infinite moments that were fleeting yet immortalised in memory

 

circa 2016, taken by an acquaintance at a suite party in college

“with her foot on the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was vanishing even as she looked, and then, as she moved and took minta's arm and left the room, it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past.”

 - to the lighthouse, virginia woolf

have you ever thought of the moments you'll time travel back to, if you had the gift of time-travel? 

i would go back to the little moments that had felt infinite even as they were passing, moments that had made me feel human at my core. moments of companionship and warmth - a quiet wine night, a grounding hug and the ineffable moment of a shared kiss. moments where the nights were chilly, the moon was bright and the expanse of the sky felt like it was huge enough to cover the dull ache of loneliness, my familiar friend. moments where i had crossed the bridge (i.e. clementi flyover), either en route back from night suppers at al-amaans with a close friend or a solitary walk from the neighbouring bus stop, and paused momentarily to take in the view of the partially lit saga towers - a temporary place i called home for the four most formative years of my life. moments of a raw, self-emanating vulnerability from feeling fearful of pushing personal boundaries juxtaposed against the sheer freedom of abandoning my sense of self to the ebb and flow of what had felt like a zhuangzi-esque world. or moments of self-empowerment where i felt my heart was brimming and bursting at the seams from having conquered something that had truly scared the shit out of me. moments where i had felt so infinitely beautiful and mulan-esque. 

i would traverse through the streets of spain and seoul, taking in the sunset of alicante's costa blanca or the sunrise of a post-halloween drinks morning en route to the hongje mcdonalds near my apartment, feeling (once again) the very human emotions of pining and lovesickness. i would go back to my last night in new york where i had just sat with myself in the light drizzle of a gray and cloudy sky, committing to memory my last live image of the gorgeous manhattan skyline. i would go back to a mundane weeknight spent churning essays in the college library where it had always felt like winter. i would go back to one of those college suite party nights with the knowledge of love and life i have now, to revisit the unbridled carefreeness of single hood and a passé party life with the greediness of enjoying the stability and steadfastness of love in the now. i would rewind to the nights spent in osaka walking back from the train station to our airbnb, our attempts straight "home" always getting sidelined by the most delicious takoyaki from tako tako king and sapporo beer from seven-eleven. or the moments at coastal kitchen on the royal carribean where our eyes would light up from how perfectly cooked a beef mignon steak was, or how satisfied we were with stuffing ourselves full. i would go back to have the yummiest kalbi-tang at the fast-food restaurant near yonsei in sinchon that lilith and i always frequented after north korean politics class - 

these moments were so fleeting, yet they have somehow immortalised themselves in the memory pockets of my brain. there is no bad - in my coloured memory vault, only the infinite good are left.

"as a collective" - how i'll remember my first year of work

it's been slightly more than a month since we have "graduated" from our year-long graduate program in the workforce. through and through, i am thankful for growth. growth that comes in spurts - some longer and more tangible than others. even sitting in ambiguity for a protracted period of time was in itself a growth journey - albeit a quieter one. to aptly summarise my journey thus far in the best way i can and know how:

this is the free-verse poem i had crafted on behalf of the eleven of us and verbalised to over fifty colleagues (including bosses from both my department and others) who had turned up for our virtual graduation ceremony last month. am still grateful to have had the opportunity to share a piece of what makes me "me", in what is normally perceived as the cold and hard corporate sector. i can be both - two selves co-existing in one body. i can have my cake and eat it. 

--  

the first of july, 2019. 

we gathered around the conference table of merlion two

as acquaintances, as new colleagues, 

sharing the camaraderie of emerging
from the competition that had annihilated everyone,

but us. 

us - twelve minus one. 

even from day one, we have been a collective. 

many of us had just laboured through college,

eyes fixated on the ultimate reward that was now in our grasp,

but still an obscure concept - this concept called "work".

the rest of us had jumped ship 

in hope of greener pastures - 

biting the bullet of adjusting to a new environment

despite emptier pockets. 

all of us - wide-eyed,

impressionable blank sheets of paper

eager to learn and absorb. 

youth is a currency to be spent 

while one is young. 

we are young. 

we were, and still are. 

and so, we learn. 

we quickly learn that we chafe at achieving for achievement's sake.

certifications are a means to the greater end of learning,

not the end in themselves. 

we learn that to go fast is to go alone

but to go far is to go together. 

we learn that there is value in pushing back,
in managing expectations
and finding the right time to say no.
we learn the onus of self-enablement
falls squarely on our own shoulders -
there is no longer going to be
periodic examinations or assignments keeping us in check.
along with that came the quiet realisation
that we are now in charge of determining our rest -
out with the academic calendar that determined our summer holidays,
in with the financial calendar that we use to plan around our holidays.
swept in the whirlwind of change as the new constant,
we were forced to adapt to changes quickly - some even
painful changes that hit home.
call us the walking personifications
of pro-sci's "change management" (just kidding).

we learn that we are eleven individuals
gifted with different skill-sets and personalities,
each unique in our own way.
how could we complement one another with our strengths,
to combat our individual weaknesses?
what could we each bring to the table and show up for?
find your niche, 
only then the reward will be proportional 
to your hard work. 
i hope you, the audience, would agree,
that we are all individually known for something.

this journey was not a bed of roses.
coming in without any prior experience was daunting,
and at times even demoralising.
we were building credibility from scratch -
every action we took either a vote towards building our brand
or against it.
and so we had to tread carefully.
how was it possible that we went through
so many hour-long enablement sessions in the beginning,
but the workings of the company still felt like a mystery
existing only in theory, in the fog of the unknown?
our services grad counterparts had it harder -
enablement came with their job,
on the job itself.
out of the blue they found themselves
waist-deep in projects
when they hadn't even learned how to swim yet.

what does good look like for the job,
and by extension, for a grad?
ambiguity, the big word
encapsulating the environment
we found ourselves mired in.
lacking defined expectations of us,
we found ourselves confused -
were we doing well?  
or just doing enough to get by? 
even when we were told we were doing well,
imposter syndrome always crept in
to steal the limelight of our victories.

