chapter twenty-something

thoughts, rants and all that is in between.

[chaptertwentysomething-blog]

Hello, 2017.

It has since been a year since I wrote anything here but I’m back at it again. I read through some of my old posts and damn, was I a dramatic little thing. I’ll be attending my master’s graduation in a week and my parents are coming too. I didn’t actually wanted to attend because its another ceremony but what the heck; my efforts deserve some treat and it’s more for my parents too - i know they’re proud of me. 

2016 has been a good year (most of it anyway). As usual, I’ve struggled with my essays but I came out of it. I know its only bearable because I’ve had an amazing support system of friends who were with me to do my essays. I didn’t expect to form such great friendships with those bunch of girls; but now I miss them all so dearly. Now I’d like to write a little something for myself, 10 years from now.

You are now in bar school. You’ve done 2 assessments and you hope to all the Gods that you’ve passed those. You don’t know how, but you’re going to make it through this somehow. There will be days where you will feel immensely sad, broken down and simply, out-of-it. Those are the days where you will start to cry without any good reason or any reason at all - and its okay. You still suffer from anxiety now and then; you can’t seem to shake that feeling of abandonment but the day will pass. You need to be strong. Yes, you don’t know what lies in the future - but who ever does? What you can do now, is do your best. That’s what your father always told you and that is what you must believe in.

Your family will be there to support you. They always will be. You feel horrible for snapping but they will understand and be there for you nonetheless. You don’t want to let them and yourself down; so let the hard days pass and keep going.

The bar school will mess with your hormones. They will mess up your periods like nothing ever has before so you need to remind yourself to relax but it is harder said than done. You will have random breakouts and they will hurt. You will continue to watch TV as that is the numbing mechanism you’ve found to work for you. Some smoke, you binge on TV with a glass of gin and tonic but at least you’re doing work at the same time (not sure how that’s effective but hey). 

Remember - this too shall pass. Don’t give up.

[chaptertwentysomething-blog]

god damn ‘fix you’

I was having a shower and my music was on then ‘fix you’ by Coldplay came on and then I start to reminisce about my grandfather. god damn fix you. my grandfather passed, less than a year ago. on days, i try not to think about him because every time i do, i start to choke up. when i heard of his passing, that was the day where i cried the hardest. i cried so hard, i couldn’t control myself. i cried and cried until i couldn’t cry any longer. i wasn’t even present at his funeral, so for me its like he didn’t really pass.. it’s more like he went on vacation, a really well deserved vacation. you see, he worked hard back in the day, or so my mother told me but i believe it. 

when i came back home after graduation and visited his grave for the first time, i don’t think i shed a tear. i was holding so much back, i wanted to be strong. i wanted to be strong for my mother but now every time i think of him, the tears just keep coming and i can’t stop once again. 

if i could tell him something, i’ll tell him i’m sorry.  I’m sorry i couldn’t be there on your last days.. I wish i had more conversations with you. thank you for being such a great grandfather. thank you for bringing me to the playground when i was younger, thank you for buying me ice cream, thank you for always buying breakfast, thank you for buying me chinese crackers and fireworks during chinese new year. thank you for letting me ride on your motorcycle with you. thank you for always giving me the seat to your favourite chair. i’m glad i had you for a grandfather for over twenty years. i hope you’re doing well, wherever you are. 

much love. 

[chaptertwentysomething-blog]

foregoing.

it’s been such an emotionally and mentally tough week; honestly thinking all this stress is taking a toll on me and its funny as this was optional, i chose this route so there’s no one to blame but myself. let’s hope this pays off. i’ve been struggling with my essays for over a month now, its crazy. i don’t even know how to handle myself anymore. it’s not like i’m working at it 24/7 but i think if i did that, i’d truly lose my mind. i need breaks, i’ve been getting frequent headaches from this stress.  emotionally, it’s my third year missing chinese new year again; missing reunion dinners with my family again, missing my loved ones again, it just sucks. and my friends are all traveling, i wish i could do that like what i did last year at least it will take my mind off things. skyping with my family is just the last straw, i don’t think there’s ever a year where i’ve not cried about missing cny. its just tough but as my dad says, “what’s easy in life?”  just another year to buckle up, pull myself together and get through this. but anyway, have a happy reunion and a happy chinese new year everybody :) remember to cherish your loved ones.

[betweensafehavens]

Got a 6 months birchbox subscription from Nic as his Valentine’s Day present to me 😍 absolutely love it!

