it was a serious enough infection that she needed antibiotics in an IV drip. Hans and I visited her with my sister and her bf on Saturday. And I guess even though so much had happened during the time he was here, it was a good chance for him to spend time with my family too, especially since he'll be gone for long periods of time, and if he ever wants a future with me, he better get to know my family LOL

Anyway, with him gone, I went with Ju to watch Finding Dory yesterday, and we walked back and forth between JEM and JCube. We tried the claw machine for the Gudetama EZ-link card she wanted, and failed. Like I was so close actually, to getting one of the sumikko gurashi toys, like the claw actually picked it up, but then it fell through its grip, so :I y u cheat my feeling Oh yeah, I just realised that yesterday was the first time I bought a piece of clothing without my mum LOL Thank you, Ju, I'll wear that dress to uni (as long as we don't wear our dresses on the same day)

Today though, some drama went down during our catechism session, but I don't want to go into that, or at least I don't feel like I should lol But yeah, that's been my past two weeks.

What in the World is Happening

At first I was gonna blog about the Catholic camp I attended, but after the kind of immediate feelings I had, I thought it was better not to, so I hadn't written for quite a while lol Well, I suppose what I felt throughout the later half of the camp, was a sense of not belonging, like not really being the kind of person the rest of the group was: going out with friends at night, being extroverted, outgoing, and all that, so I suppose I felt a little left out. Talking to people on the first and second day is easier 'cos you know, you still don't know people so people will still ask you stuff and talk to you.

Every night we're encouraged to have group sharing, and I'm not sure which night it was, but me being me, with the "nervous-to-the-point-of-crying-when-trying-to-say-something-kinda-personal-yet-objective" I cried and I feel like slapping myself for it lawl But yeah, I suppose I felt a sort of disconnect after that. I think that experience made me hyper-aware of myself, so maybe I felt so conscious about myself that I didn't see myself as being part of the group, and just saw myself as you know, me lol I don't know how true that is, but now that I've typed this out, I think that was the real reasoning or thought process at the time.

And since it's naturally easy to talk to people who are as outgoing/talkative as you, no one really talked me for the third and fourth days. And it was nice that someone asked me to come over and join in on their conversation, but again, I felt like if I was there or not, it didn't matter, so I suppose I left the camp with that thought in mind: it didn't matter if I was there or not, since no one really asked me to contribute or something lol And when people say that they want to meet up again, I feel like saying "lol do you really? Are you just saying this out of obligation? Because if you really wanted to know me, gurl you should've talked to me more during the camp lol" But of course yeah, it some way they're saying it out of obligation, but that's what being a nice person is, to invite people to stuff.

I know that that's the wrong sort of mentality to have about these sorts of social situations. I can't blame someone for not talking to me, I can't place that sort of unspoken expectation on them, that's unfair, especially since they're nice people who did nothing to make me feel bad about myself. All of this was just sort of in my mind. And that was why I didn't want to blog about it as soon as I got back, because I didn't want to give a negative portrayal of people who did absolutely no wrong to me. (And I italicise that, because on the off-chance someone from my group is reading, I want them to know that the feelings I had are not the feelings I have of them as of right now.) Yes, feelings are important, but what's more important are the choices and actions you take as a result of those feelings.

Anyway, I mulled over that for a few days, and when other groups started making plans, I felt like "lol u gaiz y u do dis 2 me", but I think it was a chance for me to go out and be sociable, even if my instinctive feeling is "no". That being said though, I don't know if I can go out at all this following week ;w;

From previous posts, I wrote about how my grandmother had a heart attack. Over Friday night-Saturday morning, she fell pretty hard, health-stability-wise, so we were anticipating her to go soon. After catechism, my mum and I went over, and everyone else was pretty much there too. At least for now, she's stabilised, but she's probably on the edge of going. So if I'm not around, at least you know why lol

That aside, I got a call tonight, basically inviting me to this, uh, pageant thing. I was honestly really confused about it and ugly-laughed about it to Ju. Basically when Ju and I went down to pay for our camp fees, they took pictures of us too, and at first I thought it was so the seniors could get a chance to recognise us and stuff like that, but lol nope. They were basically screening for candidates for a pageant they're gonna hold, and they choose people based on personality (from what they can see) and appearance and here's where I ugly-laugh.

Like, seriously? You're choosing the short girl, with braces and freckles, who used to be chubbers in primary school (and maybe some of secondary school), and puts little to no effort to her appearance (I have done absolutely no form of shaving or make-up in my free time), doesn't post any photos of herself, and came to the thing in a t-shirt and normal-length shorts. Looking at the photo shoots they've had, and the video documenting their event, I am not one of the people they're looking for, mate. You want girls who actually look like uni-going age, with long hair, average height, slim faces and little to no stomach lol

Okay lah, looking at the photos again on their facebook page, they look pretty normal irl but still, this is not the kind of thing for me lol And I suppose this came as shock to me too, after another incident I had when I went to buy craft supplies from Daiso lol I was walking from the station to J-Cube, and this young, Chinese lady approached me, and asked me to fill in a small slip of paper, asking for my name, age, and phone number. When she gave me the small sheet and pen, I just stood there kinda dumb, 'cos it was only then that I realised what she was asking me for LOL (I really need to get back into Chinese otherwise I can't understand poop) I thought it was just some survey thing, but nope. Basically I think they were trying to find people for their modeling company, and I got (what I assume) her personal business card, and then went on my way. So, it was a pretty weird experience, to be offered a possibility of modeling.

Anyway, thinking about the call now, it's not that bad, or at least, not as bad as it was made out to be from one photo, that wasn't even from the event in the first place lol Still, I ain't gon do it lol Feels so surreal really, to look at the kind of people they've selected before, and to think that they actually saw me as a possibility. Anyway, that's it lol I don't think anything big happened so ye.