our victories.
a year later as we look back we are able to say
with greater clarity:
we are proud of our victories.
gaining client facing experience early in our careers
particularly for many of us fresh out of college,
is a triumph in itself.
the piecemeal knowledge we've gained day by day,
over three hundred and sixty-five days,
empowers us with more confidence in work and customer interactions.
we even surprise ourselves sometimes
with knowledge that we didn't think we had (but do),
or when we're able to deliver on something
that no one expects us to.
but our greatest triumph as a cohort
is that we've stuck true to ourselves, together.
trouble-shooting, laughing, collaborating, eating
even crafting and dancing,
as a collective.

the first of july 2020. 

we gather around the virtual table 

about to say goodbye
to this year-long journey.

not as colleagues, but as friends -

sharing the camaraderie of journeying through
the highs, lows and everything in the in-between
from our first year of work at salesforce.

even from day one, we have been a collective. 

duality of feelings

why do we feel the feelings that we feel?

feelings, a double-edged sword.

the duality of feelings - 

in some instances they breathe life,

in others they take away,

coming and going like the tide that ebbs and flows

in tandem with the gravitational pull of the moon. 

the duality of feelings - 

both a dependable compass and a faulty one:

the uncanniness of feelings having more self-awareness

than i am conscious of. 

they are my trusted advisor - 

interpreting and making sense 

of things happening to me from a third person's perspective,

even before my head can wrap itself around them

and find the appropriate words for.

my feelings are my clearest articulation 

of what constitutes a right choice 

and conversely a wrong one.

and yet, the irrationality of feelings

also means that subjectivity 

becomes weighted on a much heavier scale.

once feelings are involved,

all things bow into the realm of subjectivity - 

i become the center of the universe

and the singular point of reference. 

a flawed compass guiding me on a terrain
only i can see. 

my thoughts on ge2020

i struggle to find words that aptly encapsulates how i feel - but i resonate so much with this article from rice media that articulates this complexity of emotions i feel, as well as its accompanying aspirations that make my heart swell with patriotic pride.

for so many years i had the personal impression that our government was synonymous with the incumbent party. in my head, it was difficult to tease the party and the government apart, and i admit sheepishly that for the longest time in junior college (the "feeder" of sg politicians - including sg's newest heart throb) i had thought "psc scholar" equated to "pap scholar". i too, had bought the rhetoric that we needed a competent government to rule and prosper, resigned to fate as i explained to any of my international friends interested in sg politics and willing to listen that we - singaporeans, valued economic progress and stability over peripheral matters i.e. having an unadulterated democracy and freedom of speech. i was a global affairs major in college and even based my final-year capstone thesis on investigating corruption's impact on electoral margins of victory in single-party dominant states like sg, but in terms of political engagement i had always looked outwards - big power politics, east asian politics, southeast asian politics - many places elsewhere but home. there was just so much political apathy in the state of sg politics that i accepted things as they were - as inevitable trade-offs for the comfort of a prosperous nation that most of us have the privilege of partaking in. perhaps it was also because until this election i was short of the legal voting age. without some skin in the game, it just felt easier to pass off the opposition scene as dismal and disengage on the pretext of sg lacking credible opposition.

on the 10th of july, i held both my identification card and polling card with my legal name imprinted on it and stood in line at my primary school i.e. my designated polling station - a place so vividly familiar yet distant all at once (so many years had passed, the context had changed but the environment remained strangely unchanged). i couldn't help but feel joyful yet solemn with the weight of this civic responsibility. joyful because it was my first time voting this election, and it was empowering to feel like i was part of a collective that got to decide on the future of singapore's leadership and governance. i was no longer a bystander! my vote was going to be part of the vote count during the announcement of the electoral results later that morning! joyful bc i recognised that the access to universal suffrage is in itself a privilege, and that having a public holiday on general election day to make the act of voting conducive is also a privilege that we should never take for granted. singapore is far from a western democracy and having some sort of political structure and process in place for periodic elections may seem like democratic tokenism, but i am still thankful for these guardrails that protect our universal suffrage. voting is such a sacred act bc it is the vested responsibility conferred from the constitution on a citizen to his/her/their nation: to do it justice, i had to make an informed choice and arrive at a conclusion that only i myself would be accountable for.

this election, i wrestled to come to a decision on which party to cast my vote for. i wrestled bc it was a fight between my values and guiding principles i hold close to my heart, and so arriving at that decision was a highly personal process: being the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves; giving credit where credit is due; valuing kindness above all, separation of the people from the party - like distinguishing between the sin and the sinner ("hate the sin but love the sinner") in the biblical sense; standing up against injustice and any forms of bullying (non-partisan bc values transcend party, creed etc.); rewarding earnestness, grit and intentionality over mere results, valuing substance and credibility in representation etc. but one thing i learnt was to remember that the world is far too complex to be classified into manichean handles. voting did not have to be a dichotomous process where i had to localise and pledge my vote based on the evaluative criteria of a person or the concrete results of any one party. i could desire for the incumbent to remain in power, acknowledge the efforts of their members with gratitude and still vote otherwise. and vice versa. at the end of the day, i voted based on my heart - as i always do in decision-making, and walked out of it feeling like my heart was singing.

i spent friday night and the wee hours of saturday morning shuffling between the living room (where my entire family was up) and the comfort of my ac room snuggled up with bae in bed, keeping our eyes and ears peeled for the keywords "east coast", "west coast", "sengkang", "aljunied", "bukit panjang" and "bukit batok". we eventually went to bed at 5am, my heart brimming with pride and love for my country and her people. watching the election results was cathartic, for lack of a better word. we really showed up as one, and in doing so sent a clear message to the incumbent that they should not rest on their laurels and assume buy-in. the logic is simple - they may be free to make choices on behalf of the nation, but they will have to be answerable at the polls, and a few may be sacrificed in the process. there is a new generation stepping up and that is none other than my generation. a generation that is increasingly educated and becoming more politically engaged. a generation that is unafraid to call a spade a spade and willing to stand up against any forms of bullying. a generation that may seem ungrateful but actually cares about those who fall through the cracks. a generation that can no longer be bought with money, especially in the face of what seems like moral barrenness. a generation that shows up when push comes to shove. a generation that believes in the weighted promises of our national pledge.

re-pivoting to the "why"

the realisation that work without an overarching perspective (and ~mood~) framing the context of why that work still matters to you on an individual level is mindless work that makes the process of toiling seem harder than the work per se.

