from korea: keeping my head above the water

some days i feel like i am falling deeper into a rut more than others: the discrepancy between what i had envisaged i would begin achieving here juxtaposed against the reality of circumstantial roadblocks; the copious amounts of free time compared to semesters back home; the pressure to make my semester here count when i know that the tuition fees here are a notch cheaper on paper than back at home & i'm being done a disservice with the automatic school fees transfer system here; the inertia to keep trying when everything just looks so bleak - yes i know i know i know i shouldn't blame my environment & i'll be able to make the most out of whatever little opportunities here if i put my mind  to it but how do i get out of this rut i'm feeling??; how hard it is to make authentic friends here as opposed to the wealth of friends i can fall back on back home & have amazing conversations with - not just emotionally uplifting but intellectually as well; i miss feeling intellectually stimulated (& even drained) all the time - how do i deal with the subpar academic courses with hugeass class numbers, (half of my courses having) apathetic and/or arrogant professors constantly disguising their sense of superiority with jokes bordering on crass - who digress their own lesson plans themselves or interrupt students who are trying to express their thoughts with their borderline snarky jokes just to ignite waves after waves of laughter from fellow classmates???? - or even better, ignore their students & leave them feeling completely stupid raising their hands uprightly in class for more than half a minute (& subsequently stifling their voices with the dearth of acknowledgement bc they aren't persistent enough? i would like to believe i am a fighter but now there are days in class where i really do not bother). the lesson plans here are also half-assed bc the profs do not follow closely to the pages they assign - the dates of all my notes are so mismatched bc the notes i take from my readings of that particular day according to the lesson plans are not what is covered during that seminar - but way ahead.

during my semesters back at ync i would curse at the academic rigour of daily 120 page readings in preparation for the next day of classes & continuous back to back class discussions every single lesson but here i feel so starved of quality conversations - of being forced to think on my feet, of feeling like i've been encouraged by my profs to speak up even when i feel my points are lacking, of feeling respected by my professors when i speak up & of feeling validated by my classmates who would bounce off my points & steer the discussion into something value-adding. to be honest i cannot fathom how the quality of education at supposedly one of the topmost tertiary institutions in this country can be so lacking & i feel alittle conned by my expectations of this entire experience almost a month in. i have not even taken into account the biggest part - how hard it has been to be away from the warmth of home & my love, or how they worry for my safety every day bc of the entire nuclear tension issue that has been plaguing the news every two days. i keep coming back to the question if this entire experience is worth it, & i haven't found an answer to that yet.

i started my personal growth journey with new york in the summer of 2016, & learnt that i could thrive in a big, metropolitan city that i speak fluently the language of. in the summer of 2017, i challenged myself to up it a notch - to live alone in a city whose first language was my fourth, & became conversationally eloquent (from a foreigner pov) after a month of assimilating with the spanish people there. i am now on the top rung of my growth ladder - i have settled in to as organic a way of life a foreigner can live here (living off campus in a heartlandish neighbourhood, cooking dinners for myself & going for jogs on the neighbourhood jogging track etc.) & successfully navigated myself alone around a country i (still) do not speak the language of: but why do i still feel so incredibly empty & unfulfilled inside?

but you know what? i'm a fighter. i will search for the beauty of this place, & continue working towards what i desire to accomplish here - anything that will help me continue to grow as an individual, & pave routes into my future.

finally, a break

it's been awhile since i've lit a candle, put on some good o' tunes on my speakers, got myself a glass of choya & wrapped myself under the covers - just to pause & sit in the quietness of the night, to look back at the past few months - remnants of summer 2k17.

two words: thankful & proud.

thankful bc halfway i lost sight of god alittle - one day i awoke forgetting what my new year's resolution even was, when i'd established from the beginning that the crux of this year would be to learn how to walk with god & not in retrospect. there was hardly any linearity in our relationship - a few days to peak & another few days to plateau; coming full circle to first Love, then paying lip service again & inevitably the entire cycle of rinse & repeat. in the eyes of the world, how can binding myself to a Being so seemingly intangible - almost like blind faith, be sexy? or convenient?

in spite of & still, He had & has been faithful.