It’s something that I wouldn’t get for myself because I don’t quite spend on “pampering” things but more of “essentials” and these are so spoiling 😁

I just got my January one because Nic ordered it on the last day of Jan 😂 can’t wait for February’s!

[chaptertwentysomething-blog]

*insert somewhat intellectual title here*

Oh wow, I didn’t realise it’s been two weeks since I’ve last written anything but I’ve been crazy swamped with assignments and readings I’ve got to do by the end of the month. fifteen thousand words, I can’t imagine what it would be like to write a dissertation but I’ll worry about that when the time comes. I’ve been stressing out so much -- it’s all showing on my face. crazy breakouts everywhere! I thought when I’m old enough, when I’ve reached twenty there wouldn’t be anymore skin problems?! Guess not.

[chaptertwentysomething-blog]

getting my shit together

I’ve had a fairly good day.  Went to the library decently early, had a salad for lunch, treated myself with a cup of coffee, had a nice dinner (herbal soup), played an hour of sports and a run afterwards.  But now I’m crying. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s all the stress that I’m facing but I’m not admitting, I don’t know. Or maybe I just wish, for once, that he picks me.

[permatasarianggi]

Financial planning in my twenties.

[chaptertwentysomething-blog]

mixed messages

There’s so many articles out there about what a “twenty something” should do. The worst part is reading something that contradicts EVERYTHING you’ve ever done or is still doing. Something like “degrees are dying”, “go out and get experience”. 

1. Who will hire you if you have NO experience? Let’s be smart here. At least by getting a degree, you’re getting some sort of experience even though it’s not the ‘real life’, ‘risk it all’ experience.

2. How can you be an entrepreneur with no capital to start with?

Not all of us can afford to “drop everything” and start a business. The practicalities of it is that you NEED money to start a business, how can you get money when you have no experience? Refer back to point number 1.

3. If degrees are dying, why is everybody that’s hiring requests for your CV?

Sure, 10% can get by without having an actual CV but I’m sorry, 90% demands a CV and what would your CV contain if you’re not actually doing something great, at least there is a degree (however ‘obsolete’ it is becoming in the twenty first century).

[chaptertwentysomething-blog]

tumblr number two

I’ve reblogged some of the posts I’ve put up on my other tumblr. The reason for this is that I created my previous tumblr first, before deciding to put up this one. My other one is more for reblogging pictures etc, something I’d like to think is/feels more artsy. This tumblr is more personal as it contains more of my writing in it. That’s why I’ve decided to reblog my writings/pictures of myself here :) at least it’s not too wordy. 

anyway if you want to have a look at my other tumblr, its here :)

[betweensafehavens]

The north remembers (at Berlin Zoological Garden)

[betweensafehavens]

Berlin 2015.

This Christmas, I along with my boyfriend, travelled to Berlin. We can’t spend christmas with our families (as I didn’t for the past 3 years, it’s one of the pains of studying abroad) so we took a trip to Germany. We saw many memorials and buried ourselves in many museums. The history of Berlin was rich and recent; it’s almost like I was there but of course I can’t feel the pain they’ve experienced. 

@ The East Side Gallery 

It was quite sad to see that the famous graffiti were fenced up - I couldn’t take a proper picture but hey, here’s the back of it! The wall was put up overnight and it separated the East from the West, many friends and families had to stay apart. The wall was built to prevent East Berliners from fleeing to the West. 

@ The Stasi Prison This was one of the highlights of my trip. It was a tour of the stasi prison given by one of the ex-prisoners/victims. He was held guilty merely for carrying a banner for freedom. The torture stories behind the chambers were mortifying. There were no heaters in the beginning, many prisoners froze to death as if you were caught in the summer, you weren’t allowed to change your clothes and you would have to wear them all throughout winter. They would overload your stimulus and then cut you off completely which made people go mental. The tactics were done in order to gain a “proper” confession in order to bring you to trial but everybody knows the trial was just a show as the German Democratic Republic (GDR) craved for international recognition and the trials were a way to put them on that platform.

@ The Reichstag Building

This is the parliament of Germany. The building was really cool. Yup. 

So before the war and everything, we took a day trip to Sanssouci park. It was a park of palaces! This was when there were kings and queens and this was a former summer palace of Alexander the Great. It is often compared to Versailles (in my opinion, Versailles was much prettier :p)

@ Checkpoint Charlie Where world war III almost began; there was a standoff of tanks from both regions. 