when i was a sophomore in college i clearly remember chafing at having to do essays and readings bc i found the entire process pointless on an individual level - so much thought and effort culminating into a pile of essays that would land into the drive folder of one professor, subjected to the solitary judgement of an audience of one, who probably would only remember the brilliant pieces of writing that were not going to be mine. what made me feel alive was doing (what i thought at that point constituted) real work that dealt with the real world - crafting cold emails to people i had never met asking for sponsorship, filtering through the participant (or we called them "delegates") list to ensure all the right information were in place for the printing of delegate name tags meant for an upcoming model united nations conference (that students paid good money for to attend). in the context of college, i revelled in things of the "real world" because it gave me a sense of purpose that my toiling was going somewhere and value-adding to someone out there. 

ironically, it takes concerted effort to snap myself out of the monotony of the days folding into themselves after nearly a year of breathing in this "real world". virtual meetings after virtual meetings. google hangouts rage. piling to-do-lists. customer-facing decks to be drafted and presented. the inevitable administrative work that needs to be done to oil this machine. without conscious effort i find myself losing focus, losing purpose. 

and now, why do i work? 

i work to do the one thing that makes me feel alive - to create.

with my head, my heart and my hands. 

in hopes that that creation will be of value to my enterprise customers and colleagues. 

note to self:

put on some groovy music, enjoy the process of creating, irrespective of whether its office hours or not. irrespective of whether it feels wrong that you have to be working after working hours on some days to be responsible towards your stakeholders and personal work ethic; to be thankful that it is not the default expectation to do so. you need a serious mindset shift. 

as written in your v2mom vision: "to be always value-adding to my customers, lead SMs, account teams and the larger community by bringing to the table a can-do attitude, my point of view on solutions and product knowledge in pardot and marketing cloud."

sparking fires on the inside

the silver lining of being home for the most part has been the gift of time to sit with myself and just feel. am still learning the skill of being better at listening to my body and i think the difficulty comes from being accustomed to putting the business and personal work ethic before the self at work - most of the day is spent at work until the lines blur past-working hours, particularly in current times when the physical spaces remain unchanged from dawn till dusk. recently (thanks to a stay-home art kit that my colleagues sent to each of our houses using the company budget) i've started painting again - gradient sunset hues and random shapes in poorly blended colours passing off as "abstract art". i've been so inspired that i even ordered a set of watercolour pencils (the faber castelle ones - set of 36 that would have made tiny me green with envy) and paper so that i can revel in the act of creating. it brings me back to my childhood days where i used to spend all my leisure time on arts & crafts - my favourite books to borrow from the public library were children craft books on how to make a clay bracelet, or a book sleeve from outgrown pants and such. i used to spend so much time with my hands making things from scrap materials - ugly or not, they made me feel really happy as a kid.

being able to spend quality time on self-discovery is a gift because this period serves as a self-affirmation to what i've always known but never really coined into words - i feel alive when i am creating in the form of self-expression. with my head (professionally) - when i am able to create structure out of chaos and sieve ideas into handles, or organise haphazardly placed text into the right boxes or slides that together concisely contribute to a coherent, big-picture storyline. with my heart - when i am creating something out of nothing such as the articulation of an obscure thought or feeling in writing, reflected in the video snippets of life i painstakingly collect and piece together at the end of every year or significant journey, or even in the splash of colours on a page. with my hands and body - in moving my body and getting swept up in the pathos of a sad tune, in the instinctive rapper hands that have a life of their own when i'm in a good mood listening to a badass song, or even in the way i choose to dress and present myself to the world.

it's kind of strange how the traits i had as a kid that i thought i had long grown out of have in fact remained constant - albeit dormant but nevertheless unchanging, only to be amplified once i finally get the chance to sit, look back in retrospect and reflect. "what makes you tick?" is a question mentors in my company like to ask during our career/personal development coaching sessions. beyond the part of me that loves to create, there is also the part of me that loves to articulate - to stand in front of an audience and present with confidence on a prepared topic. i thoroughly enjoyed that moment where i presented in front of the panel of four directors/avps masquerading as customers (realise in retrospect that one of them is my current boss after feb's changes, how time reveals everything in a strange light) during the case presentation i had to go through to earn my current job. i also relished the moment i stood in front of GA faculty and peers to articulate the gist of my capstone which i had a love-hate relationship with - how alive i had felt when i knew i was doing my work justice and when my eyes met with the favourable smiles and nods from both my bae prof and eye-candy (intellectual candy?) prof - that moment still makes me smile and miss college alittle more than i felt it had deserved then. it all connects now: eight year old me stood in front of then-education minister teo chee hean (and distinguished guests consisting of teachers and parents) as one of the four emcees hosting the official opening ceremony of my neighbourhood primary school. twelve year old me stood in front of judges and students alike to articulate my piece of writing that eventually won the first-runners up prize at a national scrabble writing competition. in that same year, three of us impressed the judges with a presentation on climate change (i still remember one of enzo's lines opened with "professor stephen hawkings once said...") of the national sef oratory competition and walked away with gold, despite the fact that no one could remember what our school was called before and after we won. those moments were met with trepidation, yes, but also with fierce pride - the sense that i was living up to my potential, that i was pushing against boundaries and finding them broken by my own (or god's mighty) hand.

i recently bought a kindle and managed to get it reimbursed as part of the quarterly wellness allowance that we get as an employee perk. i've been reading literature books again - for the longest of time i stayed away because they weren't practical and i felt they were not going to get me where i wanted - the ideal job, mindset or growth etc. they are not practical, yes, but i have forgotten how much they make me feel like myself. i finished reading gilead today. i first fell in love with the prose of robinson's housekeeping, and to have experienced that warmth again today via the honey-like balm of words was both cathartic and nostalgic. somehow it brought me back to that particular night in mussoorie in 2015 - the night where my friend bohme and i were walking down the hill back to our himalayan dorm in almost pitch darkness and we were trailing behind the rest of our week 7 crew. i knew then that he used to be a poet before he chose the science track (and eventually computer science), and so i asked him if he wanted to hear my favourite quotes from my favourite book then. he said he would love to. in the darkness while watching our steps as we descended i read snippets of jeanette winterson's writing (from the book why be happy when you could be normal, or was it oranges are not the only fruit?). there was something about the stillness of the night that accentuated the weight of those words hanging midair, but there was so much beauty in that moment that i still vividly remember how that night felt like.

and so in robinson's words (from gilead) i close:

"memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was."