in my relationships. in panning out my summer plans impeccably. in showing me favour. in blessing me with the camaraderie of new friendships - both abroad & at my short stint at work. in blessing me with wisdom - both godly & secularly. in pointing me towards giant-slayers &/or role models to look towards in my professional life. in grounding my heart to the unchanging anchor - the steadiness that is Him. the word that encapsulates it in mandarin is 踏实. i think that's what god has been for me. where i am & this path that i have treaded thus far - yes indeed i'd worked for them & bloody hard at that, but the final call had always been His. i made my petitions to god & pulled heavenly strings, knowing so steadfastly in my heart the opportunities i were going to get even before i got them. this spanish scholarship. this trip to spain, even when financial difficulties arose (my scholarship money only got credited after my trip). this internship from the moment i reached out via a backdoor that i wasn't even sure was going to work. my upcoming study abroad to korea. doing things with Him meant i knew the places i got put in were & are still divinely ordained. that my personal & professional growth are as important to Him as my spiritual one.

thankful also bc through these past months He has taught me to love like i have never done before. love is patient, love is kind...it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs...it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. love never fails. cliches will always remain cliches until they are searingly felt by the heart. (we will be more than alright, my love, if we always feast our eyes on Him, alright?) i've learnt it is so pertinent to begin the battle knowing which side you're fighting for. for us. in god. always.

proud bc i know what i want to achieve in life & i've thoroughly invested in myself this summer to be inching closer towards that overarching goal. immersing myself in an organically spanish environment. travelling & living alone once again, this time with no familiar faces during my sojourn whatsoever. becoming conversationally eloquent & realising it's possible with practice to think in spanish (rather than consciously translate back & forth from english). reaching out for opportunities via backdoors whom are strangers in themselves. doing real work working people are hired to do. speaking with strangers, vendors, & powerful people over the phone/in person for the projects i handled. doing both the clearing of modular credits (via spanish summer school) & building my skillset in what i believe is the next big thing (via my internship) all in three months. all this while juggling my romantic relationship concurrently with my career goals. afterall, family & career are both equally important to me & i'll like to think i've duly invested in both.

don't know what the next four months will be like re-adjusting to a new country i don't speak the language of at all, but it's when i feel most uncomfortable that i'm growing the most.

five seconds

today a video autoplayed on my facebook feed and it was about the five second rule to success. it talked about how this woman pulled herself out of her depression from hitting rock bottom by imagining she was a rocket on a five second countdown, ready to be launched out into space by nasa. five seconds were all it took to launch herself out of bed after a prolonged period of languishing into nothingness & self-pity. five seconds were all it took to psych herself into believing in life again, & to push her way through the mud. she mentioned that life is an accumulation of all these small decisions - the decision to get out of bed, to starting a fitness routine, to leaping at opportunities career-wise. the window period to tricking your naysayer brain into discomfort (read: growth) is just five seconds.

i think i really needed this reminder this morning. halfway through this summer i think a small part of me fizzled out. until this evening i was still in a lull. i haven't had a proper break since sem 2 started. nor one when it ended & ushered in summer'17. less than a week after my final papers, i had packed my bags and was on a plane to spain - my first sojourn to europe. what little energy i had left from the sem i spent adjusting: abandoning my first language for my fourth, roaming around alone, making new friends & planning my solo trip to madrid. a month later i flew back, rested for a couple of days before immediately diving into my current internship. i still haven't had a proper, prolonged break. it will be only a week and a half after i end before i'll be on a plane to korea for exchange. four months till i'll have approximately two weeks before junior year sem 2 begins.

& yet it never seems enough to me. i vacillate between feeling proud at my personal growth journey & feeling chafed at myself for not doing enough; i have so much potential left that i know i'm not maxing out, but why is there a part of me that is so lazy & doesn't want to move? it is always a struggle between choosing to step out of what's lull & comfortable into scary things that put me on an edge. some of these are small things - like phone screening prospective intern candidates (bc part of my task is to personally find my replacement before i leave), or reaching out to vendors (software companies) providing the omni channel solutions we need. which intern recruits her own intern replacement???? or directly liaises with some big shot ceo of a saas company to demand for the specifications we need before taking them on as our vendor??? sometimes my work is incredulous & alittle scary, but i always need to remember the five second rule - it takes five seconds to trick your brain into action, before it can realise you are doing something that scares the shit out of you. then you'll no choice but to sit & enjoy the ride.