@ the Holocaust Memorial I know we’re not supposed to be happy because of all the murdered jews (it is a memorial for that anyway) but the architecture was cool and we couldn’t resist a pose. 

@ Zoologist Garten The Berlin Zoo! To be honest, most of the animals looked pretty sad all caged up but then again, who wouldn’t be sad being all caged up? :( 

@ Alexanderplatz market 

How can you go to Germany during Christmas time and not go to any german christmas markets?! We filled ourselves silly with bratwurst, currywurst, crepes, longas, Gluhwein, beer, eggnog and desserts! It was food galore :)

There’s plenty more about Berlin but I think this post is long enough. All in all, it was a good trip. We used the metro for most of it and got the 5 day pass, so transport was relatively cheap. We got a steal of a deal that covered our flights and hotel so I’m happy! And that concludes my christmas :)

[betweensafehavens]

Bye, Berlin 👋🏼 you were more fun than I expected and definitely very historically enriching 😂 (at Zoologischer Garten)

[betweensafehavens]

Have a fabulous 2016

[chaptertwentysomething-blog]

9:37am

I’m in the Diamond already because I wanted to get a good spot and by good spot I mean a seat in a booth. There are limited booths in the Diamond, its a shame really because there’s really a lot of space that can be better utilised i.e. fit more booths in but anyway, I’m here at a pretty decent time and there are NO booths.  I’m not frustrated because all the booths are taken, I’m frustrated because all the booths are taken by material THINGS instead of PEOPLE. They leave their belongings here from god knows when/what time, it could even be from the night before but it’s NOT OK if you’re not here physically and you’re HOGGING up the booths. It’s fine if you went for a 10 minutes bathroom/coffee/cigarette break but not if you come back in an hour or two, sometimes even four to five for ‘your’ booth. Usually I’ll just sit in the booths anyway despite it being hogged by their books, pens and papers (and I’m decent enough not to call the library police to clean out your stuff) because fuck it, if you can shamelessly hog up a perfectly good place, I can too. So you can wipe that ‘surprised’ look on your face when you return from god knows where.

[chaptertwentysomething-blog]

the uber phenomenon

So Uber is really kicking off well and it is more noticeable now. I currently live in England but I go back to Kuala Lumpur in the summer from time to time. Uber is not given a warm welcome in KL even though it has seriously done some good for customers, the cab drivers are pissed off and who can blame them? Uber is taking away businesses for cab drivers and it makes life harder for them. Anyone can be an Uber driver in KL provided that you have a valid driving license and if you have a good enough car* (from what I am aware off).  Some say it’s unfair that cab drivers’ hard earned money are innocently cut off just because some company decided to start this business but why would consumers such as the average person like myself opt for Uber instead of a regular taxi?  Most cabs are not metered in KL. The prices are disgustingly jacked up because they turn off the meters. Rumours have that even if the meters are on, it is tampered with so that the cab drivers can jack the price up but making it seem like it’s just how things work (but I don’t know how true this is so don’t take my word on it). I’ve sat in cabs before and the service is less than friendly. I don’t expect a good, inspiring conversation but I do expect that if I have a hand luggage, you would come down and help me with it or maybe say thanks when I pay?  The experience that I’ve gotten from all the Uber-ing I’ve done have always been satisfying because the system is very transparent. I can rate the driver and the driver can rate me on being a passenger. I understand that there can be shitty passengers sometimes like drunk ones who would puke in the car or plain rude passengers who can’t appreciate a good service which is why this service is good. A regular cab would not warn you of how bad the cab driver is, there’s no stars or lack of them to let you know that, “hey heads up this driver has a bad rating and would probably be rude to you.” (ok I know not ALL cab drivers are rude, its just that compared to Uber drivers, a stark difference can be seen.) So yeah, i don’t think cab drivers in Malaysia has a right to be mad. Customers would flock back to you if there’s more transparency, better service and better prices. It’s just business. Stop being mad about it - improve the system.

[chaptertwentysomething-blog]

2016!

I do have another tumblr but I thought I’d make another one, in conjunction of the new year, so let’s try to make this one stick (this is not a resolution because we all know how that’s going to end too). I’ve had several (now, unattended) blogs before because I feel the need to start afresh every time I feel that I’ve changed or moved on from myself (like closing a chapter). So this is the current me - a twenty something me and all that comes with it (the bad, the ugly but also the good).