“i wish i could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that i hate to think they will be extinguished when i am. well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. and memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. it is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment, when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. a moment is such a slight thing. I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve.”

[and this is why i create videos]

my all-time favourite alternate universes

everytime we play "i have never" at group events, there is always one statement that i'll be able to count on to eliminate my opponents by one strike: "i have never enjoyed a single american sitcom". i've come to realise that the only form of streaming entertainment i truly enjoy is the korean drama genre, and for the longest time i did think there was perhaps something wrong with me. the characters in american and even european sitcoms always seemed unrelatable (bc they were more often than not caucasians), while the cultural gap shone through in the way their humour always felt cringe-worthy and contrived. i have never desired to emulate any of their mannerisms or ways of speaking despite the eloquence they have in speaking my first language, and while they often lived in riches i had never desired to emulate their ways of living.

on the other hand, i always find myself unable to exert self-control whenever i'm sucked into the plot of a kdrama. i gave this some thought and finally have an understanding of why i'm naturally averse towards american entertainment and so inclined towards korean ones: kdramas play on my beauty ideals by romanticising life itself, in ways that feel so relatable but are distant in actuality. during the times that i'm devouring the drama i live vicariously through the main characters - putting on the lens of the beautiful female protagonist who will eventually enjoy the company and affection of an equally handsome male protagonist, while being equally mulan-esque in her career. in doing so, she demonstrates that she is already complete in herself and that her partner exists to complement (not complete) her, thus aligning with my personal beliefs of how healthy love should look like. their love for each other is so palpable that it hurts even through the screen, and as their perfectly crafted faces meet and the crevices of their lips fit each other perfectly i cannot help but dream. in the aftermath of the drama i submerge myself in that artificial universe that i know doesn't exist through the osts, pretending that i too exist as they have existed, channeling the persona of my favourite female protagonist until i feel that i too can be like she has been - in style, in love, in beauty and in the mundane day to day living. kdramas romanticise the small things in life to look so beautiful from the outside, making even a bus ride look ineffably poetic. it makes me feel like i could make my life look poetic from the outside too, even if it's just for a moment. 

for reference, a list of korean dramas i've watched since post-junior college days:

1. the moon embracing the sun [2012]
2. the heirs [2013]
3. i can hear your voice [2013]
4. my love from another star [2013/2014]
5. good doctor [2013]
6. doctor stranger [2014]
7. healer [2014]
8. pinocchio [2014/2015]
9. she was pretty [2015]
10. doctors [2016]
11. w, two worlds [2016]
12. descendants of the sun [2016]
13. romantic doctor, teacher kim [2016]
14. weightlifting fairy kim bok joo [2016/2017]
15. goblin [2016-2017] 
16. bride of the water god [2017]
17. fight for my way [2017] 
18. my secret romance [2017] 
19. strong woman do bong soon [2017] 
20. while you were sleeping [2017]
21. what's wrong with secretary kim [2018]
22. memories of the alhambra [2018]
23. melting me softly [2019] 
24. romance is a bonus book [2019] 
25. her private life [2019]
26. crash landing on you [2019/2020]

in light of the above, i would like to share my top six, all-time favourite universes that i really enjoyed being a part of, alongside my favourite accompanying soundtrack. most of them are also coloured by the hues of my then-reality and therefore clothed with nostalgia i.e. disclaimer: they may not be evaluated based on objective terms. in no particular ranking bc i adored them all: 

1. w: two worlds [2016]
   
   
   
   this drama got me into lee jong suk. it was a masterpiece with fantasy, romance and thriller packed into one, with two worlds differentiated so subtly with the use of richer colour hues. i loved this drama so dearly, even though i don't even like thrillers! i have watched perhaps too many lee jong suk dramas, but this couple pairing still remains the best and my favourite. the ost is also one of my all-time favourites.
   
   this drama also means so much to me on a anecdotal level. it represents the first drama bae and i share, even though we had watched it separately. he reminds me of lee jong suk with his iconic eye mole, and he told me once that i had reminded him of han hyo joo when i had my korean bangs (he even made a comparison picture when we were skyping during my semester abroad back when i had those bangs). w makes us feel like we too can have our own world, our own w:
   
   [2017]
   "it was our second date at beauty world: i dreamt of your hand brushing against mine - would you reach out for it and clasp it boldly if i left it dangling next to yours? we had korean food for dinner where my bibimbap came without meat (a scam) and you donated me some bulgogi as you cheerily recounted the story of a patient defecating in the corridors of the hospital a few metres away from where you were standing (a reference to a few nights ago during your call when you sent me the image, which i thought was going to be something like a grotesque, dismembered limb, but it turned out to be poop - i remember getting ready for bed but sitting upright instantaneously as we whatsapped back and forth with neither of us going offline for a long, long time, and i felt the faintest inkling of a new relationship brewing; yet a part of me was so afraid to fall & have my feelings toyed with again). our second date made me feel like the protagonist of a korean drama - i could almost imagine this soundtrack [i.e. where are you] playing in the background as we shared a bowl of matcha bingsu in a glasshouse as an imaginary camera rolled on. while parting ways i gave you a hug, which surprised you - who was this liberal girl hugging a new stranger-turned-friend on their second date? as i waited for my bus back to campus, this was the tune that made me feel like i was already tipping over into a new world - our W."
   
