2011

I want to do well so badly in life it’s ridiculous. But procrastination is my worst enemy as always. What’s more ridiculous is how I lack the discipline to get down to it.

Everyday feels like a Saturday to me. Especially this week. Its bad, because I will get a rude shock when I get back to school in two day’s time.

But I missed this. I missed Saturdays in LA especially.

This year flew by way too fast.

I still can’t believe how I made it to Hollywood, or how I got through the six months living on my own. I managed to get away from Singapore, which I vaguely recall, was driving me to the brink of asphyxiation. I remember how all my innate instincts were resonating with the same voice, telling me that it was time to go, even if it meant leaving Sam and my loved ones for a while. I remember the frustration when my visa got delayed, and how I couldn’t sleep for nights because I knew that if it didn’t work out fine in the end, I would probably be a very miserable grump up till now. But being away healed me in ways I never thought possible. I learnt how to tune out to things that I shouldn’t be concerned with, to truly be myself again…because nobody knew me there and I am truly myself when nobody is looking, which is, the reason why I love being by myself alot.

I worked at Myriad, which was in my opinion, the best place to be if you’re learning the ropes to the American film industry. I worked under a tough boss, and had good and bad days in the office. The good ones would see me joking with my colleagues and fighting over chocolate and starburst candies or making stupid, silly jokes about one another, and the bad ones saw me crying during the day cos I was missing it here too much. I know the times I could have gotten fired due to my careless blunders, but God is so gracious…His grace is all sufficient for me.

I met Maria, who is the most wonderful person to live with if you’re away from home for a while. I will always, always remember her kindness and graciousness to me..and how she took care of me throughout my stay there.

They say trips could make or break a relationship, but fortunately for Sam and I, the long distance didn’t manage to harm or threaten the balance of ours. In fact, though Melody and Hosanna thought that I was very nonchalant about the bouquet of tulips he bought me on the day he met me after three months, I was indeed, very touched. Except tulips weren’t my favourite…and I didn’t know how to react after not seeing him for so, so long. But the three weeks in LA with Sam has been by far the most magical moments of my life. And though he isn’t the kind of guy to buy me the right flowers, what matters was that he flew so many miles out just right after his last paper ended to see me. Me. Till today I marvel at why he has decided to come back and settle for me, because he could have just continued…walking and leaving. (and to add impact to my point, I am going to tell all of you who thought I was wrong about him: I have always stood firm that Sam has it in him to be the right kind of guy for me. Even if he did a lot that was wrong before. But this is what I did: I truly believed that he could be a good person. And I am happy to say that he hasn’t proven me wrong. And heres to all of you who thought I would look back to when I was 15 and think I was stupid or foolish – I never regretted waiting.) Its been six years now.

I travelled on my own to New York after the internship, lugging two 70 pound luggages to LAX. And trust me, getting through customs in America can be ultra scary. I don’t know how I did it really! I got to Charlotte for my transit flight to New York and realised that my flight was the last one they allowed out due to Hurricane Irene which was touching down that weekend. So I got to experience a true hurricane….and having to clear out a flooded basement at 7am in the morning. Speaking of New York, I remember vividly that one night I sat in prayer telling God my hopes and dreams and how New York is that one city in this world I have to be at before I turn 25. And I was…there.

When I came back, I got to meet up with Ted aka Josh Radnor from HIMYM as a Myriad representative at SIFF, and…it was just so strange to read up so much about someone and finally get to meet this someone in person. Julianna then came to Singapore from LA on a business trip, and I took her on a crazy one day tour.

I also got accepted to UniMelb and Monash….but still really want to study locally though. Life decisions sigh.

And then on Christmas I received a mail from the school’s corporate comms department, with a magazine that had me in it, which was kind of weird cos I always thought that people who appeared in such magazines are nerds(well I guess that kind of makes me one now).

Other than that, I picked up poetry writing thanks to book writing and publishing classes, and also managed to get real feedback on my work. I got to specialise in journalism too, which is…still pretty amazing.

Sometimes God is just so good, no wait, scratch that – God is ALWAYS good(even if I am not considered to be petite anymore cos I have grown proportionally to resemble the Caucasian size…or even if I put on too much weight due to my trip to the states). Everything that happened to me in 2011 was nothing short of amazing. One of the best years of my life.

