Do not underestimate yourself

I honestly thought I was going to be dead. Not literally.

Context: 

It's week 11 tomorrow. I'm left with 3 weeks to the end of the semester. Assignments are piling. 

I missed 5 alarms and woke up at 10.30am this morning. It was 2 hours later than my intended time. I looked at my to-do list and I thought my future was going to be bleak if I continued to slack. Thus, I pushed my phone aside and rushed back to cinnamon to get myself together instead of lazing at home. 

It has been 12 hours since I last visited instagram, telegram, snapchat and whatsapp on my phone. *As I glanced at my to-do list, I realised that I've striked almost EVERYTHING (chemistry long lab report, physics lab report, organic chem lecture 21, organic chem self-assessment on lecture 21, movie for WCT, personal vision essay for CFG1010, organic chem mass tutorial) on the list. I am insanely proud that I had completed what I had set aside to achieve for the past 12 hours. To be fair, I finished my lab reports (raw and unedited) on Saturday night at 3am and I edited and cleaned them up today.

The me right now at 11pm feels completely different from my bleak morning for was extremely pessimistic and upset with my time management this morning. I underestimated myself and was EXTREMELY frustrated. Never would I have known that I could really accomplish that much in a span of 12 hours which I aimed to complete in 3 days.**

Nonetheless, I really have to stop getting distracted, stop procrastinating and stop pushing things to the last minute though my productivity increased by 10x. I could have completed more than what I have set aside. So here's to a more productive final 5 weeks of this semester!***

Happy Easter :)) 

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*I can be contacted on facebook and I used web tele once for an urgent matter. That was because I left my red pencil at home and I had to ask my friend if I've a red pencil in his room since I ONLY use a red pencil.  

**I barely scraped past this week. I actually aimed to do more than what I have done. 

***3 weeks to the end of lessons. 5 weeks due to reading week and finals. 

Many more assignments coming up! 

YOU MAY THINK THAT THIS BLOGPOST IS A DISTRACTION BUT THIS BLOGPOST SERVES AS A REMINDER FOR MYSELF. 

Penning Down my Thoughts

"Why this pen?"

"Wow, how many of such pens do you have?" 

"Is it really that good?" 

"Can you not be so picky?" 

There's this pen that I use and I only use. I have been using this pen ever since the start 2014 and I don't think I'll ever change my pen unless I run out of it. I am currently left with 8 boxes of such pens and I certainly do intend to get more of it from Vietnam. 

On the surface, this is a gel pen and therefore, it smudges. The ink runs out quickly and has a lifespan of approximately 3 General Paper essays (12 Pages I suppose). Yet, this pen is very smooth and makes me feel better at my seemingly ugly handwriting compared to my peers. Yes, my male friends would always comment on my ugly handwriting relative to other girls. (Some of them even have nicer handwriting than mine!). 

That's such a superficial description of my favourite pen. Not that good after all.

This pen has a name called the 90 rank points pen. A dear friend of mine (Doan) who uses this pen scored 90 rank points all the time. Doan would bring back boxes of such pens from Vietnam for my friends and I to use ever since we became closer at the end of J1. I remember fondly how we used to have boxes of such pens inside our common locker as we used this pen to do our tutorials, take notes, complete our revision packages and finally take our exams. J2 was a year when my grades (my friends' grades) picked up. We eventually did well for alevels (not 90 but for some of us, a jump in 30-40 rp). This includes Doan who scored 90 rank points. That's our lucky pen. I wouldn't attribute our success solely to this lucky pen but having seen many batches of this pen come and go during the process develops sense of attachment to this pen.  

Now, this pen holds a deeper meaning for me. Before Doan left Singapore and Vietnam for Canada to pursue her dream and studies, she brought in many more boxes for us to use, hoping that this would last as long as possible. Hence, one can see how I ONLY use this pen when I take any exams or when I do my work. Not only does this pen remind me of those days when we studied together and motivated each other, it additionally reminds me of Doan and the memories that we (including other friends) shared together in J1 and J2. 

University is indeed a lonely place despite being very blessed with a close group of friends from the same major and same residential college as me. Being selfish for wanting to hold on to such fond memories of those days, no other pen can replace my favourite 90 rank points lucky pen as I continue to motivate myself to work hard.

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Pen is made in Korea but can only be found in Vietnam at a really cheap price. 

This blog post was written and edited instead of writing my final draft for a module called Sites of Tourism & it is inspired by a friend who was puzzled by how I only stick to one pen. 

Wah Cannot Tahan

It's only the FIRST paper!

Amidst writing and rewriting my own draft for Writing and Critical Thing, a compulsory writing module offered by USP, I was more inspired to write a blog post.