   
2. doctors [2016]
   
   
   
   
   

   this drama holds a special place in my heart bc i watched this while i was alone in new york city in 2016, sharing a room in bushwick with five other female tourists, solo sojourners or whoever who kept coming in and out - mostly strangers. my only private space was the top deck of one of the three double-deckers in the room, and for a whole month i was lucky enough to have met ja-young from seoul who slept below me (who eventually became one of my most treasured companions during my semester abroad alone in seoul circa winter 2017). this drama represented a familiar respite i could come "home" to in a home away from home, while i snuggled in my carved corner of the two-storey airbnb apartment with my favourite blueberry chobani yoghurt. it also gave me the vocabulary i needed to banter with my nyc gym buddy su-hyun, and reminds me of how i'd say "super, 가자!" during grocery runs with him and ja-young. this drama also reminds me of how blissful i had felt - warmed up with a cup of milo, seated on the sofa in the living room of jack and howard's apartment in maryland watching doctors. they were taiwanese phd students living in the states that i had met in the common area of that new york apartment (i was doing some work in the living hall when they came over with two of their friends and made conversation with me. in that night we jammed out to jay chou and they invited me to explore new york with them that weekend before they left the city the day after). before they left they gave me an open invitation to bring me around if i ever visited washington dc, and when i joined vincent on his solo trip to dc, they sweetly allowed me to crash in their living room for a few days - even setting up an inflatable bed so i could be comfortable. this drama reminds me of the conversations i had with howard about taiwanese vs. china politics, and that night when jack sat down on the couch next to my bed before i was about to turn in to have a philosophical conversation about love, and what it means to us as individuals.
   
   this drama also gave me the vocabulary to relate to bae's profession during our first date at star vista, where i excitedly volunteered "oh! i know - you're talking about intubation right?" and he was so surprised and amused. but beyond these personal anecdotes, i really loved the plot of this drama and the palpable chemistry between kim rae won and park shin hye. i personally didn't find the age gap weird bc i know feelings have a mind of their own and i could relate with the student-teacher crush based on personal experience. moreover, the fact of the matter was he waited until they were in a similar stage in life before taking their relationship to a romantic level. and of course, both of them were the best at what they did in their field, which made me feel they were all the more compatible with each other. hye jung was a multi-faceted character - she was demure yet kickass (literally with her fighting scenes), she was kind yet guarded, she was child-like yet highly mature and intelligent. not forgetting, her post-work aesthetics were on a goddess level - her elegance, her outfits, hairstyle and even that minimalistic heart-shaped necklace made me feel a burning desire to channel my inner hye jung in my daily life as i roamed the streets of manhattan.
   
   
3. what's wrong with secretary kim [2018]
   
   
   
   disclaimer: i have a soft spot for handsome, charismatic and competent boss characters who seem outwardly aloof but inwardly possess the kindest hearts. another disclaimer: i also have a soft spot for competent female characters with an amazing work ethic, who are gorgeous and have an elegant dressing style. final disclaimer: my favourite plots usually involve both characters actually being best friends or having a special encounter that they remember from childhood. this drama ticked all three boxes. i always channel my inner kim mi soo in her bombshell office wear whenever i'm getting ready for work, just to make myself feel more mulan-esque. more often than not, i always have this drama's ost playing in my airpods just before i tap my access pass into the office - it puts me in a great mood before reality hits.
   
   
4. crash landing on you [2019/2020]
   
   
   
   the plot for me was honestly not a favourite, but the two things that rocked me to the core were captain ri's character and the official sound tracks. captain ri is officially my most favourite fictional character ever, and the choice of casting hyun bin as captain ri was perfect. i had a conversation about this with jon on a hot but breezy saturday morning while waiting for milly to arrive for our brunch date, and he mentioned something interesting, something along the lines of "...your boyfriend inspires your ideal korean drama type and that's why you like his character so much, and not the other way around". it's interesting bc it sounds unconventional but to a huge extent it's the truth. before i met my boyfriend i had a very different type i liked (my colleagues still joke that "fucbois" gravitate towards me and vice versa in company social settings - perhaps bc they are fun to talk to in such settings, but difficult to connect with outside of one?) - and when bae came along, he became the first (and probably the reason why my love life finally worked out). after i met him, my ideal type shifted 180 degrees towards what i describe as the "studious, professionally competent but alittle dorky with the opposite gender despite being so genuine at heart" guy persona - someone who i can only describe in words such as 稳重, 踏实 and 好男人. someone who makes me feel grounded and safe. someone who feels like homecoming. captain ri reminds me of bae (!! my captain teo) and that's the reason why i adored his character so much. and not forgetting the ost. what can i say except that it was hauntingly good and so fitting of every scene. an absolute gem.
   
   
5. while you were sleeping [2017]
   
   
   
   
   

   
   

   i watched this during my junior year exchange in seoul. part of the reason why i decided on doing my college semester abroad in south korea was because i had been fed full with ideals about living in korea, only to find myself disillusioned with the reality of the language barrier, acute loneliness, subpar classes and the unbearable cold. this drama holds a special place in my heart bc it reminds me of those nights where i felt less homesick because i had an alternate reality to escape to, one with an impeccable balance of fantasy, wit, humour and romance; one which held my favourite actor that reminded me of bae sitting back home almost 3000 miles away bc of his iconic eye mole; one which reminded me why i came here in the first place. this was also the drama that got me into suzy bae, and when a neighbourhood saloon screwed up my haircut by styling my hair into an uneven and sloping bob, i took comfort in the fact that my hair style now resembled hers in this drama and channeled my inner suzy to still feel beautiful, because she still looked beautiful.
   
   
   
6. she was pretty [2015]
   
   
   
   
   
   
   what i really loved about this drama was how the female protagonist was the true underdog - her transformation reminded me of a similar scene in our times and it was so incredibly satisfying to watch everyone finally come to terms with her innate beauty. the second lead syndrome was so palpable and heart-wrenching, if not for the fact that i had been rooting for the male lead from the onset. i also have a soft spot for park seo jun embodying competent boss personas - the charisma he exudes as a deputy chief editor helming the entire corporation gave me butterflies even as a spectator. the build-up to the climax (i.e. the epiphany the male lead has when he finally realises the person he has loved since childhood has always been in front of him but he was too blind to see) was so wonderfully executed that the catharsis from that release made me ugly cry like an idiot in front of my laptop. the friendship between hye jin and ha-ri was also so humanly beautiful, playing out the intricacies of the struggle between sisterly love versus boy envy. the icing on the cake was the entire ost playlist that still makes me feel like life is and can always be good. 

and there you have it. my all-time favourite alternate universes that i still sometimes escape to, be it via ideals, osts or in spirit. 

let there be light

que sea la luz
abre mis ojos, Jesús
purifica mi corazón
llena este lugar
has tu voluntad