A walk to remember

The day I left West New York, New Jersey, I took a little walk down the street. Bagel came along and he took a little poop on the sidewalk. And a little walk in the backyard of the house I was living in. My uncle has his little nursery of tomatos and jalapeños in his backyard…so I had a go at helping him harvest them. The air was light and crisp that morning – it was the air of reluctance and melancholy. I will never forget how the breeze felt on my skin, and how my stomach flipped constantly all the way till JFK. I felt a combination of contrasting emotions all at the same time: happy, sad, excited, dejected, nostalgic, and the list goes on. If not for that morning, I would never have realised what capacity God has put in his creation to think, feel, and breathe.

So I will embrace my third week of school with the memory of New Jersey hovering at the back of my mind. (And of course, the Lord will take my hand and guide me through yet another week)

Proverbs 24:16

“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again…”

Pictures were shot on the Canon S95.

WISH I VISITED MoMA

Add that to my list of regrets.

Niagara Falls

Applebees

Never got around to blogging about having Applebees for lunch! We chanced upon it on our way to Times Square and decided to stop for lunch because the weather was extremely unkind that day. Well…the lunch was good. You can tell from the pictures yes? As good as they look! I am going to upload the rest of my photos into a few other upcoming posts because that’s the only way I can make sense of when and where these photos were shot. And whenever I have pictures in a post I find this inability to write about them. Because a picture says a thousand words right? So now I already have 6 or 7 thousand in this post haha!

Strange disparity

How do you put aside a life you lived for the past six months and resume the one you lived for the past 18 and a half years of your life?

The other day my mother made a snide remark out of pique that ran along the lines of me being slightly westernised having lived outside of our tiny little island for a while.

The change has done some good to me, but obviously will not do any good to people who have known me all my life. I am however proud to say that I have stuck with my roots and am very proud to be a bilingual Singaporean with also the ability to speak three different dialects: teochew, hokkien and cantonese.

Goodbye America. I don’t know if I will ever return.. But I will miss everything here. From the distasteful lack of variety in restaurants, to the public transport system in LA (I never thought a day would come that I will actually say this), to the wooden floors and ex colleagues at Myriad Pictures, to the soothing cooling breeze of California even in summer, to the sights and sounds in New York City, and the serene, beautiful houses of New Jersey that are so Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives), to Universal Studios Hollywood, to Venice, coined the weirdest place in the world I have been to, yet nonetheless like an ugly girl, has her own hidden beauty in the Venice Canals. I will miss Santa Monica with its cute little houses and some not so cute ones that I am always skeptical about because I have heard so much stories about people hiding their other lives in basements haha. I will always remember God’s great work in nature having seen both of them at the Grand Canyon and at the Niagara Falls respectively. I will always remember the contrast in LA and NY – slow and fast, relaxed; uptight, fake; real.

I am coming home.

The steps leading up to it

I’ve been preparing myself for the last goodbye. It’s approximately five days before I head back to Singapura and I’m very certain about various things:
1. The first thing I will eat is meepok, and I don’t care if it means 3am in the morning (I’ll probably be very jetlagged anyway)
2. I’m going to attend an event as a company representative..
3. I’m going to get my driving license because LA made me realise how important it is to know how to drive.
4. Change: in people I grew up with, and in me. Six months is long enough for time to do things to us.
5. I will return a braver girl than I was last April, with a wealth of experience and knowledge. I heard this once from Liz’s mom; that people can take away everything- your money, your family, your friends but the one thing they can’t take away is your knowledge and experiences. I know that I have done and gone beyond what I expected of myself and for that I have to thank God for guiding me and for the opportunities that I didn’t deserve at all but was given nonetheless.
6. No more walking down the street and going to H&M three times a day and having to always pay less than 30 bucks for any piece.

Goodnight all the way from Niagara Falls.

We have a vibe you can’t define

I am very blessed to be living in New Jersey with my long distance relatives. Today, they took me on the public bus, which is 100x better than LA’s big blue bus, and then I went on the subway, which wasn’t as bad as I thought. I had chicken rice, cha kuay teow, satay, and sambal fish for late lunch. I missed being in a city so much that I didn’t even mind rubbing shoulders with strangers because it was too crowded. Definitely lovin’ the NYC vibe!