S once said i have the emotional quotient of a teaspoon. he wasn’t exactly wrong. just that behind that teaspoon is a really large jar that few people have had to see.

the teaspoon is my only defense against getting disappointed because of expectations. no expectations, no disappointments.

big fish in small pond trying to be ikan billis in endless ocean. feels like walking plank to kenna makan-ed.

same question on everyone’s minds: overseas internship. how to find?
small design studios may not want to risk promising an internship for january. bigger, more established firms too good for me.

portfolio laughable. list of available options offered by school slightly depressing. don’t want to stay in singapore but don’t think stuff is good enough to get me somewhere reputable.

questions on mind. only god can put me in the right place at the right time to meet the right people.

six weeks to home.

It bothers me frequently that we don’t talk any more. That you said that I didn’t care. Because there are few people that I really let into my life, and you were one of them. I don’t know if you care, you said I didn’t. I was too tired to argue, too exhausted by the accusations of many false friends by then. Too numb to deal with the fact that yet another was turning on me.

I am silent about many things. Right now my heart is heavy with many thoughts. Who am I to you, and to them, and to him, and him, and him.

Even here the others have sometimes asked me, as a casual enquiry, if it was maybe better if I was a guy. The answer is no. I cannot be defined by my stereotypes. I often try to fit in, but I’m pretty good at sticking out. I don’t know. I’m just me. And I live in my head a lot.

The latest opportunity that was presented to me, everyone’s main response was that it wasn’t safe because I was a girl, and if I was a guy there would be no issue about it. Well. Can’t help that one there.

Starting to miss the gang quite a bit.. I know things will change next semester. We all have different directions that we’re going to pursue. Sometimes I feel rather alone here. The same words that C said to me over skype. “There is no one here who shares my vision the way you guys do. I really feel alone.”

And indeed there isn’t. I guess slowly, slowly, I’m getting tired enough to want to go home.

Starting to get very heck-care/thick-skinned.

Some doors opened, many I tried meekly to knock on remain closed.

Dreaming a lot lately.

It’s like an annoying shadow I cannot get rid of, haunting me at all times of the year no matter where I am and no matter what I’m doing.

There are friends, and then there are friends.

No hall next semester.

Increasingly annoyed with how ___ is being managed, but who am I to say anything, it’s not about the individual designer after all is it.

Gave up on my the terrible butt-numbing chair. Am now relaxing on my bed using the end of my bedframe as a precarious perch for Greenie.

Am next to my window. The mountains and blue sky greet me as always. The wind is really strong outside these few days. Whistling its song through my windows. A cheerful Korean song playing on iTunes. Pastor Prince’s Rhema Conference sermon, just before.

It is surreal. Many of the other folks on exchange are returning home soon. It feels like just yesterday that the trepidation was so real, the prospect of being away from home without the familiar comforts. Yet in no time at all this place has become a familiar comfort. The cosiness of my messy little room. The routine of waking up late, designing, looking at design related things, walking by the lake in its full beauty, hearing Italian wherever I go.

I still have a couple of months, which isn’t at all long, just a matter of weeks.
‘Long’ is a relative word, anyhow. Days becomes weeks, weeks become months, months ebb into years, and we watch our lives slouch on by in slow motion.

I had so much to expect of myself when I came up. I saw this period as a season of ‘leveling-up’. I no longer had the excuse that I was too busy juggling all the crazy stuff school threw at me to pursue my craft.

But I’m a good excuse-maker. Fear and laziness and the dull knowledge of incompetence always stops me.

I like my comfort zone. Sitting in it at the moment. If it weren’t for the fact that I have a pretty social roommate, I’d probably never have bothered talking to anyone else living in this building. I’m comfortable in my own introvert world. Yet anxious that I am not more extrovert, a seeming characteristic of those in the profession I think I want to pursue.

I see the friends getting the opportunities I want.
Chiang says to take this period as my sabbatical. Even after 4 months in a country with one of the most chill attitudes towards living, I’m still edgy. Complexes, dear woman.

He says something big will come for me before this season is over, he feels it. Rotterdam in less than 2 weeks. I’m even afraid of that, silly girl. That I would go to the conference and just be my unexciting self.

God, only You can make my dreams a reality.

Close to my heart, the weighing scales are tipping.

Being in Europe has given me a lot of time to ‘self-reflect’. Little excursions alone and several others to come likewise give me a lot of time with myself, my thoughts, and God.

Am getting quite used to roaming around Italy, which we frequent rather regularly be it just nearby Como, Milan, or the further places like Rome, which we’ve just got back from.

Rome is without a doubt the most culturally amazing place I’ve been to in Italy so far.