Tu salvación aquí está
un nuevo día

a tribute to us, our special third

today marks the third year anniversary of being with you, the love of my life - my first, my only and God willing, my last. the most fascinating part of being in a relationship for me remains this: we have been there for each other down to the denomination of seconds for the entire duration that we've been committed to each other - be it through thoughts, texts or in the corporeal form. the notion of love for me remains synonymous with choice. attraction to other fleeting ideals is inevitable and human, but the active choice of choosing this love personified at the end of the day for the past 1095 days is what makes our love so meaningful to me. the beauty of this exemplified by the preposition "despite" (in the sense of "despite this and that, i still choose you"), reciprocated by us both in a world only we have exclusive access to.

on 11th october 2016 i wrote: "interests are fleeting but education leading to self-empowerment is forever. i don't know what took me so long but it's this realisation that education is the only thing that will be unwaveringly for you, in multiple senses of the word. love will come when it comes, & i will wait for it - but i am done pursuing it.

i know my worth, & i will not let the world determine it on my behalf." 

i keep going back to the me before i met you because i need to remember how lucky i got and how difficult things were then. not that i wasn't whole in myself. i was already whole before i met you. in my formative college years i struggled with being passed off by the world time and again, vowing with each episode to come back stronger, smarter and more beautiful. and i attribute the self-confidence i have today in my worth and work ethic to those episodes which were (in retrospect) the building blocks of my personal growth. and this is precisely why we are greater together.

17 may 2017: "the beauty (of being whole in God and myself) is that you inhabit my heart but do not compose it, & in so doing we do not complete each other but complement & value-add to each other's lives. to have a life & career apart from each other is so important - it ensures that our relationship will never hinder, but always make both of us better persons"

almost three years later and this still holds true. beyond our shared chemistry, this has been one of the key tenets of our relationship that has made it successful. however, things weren't always smooth sailing. looking back on our journey together, i cannot help but recall those pivotal moments where we fought over recurrent issues now passé - one of the biggest ones being our life gap (attributed to our age gap), which i kept trying to convince you came with an expiry date. waiting out those 1.5 years was unarguably hard - we were both battling our own giants on our respective ends, trying not to let them get to us. and when they did, we would have another big disagreement until some hot tears were shed and things blew over until the next eruption. on my end, it was hard being four years behind - financially and career-wise, even though the pressure was always implicit. there is just so much more financial stability that comes with an established profession like medicine and four years of savings that i had felt pressured to match from the onset, which was obviously not going to happen when i didn't have a career to begin with. i was a sophomore in college when i met you, doing my best to invest whatever "free time" i had in my resume, in hopes of an optimal job offer at a big fish firm before graduation. i felt i was doing well compared to my peers because i had a solid plan from the beginning of where i wanted to take my nascent career plan and i was doing all these side career/growth things, but they never felt good enough because the fact of the matter was: i was still just a college student. the paradoxical feminist in me also struggled immensely with notions of masculine providence versus women empowerment and equality i had championed so strongly for. honestly those were some rough times, and sometimes i had wished we met at a later stage in life when i was more "settled" in life.

looking back, i'm still glad we met while i was still a sophomore in college. yale-nus constitutes the most formative years of my life. the me before college and the me after college are almost two completely different people. to have met you right in the middle of that exponential growth journey means you got to grow together with me, and our relationship got to grow together. when i look back on those growth moments i.e. me finding love at 21 when i finally had someone (you) to hold me in quiet moments of grief, solo sojourns to alicante and seoul and doing my first ever ldr, working on omnichannel projects at sephora and scoring brownie points at amazon, and even the year-long 28mc senior year semester that everyone called me crazy for - i look back and see you in all of them, silently rooting for me and being my homecoming, my place of rest and comfort. these memories are twice richer and beautiful because you permeate all of them, and we are stronger for it.

life is better together with you, with your hand in mine.
happy third, my love.

february flux & mini-miracle march

february brought with it the turn
of the financial calendar
which i had hitherto yearned for.
i was done with feeling stuck -
floating here and there, but not really
being anywhere. i couldn't fathom where:
where was i value-adding?
where was the growth trajectory i had envisaged
so clearly in my head, but had yet to pan out in reality?
and what, what was i doing
that made a difference to the people around me?
"most of the time i don't know what i'm doing."
it became my slogan, slowly making its appearances in 1:1s
with friends, mentors and even bosses.
and then it became my pseudo anthem -
feeding an internal desire for greener pastures
manifested in a three-year plan penned
in a personalised notebook gifted by my big boss.
(almost like a silent travesty)

if february were a person:
february barged in prematurely
and became travesty personified.
in a confusing, brutal turn of events
i realised that the shape and form of envisioned change
resembled nothing like the version i had in my head.
the stark realisation hit me
through the brick wall of my stupor:
benign corporations were after all still businesses.
the embodiment of good values was not mutually exclusive
with profit-maximisation and cost reduction.
anyone of us could have been those inefficiencies
that they balanced out on a leaner balance sheet.
our last team photo taken merely back in december,
cheesing to good times -
how strange that it is now a passé construct
existing neither in name nor substance.
an inaugural, harsh welcome to corporate life
that i will carry with me for future days
and will shape me for years to come.

psalm 30:5 -
"weeping may endure for the night,
but joy comes in the morning."
february gave away to march,
obscurity gave away to piecemeal clarity.
the silver lining shone through.
it was my opportunity to voice out and fight
for what i desired and against what i disliked:
accounts, industry verticals, language preferences,
the who, the what and everything in the in between.
it was either "now" or "forever hold your peace".
everything was up in the air,
up for grabs, like a visit to a candy store.
i finally had this unprecedented chance
to choose my preferred candy! the thrill!
and through it all, i came out of it
with a better understanding of which leaders
i worked well with and which i didn't.
through it all i emerged humbled
by the quality of leadership
in an organisation i felt had let all of us down,
except the vast majority of its leaders hadn't.
i learnt through both the easy and hard ways -
at the core of it all, they all have good hearts.
and how blessed am i, to be surrounded
by giant-slayers in the workplace -
some with the kindest eyes
and others with a grounding, steadfast quality to their statures.
and through it all i acknowledge that it is You God,
You who placed these giant-slayers in my life
and turned this mess into a mini-miracle.

time travel - part four (on pseudo love)

read part one, part two and/or part three here

21 june 2016: my thoughts centring a conversation with my gym buddy in new york, i wrote:

'the residue from a conversation last evening - the nature of a thought festering at the back of your head that had hitherto been only privy to you changes form when it manifests from your own mouth and you surprise yourself, surprise yourself at how weird it sounds when vocalised - "i realised i cannot truly say i have loved someone before - no, not in that sense" "oh...isn't that kind of...sad?" "i guess i just haven't found someone i would go that deep for" - to not have truly loved or felt truly loved at twenty - that hit me. fondness had always smouldered away - was always soldered thin under the solder of an overarching reason or inopportune timing, but whatever it was the glue had always been built on tenuous bricks of compromise anyway. maybe this is why memories have a stranglehold over me. for a girl who pursues absolute clarity i think i scare people away most of the time.'