As one can see, I do not have a thesis statement and a motive but my post title says it all.

Problems such as not being able to fully understand the given text, come up with a thesis statement and an interesting motives have frustrated me for the past 5 days. Despite having written my thesis and 3 body paragraphs, I felt that my essay is a load of crap and a complete mess as I start to question my own spelling of a certain word that appears frequently in my essay.

This module is really time consuming and anyone who knows me knows that I would rather prove my equations for special relativity or reading up on delocalisation and conjugation or even learning my biochem properly. Yet, I felt that I've learnt the most in terms of skills for this module thus far which was better than the other compulsory module I took last semester on quantitative reasoning.

I guess it is time for me to look at this module in a positive light. It's time for me to brush up on my writing for once.

And I spent 20 minutes reflecting on an ongoing module.

Back to restructuring my essay.

2016!

Hello 2016! 

The saying goes: new year, new me. It's time to look forward and to a better year ahead and I'm pretty excited because of what is in store for me. :-) 

2016's Daily things-I-aim-to-do

1. Sleep earlier (I try not to sleep at 3am, more discipline! No more working through the night!) 
2. Since I do not wish to work through the night, then I'll need to be more disciplined. :)
3. Step out of my comfort zone, stop being a phantom.
4. Keep in contact with my friends
5. Be a better daughter
6. Better control of my finances. I really have to. 
7. Maximum effort for everything! 

2016's Healthy living plan

1. Run 3 times a week for 30-45minutes (Or just do sports)
2. No carbonated drinks, plain water
3. No fast food
4. Less fried food, less carbohydrates
5. 1 marathon, just 1 marathon will do. 

2016's places to go

1. Australia 
2. Cambodia 
3. Malaysia 

2016's bucket list

-NIL- 

I've decided not to have any bucket list this year because it clearly doesn't work. Alright that's it. 

May this blogpost be a constant reminder for myself to always try my best and be happy. 

2015

Bye 2015! 

This is my 2015 bucket list and it's time to see what I've accomplished this year. 
Original
2015's Daily things-I-aim-to-do

1. Sleep by 12.30am everyday (School time 10pm? But I slept later than 1am during peak periods and now during the holidays I sleep at 2am)
2. 8 hours of sleep everyday (Kinda, I'm probably lucky to be able to sleep 8hours a day even though I sleep really late)
3. Use less phone (LOL I changed to iPhone 6 because I gave up on S5)
4. Keep my room, table and wardrobe neat (I moved house so my room is a lot smaller right now. I've no choice but to keep everything neat. Besides, I had to keep my wardrobe neat because I've so many clothes.)
5. Fangirl less (Latest band??)
6. Do something meaningful (Didn't really no any big meaningful projects unlike my previous years.)
7. Step out of my comfort zone (Stepped out and made many friends.)
8. Keep in contact with my friends (Still keeping in contact with my secondary school friends and my JC friends)
9. Be a better daughter (I tried)
10. Better control of my finances (I think so, I've been counting my money well. Besides, I've worked hard this year even though I've been buying a lot of clothes.)

2015's Healthy living plan

1. Run 3 times a week for 45minutes (Or just do sports) (I kind of blanked out in the middle of the year and didn't exercise much when I was working and studying. I took part in rag though and I guess that could be counted as exercising for the entire of July)
2. No carbonated drinks, plain water (Sometimes, a little bit of carbonated drinks should be fine. I generally don't drink carbonated drinks.)
3. No fast food (HAHA less than like 10 times this year) 
4. Less fried food (Dinning hall keeps serving me fried food??!?!?!) 

2015's bucket list 

1. Pick up a new skill (What new skill ._.) 
2. Pick up a new language (Erm I learnt Korean with Vivian but I didn't follow up so I'm back to ground 0. I got 94/100 for the test though.)
3. Go to Vietnam (I went on a trip to Vietnam with my friends to meet Doan. I miss vietnam ): Nic to Vietnam) 
4. Go to Korea (I didn't go to Korea. I went on a day trip to Malaysia with Evan.)

2015 was a rather daunting year, albeit it was more eventful than 2014. There were many life skills that I've to learn and figure out on my own. This includes simple tasks such as taking care of my own passport, do my own transaction, do my own laundry and apply to scholarships and universities. I hope that I've not wasted my time in 2015 during my 8 month long holiday. (Holidays)  I also hope that I've not completely wasted my entire of year 1 semester 1 as I was obviously still in holiday mode. Nonetheless I doubt I'll make it through the semester without my wonderful family and friends and I'm extremely grateful for them. This concludes my final blogpost of the year. See you next year ! :-)