Florence had a lot of art. Which I was only so-so interested in. But Rome is buried in its history. Which made me extremely and gloriously satisfied just being There and wandering around the ruins, talking to God, taking it all in, marveling at how the grandeur of the Roman empire has been reduced to such. Gawking at Michelangelo’s work in the Vatican Museum along with several thousand others jostling inside the Sistine Chapel. Strolling past the tombs of the Popes. Being wide-eyed and incredulous at how much marble exists in the Vatican City alone. So much, so much.

Rome, Rome, Rome. You are special. Forget Venice, and Florence, and Milan. Rome is now to me one of the magical places in my heart. So much yet unexplored. I would like to spend a whole week there just taking my time to enjoy and savor everything.

Rome. You have stolen a little bit of my love, keep it till I return again.

There has been so much time to mull.
Had a chance to visit the William Klein photography exhibition on my own this morning when everyone parted ways for different itineraries. It was held in one of the gorgeous Roman ruins-now-museum. So much to be inspired by. So much to aspire to. So much to think about. I am a poor photographer. I try to be too many things. My head is all over the place.

Sometimes I am wistful, many times I am jealous.

Had a conversation with JH about how both of us have marketable skills but no confidence and ability to market ourselves. We see so many other people whose skills are on par with ours or even what we deem ‘lower’ who have so much more opportunities than us and so much better at selling themselves. But we cannot seem to be that person.

I am not the most sociable of creatures. Networking is a word that brings up tiring imagery. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t have skin thick enough to go out there and ask someone to take a chance on me and hire me.

Right about now a particular person I know would be giving me a piece of his mind, rather coldly, that I have no one to blame but myself if I don’t have the guts or gumption to 1) go out there and be unafraid 2) accept the pain that only ‘hard work’ and striving for constant improvement is going to get me there. Or 3) that’s just how it is. Deal with it. And 4) Stop using the excuse that you’re a girl because you created that boundary yourself, no one else did.

But you are not a girl, and you can say whatever you want from your point of view, but likewise I will also have mine.

Why am I bringing these things up now, these things of the past. Words are dangerous things. Use them, spend them wisely. You don’t know when they’ll be back to haunt you. The taste of these words bitter against the tip of my tongue.

So many directions now, which to take, only God can provide.

Edgily awaiting the Amsterdam/Rotterdam trip now, which is next on the calendar. Should I burn CD portfolios? Will I even make friends, acquaintances there, even? Will I be making a wasted effort on this trip? It’s going to cost in all almost SGD$800-1k to fly there, stay there, attend the conference and fly back. If I burn CV/portfolios, I have to redo things, make it more presentable. But how do I make this sound good: Hi, I’m not an art student. I know photoshop, yes, like 10000000000 other people who know photoshop and therefore thinks it makes them a designer. I’ll like to intern at your company, even though I know nothing about nothing. Maybe a little bit about films, but I want to do graphic design. But yes I’m in a Communications school. Why? I don’t know. I couldn’t decide then. What makes me think I can decide now?

So many vulnerabilities, but only one choice.
Just do it.

What’s there to lose, I have nothing to begin with.

I hate to be the one to break the news
To let you down
But I can’t lie to you
There’s things about the world I wish weren’t true
I guess by now, you must have had a clue
It seems you’re growing up fast
I tried my best to push back

Would you believe me if I told you…

There’s no such thing as Peter Pan
No such place as Never Never Land
I wish we all could have those tiny magic wings
But we live in a world with wars
It’s not like it was before
We won’t find our happy ever after here
There’s no such thing

I’ve dreaded this talk for so long
I knew someday, you’d wonder what went wrong
We get to be the story of it all
For the Glory of it all
And so we move along
This is not where it ends
It’s just where it begins

Would you believe me if I told you…

There’s no such thing as Peter Pan
No such place as Never Never Land
I wish we all could have those tiny magic wings
But we live in a world with wars
It’s not like it was before
We won’t find our happy ever after here
There’s no such thing

It’s not where we belong
And if it’s feeling wrong
Oh you must stay strong
‘Cause it was here
That I first saw your face
Every night I pray
That you’d believe the same

There’s no such thing as Peter Pan
No such place as Never Never Land
I wish we all could have those tiny magic wings
But we live in a world with wars
It’s not like it was before
We won’t find our happy ever after here
There’s no such thing

There’s no such thing

I hate to be the one to break the news
To let you down
But I can’t lie to you

—

Things seem to be working out in so many ways for so many people right now.
God, when is it my turn?

young we are. and i know that forever is a dream. the now is an oasis.

even though i know these things don’t last forever.

but in this moment it feels powerful enough to.