8 feb 2020: wrt. to the defining moments in my life (defining being a moment impactful enough for it to have informed and altered subsequent trajectories of the paths i've taken), i wrote:

'at 21, you will finally believe in love".

truth be told, until then i was convinced i would eventually end up being together with someone i would try hard to love for the rest of my life, a response to being moved into entering and committing to a relationship for the sake of company and stability. till then, there was no one i could truly connect with, no one who could mutually reciprocate my feelings to equal lengths. i dreamt of a puppy love in junior college, which was my first formal exposure to boys post-puberty, but that yearning merely manifested into romanticised ideals that i eventually had to bury. i perceived the inability to attract who i wanted as a personal defect, thinking to myself that there was perhaps something wrong with me that turned people i desired away from me. this is my ode to remembering those moments of vulnerability and dull heartache - before the tables turned, before i learned that it is somehow fortuitously possible to find that favourite person who finds you to be his/her favourite person too.

falling in love at a coffee shop - landon pigg



[2013]

this was how i'd imagined i'll meet my soulmate. nestled against a sturdy pillar in my favourite quiet spot in rj: a book on hand, this tune on repeat, i'd dream with my head in the clouds of this abstract concept everyone seemed to be acquainted with in one way or another except me: love.

this also reminds me of my jc fantasy: i dreamt i would meet my soulmate while browsing through shelves housing contemporary literature in the rj library. in the first scene, he would be picking out books on the opposite side of the shelf before our eyes would lock for a long second. it would be love at first sight. in the second scene, he would come over and we would be browsing books from the same shelf. in a kdrama-rique fashion, we would reach out at the same instance to pick out our favourite book respectively - the same book. the rest would be history. this is called a fantasy for an obvious reason.


still into you - paramore 



[2013-2014]

internal monologues, in a time past where i lived in my head a little too much:

26 july 2013: 'i know this is wrong & i should not even be thinking about this but let's be friends?"

16 feb 2014: an internal catharsis - ankles deep in the sea, i set my ideals alight.
"delete, delete, d e l e t e". it was valentine's day that i set aflame my unrequited yearning for a boy with dreamy eyes.

27 june 2014: 'but i keep slipping back bc this pull feels like the gravitation of the full moon - i am the hapless sea that cannot hold itself together, the currents which cannot exert control over themselves - currents which crash against the shore but roll back into their own muck & subsequently carry themselves out to sea again'. i had fallen in too deeply in love with my ideals about love. i could no longer differentiate yearning for love versus yearning for a specific person, instead only knowing how to project my ideals onto a singular person.

sink - qrion



[2015]

this reminds me of freshman year in college. drizzly saturday mornings doing laundry. solitary, melancholic walks where i disconnected and plugged into my own world, wondering if i'd ever have the opportunity to share this richness with anyone else.

18 aug 2015: looking down from my window on the sixth floor, staring intently at the back of my freshman orientation eye candy engaged in a deep conversation with someone else. it was the beginning of a difficult transition phase - the first time moving away from home and into a campus for the next four years, about to reach my threshold for superficial conversations with acquaintances i couldn't care less. and so i wrote: "(i) have this burning desire to walk around the campus at night & dive into a really deep conversation with someone". but really, it was me projecting my acute loneliness from immersing myself in a new environment, onto a face that had seemed palatable amidst the whirlwind of flux.

30 nov 2015: i wrote, 'morning, 6th: i will be there if you ask me to.' until then, it was the closest i had been to experiencing the tip of the iceberg called heartache. i knew i still couldn't call that love, but my feelings had been genuine and pure. i'd also thought an airport send-off constituted closure, a closure that'd been good enough for me. this tune reminds me of this process of head vs. heart, anger vs. sadness, natural goodwill vs. the concerted hardening of heart.

this is what you came for - calvin harris 



[2016]

"and everybody's watching her / but she's looking at you" this was the song playing in the club on a friday night out. the club where i had waited all night to dance with a particular someone. it was the wee hours of the morning and i found myself looking at said person standing in front of me, but he felt like a complete stranger, a different person from who i thought i knew - the person whom i recall made me feel like i was finally more than an afterthought (the evidence? bc he bought me a brownie bar from cheers during his trip to the convenience store with his friends). although i was slightly inebriated, i still remember how i kept searching for his eyes, but he just would not look at me, nor make any effort to dance with me. meanwhile, i noticed from the corner of my eye, boys on the peripheries trying their best to inch closer to me with their ridiculous dance moves. i paid no heed to them. i only had my eyes fixated on this person, but through and through our eyes never locked. i don't remember much of what happened next except for how i had felt then: small, ashamed and extremely confused. i knew i was worth more than all of these, but all i could do then was to throw a closet self-pity party for myself and smile on the outside.



[2016]

6 may 2016: 'i looked up to the ceiling, felt myself effacing into the crowd like smoke dispersing itself on its upward trajectory, half-inebriated, the synergy of bodies chafing against one another to the beat that was drumming so loudly it hurt my ears yet felt so alive in my body it was moving me, arms strewn up, was i imaginary? body to body, packed like sardines - if this were the mrt i would have hated my lot but this was the place where people lost themselves to the collective effervescence of a crowd, lost themselves to their loneliness, lost themselves to insobriety (& impropriety), who are you but it's fine bc i am lonely & in need of company, so this is what it feels like to have somebody to hold - '

"so lost, i'm faded"

i told myself i would dance for my own perceived beauty and self-worth, but the reality was that i had let myself go.

~ to be continued ~

trying to make sense of a reality i still find hard to grasp

out of the blue
they made us part ways and say goodbye.
but how? how do i say goodbye
to faces i've been so accustomed to seeing around?
and how? how do i say goodbye,
knowing that i got to keep afloat -
even when i'd been learning the ropes
from them, from those whose expertise had been
valued, admired and sought,
but not rewarded by the one
whose opinion would have mattered
the most.
instead - tenure abruptly cut short.
gifted nothing but the short end of the stick
for all the late nights poured into oiling slick,
the machinery of this revenue generating machine.
the collective injustice of it all.
when we see ourselves as people,
but they see us as revenue and cost, profit and loss.
numbers to balance on the balance sheet,
meant for the perusal of shareholders, of which
we are all still complicit.

so many faces i'll miss dearly -
they've helped me shaped my first worldview
of how kind "cut-throat" corporate life can be.
they've showed me my growth matters,
my opinion still matters, even if i'm lacking
by virtue of being young.
how even the slight alignment of words on a slide
should be taken seriously, or risk ramifications
of putting my professionalism and work ethic under suspicion.
not forgetting the jokes and animated stories:
they remind me of friendship in a nutshell,
in a place where elsewhere, would have been a foreign concept.

shock has given away to dull sadness, and perhaps numbness.
i really wish we could all stay. i really do.
but i also realise life is an adventure.
we are all carrying luggages headed in different directions,
towards different destinations, with different timelines -
but we were lucky enough to meet for a stopover,
in an airport that had been kind to us
until our next flight out.

goodbye 2019

saying goodbye to another year has always been hard. i think this started back in 2014, right after one of the hardest years of my formative education i.e. the gruelling, "make it or break it" culminating moment of a-levels. back then, it felt like i'd worked too hard that year to say goodbye to it too soon and hit the reset button. i'm not sure if i'm wired in a different way but goodbyes are generally difficult. even if it's to a man-made construct like time, like the turning of a new year. but good things are what make goodbyes so difficult. i'm lucky to have had such a precious year that makes refreshing this already passé chapter incredibly wistful.

2019 was a particularly phenomenal year. just piecing together the one-second moments of my year is enough to make my heart full. the good, the bad, the ugly - they all seem sweet now that they are coloured in the hues of retrospect. akin to disparate jigsaw pieces that each carried their own fragment of a grand picture. when disparate, they didn't make sense - some moments were so wearisome they wore my heart out but i still had to carry them with me nevertheless, until the tidings of time brought good outcomes - outcomes i had yearned for, outcomes that are now past, outcomes that i may take for granted in this moment. i read somewhere that we tend to live for the future, but if only we would pause and realise: we are living in the moments we had so desperately wanted to be in (or the clarity of knowing we'll get here) just a good six months/one year ago. 

denise a year ago would have loved to know that she successfully graduated from college on schedule despite taking a semester off for aws - those insane, consecutive 28mc semesters she got accustomed to but would have loved to run away from in a heartbeat. she would have been ecstatic to know that capstone turned out to be a possible feat to accomplish, after an entire year poured into churning and cutting an academic piece into a 10k individual word thesis. she would have been so proud to know that her capstone advisor became her biggest champion as she presented that synthesised work to the global affairs faculty and her peers (and that her eye-candy prof was smiling and nodding the entire time to her presentation). she would have soared to the moon knowing that she made it to a tech enterprise that has since given her access to such great leaders/mentors invested in her growth, to an eleven-people strong fy20 cohort that has made the transition to working life seem too easy, that she would have visited san francisco on a work trip just to witness how big this company is, to meet with the co-founder and drink the kool aid, and begun her journey towards learning the one thing she had wanted to learn starting her career i.e. gaining client-facing experience. and in terms of love, that she would been able to visit osaka/kyoto and go on a junior-suite royal caribbean cruise with her favourite person. how comforted would she have been, denise from a year ago, to know that everything she had worried about eventually turned out to be not just okay, but blessed beyond expectation? 

i search for words to describe how some moments were so dull or difficult that i could only sit at utown green and find solace in being alone, in faith, in longing and in the in-between. one of the hardest weeks was that week that contained back-to-back the final capstone presentation and concluding round of case presentation & interview for the current company i am in. i never realised senior year would be so tough with the collective pressure of capstone (and bc this is a college that everyone feels the implicit pressure to show up with their best work, it made it all the more harder. yes, capstone was not going to land me a job but i couldn't let it flop - in spite of everything), the terrifying prospect of joblessness upon graduation - made more so pressurising bc i was juggling with almost twice the academic workload of my peers on top of everything. i remember that monday i was literally shrivelling in stress that i could barely eat. i had worked all day on my capstone slides and forgot to eat dinner till it was past nine, so i made myself some tom yum cup noodles. tom yum's my favourite msg flavour, but even so i recall eating one mouthful before puking it back into the cup and throwing the entire thing away. i had shrivelled to the point where my body didn't allow itself to eat. thursday evening was when the weight of those two momentous events lifted off my shoulders. i remember that night fondly: i had dinner with gym bud fred and we bumped into one of the case presentation panel k at the train station - he told me i did a great job, which gave me so much hope. it was drizzling and i dropped by seven-eleven to buy a beer. that night i cracked it open and savoured it (or the victory of ending the week) while slumped in bed, deliberating my performance, anticipating the monday afternoon call that i did not know then carried my offer. but all these are just fond memories now in retrospect. in the moment i felt like i could barely bear it, but that too, did pass. i have a fond memory of my capstone prof (who also became my favourite career advisor and all-in-all bae prof ) meeting and shaking hands with bae saying "i've heard so much about you!" "guess denise's just been shuttling between spending time with us both." "aw cute! i saw she wrote about you in the acknowledgements". date nights with bae (when he was not on month-long overseas exercises) became my weekly respite. they kept me sane and grounded, just like the familiar feeling of coming home. and now we're finally in the same stage in life - after waiting out two good years. we did it, love. we did it, together.

in this year i resolve to do two things: (1) to think of God particularly in fun times (usually those times are when i feel like i don't want Him there) (2) to fiercely protect the part of me that loves to create. work has made me lose that part of myself increasingly, but it is this part of myself that i keep coming back to in order to find myself - it is what makes me feel alive, and feel at home in my own skin. 

writing this from the sun-deck of the royal caribbean cruise ship on my last night here. crescent moon in the pitch black sky, corona in hand, kygo in my ears. solitude and cathartic writing that forces me to think and reflect with greater clarity. am thankful, and this is indeed the best way to end the first day of 2020. 

happy new year folks.