today i had a girl crush moment i thought i had lost from rg days. few things make me so excited as seeing empowered women in the workplace (whom i look up to) band together to trail blaze a palpable vision. to see your girl goals from different time periods & sources work together in real life is such a surreal feeling, but in retrospect should not be all that surprising. talent attracts talent. birds of a feather indeed flock together. you are who (& become who) you work with. it is so important to have people to dream together with. in a sense i am so thankful we live in an age where i have these women to look up to, & hopefully one day other girls at my age will be looking up to an older version of me in the same way too. i may be still lacking in experience & knowledge in so many ways - it took eight years, or past a decade (or even two, or more) for them to get where they are now. my youth may seem like a curse, but it is my asset. i have at least eight years to get to that stage, & get there i will.

an excerpt

love is patient, love is kind...it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. love never fails. there was the heart of the common ground we both had lost, but found as we put ourselves secondary to the Anchor we forgot was (and still is) holding us both. & the lord melted our hardened hearts & shifted our focus from "me", to "us". the notion of us. the notion of us i thought i had internalised until it was put through the trial of fire and refined under flame. let us listen, let me listen & cease to speak. we were finally talking with each other.

so this is what it means to love with the Love You have showered onto us. the Love that is not self-seeking, not easily angered, that is patient and kind, that always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres. a love so unconditional it keeps no record of wrongs, of who gives more, but brings us both back to first principles, to a place where we were both always giving, always understanding, always praying & always loving (before this label of love made us complacent).

now i understand why i love kissing you so much: it is an exclusive action expressing love, reconciliation and oneness. one of the best moments in life felt like last night, when the storm cleared & we sat beneath a sky exploding into fireworks, just having a sacred, ineffable moment with each other.

love is giving the last drop of water, when i'm parched

each time, of our time
we hug ever so tight,
but tight never seems enough.
the moment of silence.
i rest my head on your shoulder, thinking:
i miss you, even
before our day is gone.

the way you've unconsciously started to
spell, just like i do.
lyfe. fud. kickass. okie. tho. 
i can't remember when
you made your way into my heart.
but the night you held me
as i was a crying wreck -
that was the night i could
already say those three words
i'd never uttered before,
to any other counterparts.

i clutch your arm,
koala your side,
drink you in,
trace your collarbones,
& throw my arms around your neck -
how solid the feel of
skin to skin,
head against head,
face to face.
pressed lips
& the way your arms become
my jacket -
wrapping me warm.
eyes closed, praying:
God help me remember
this moment, & the next,
& forever after.

i wear you on my sleeve -
with you,
i wear my heart on my sleeve
& pray for long escalator rides.
your face cupped in my tiny hands -
i wish i could grasp you this concretely
in memories too.

two-thirds of the day i've dedicated to
growing, soaring -
higher, faster, greater, stronger!
explore, invest, hustle -
but i always come home
for the latter one-third
to you,
my homecoming -
irrespective of physical
or imagined form.

i've never known how it's like
to spend both (& full) days
of the weekend on adventures together -
like other couples.

even our relationship
is fraught with geographical distance -
spread across excruciating time frames
& punishing work/personal schedules.
spain. korea. army. even
within our tiny island home,
we're miles apart.

but sometimes, i still catch myself
tearing up -
because finally,
at twenty-one, i think
i know, i really think i do know
what love is.

you are love, who leads me
to the Love,
& whose love makes me
want to love
my loved ones
around me.
just by loving me,
with this genuine heart of yours.

from alicante, spain

learning that homesickness is a place & a person - with the rosy pink afterglow of the setting sun dusting los calles in a romantic light, the solitary stroll back to a home away from home in 23 degree weather, thinking i'll be home if i were here with you - how perfect it would be if we were taking on this journey hand in hand - but i close my eyes, turn on some good o' jay chou & vestiges of you start piecing themselves together again, until i see you lying on my bed back in my college room, until i am able to hold your face concretely in my cupped hands & plant a kiss on your lips. this way, i keep you alive in my head, por siempre, until i'm able to be home again.

but this distance is so important for me (& hopefully for you too), for me to remember that i had and still have a life apart from you. for me to remember how it feels like to have that incendiary feeling of invincibility rising in my chest from throwing myself into foreign, big & small cities that either speak english or almost completely don't, that continual personal growth is probably one of my most important life goals. that i am whole & full, first alone in God & in myself. the beauty of this is that you inhabit my heart but do not compose it, & in doing so 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. & the fact that you continually support my ambitious pursuit of personal goals even though they separate us geographically makes me love you even more - for embodying our first principles established together i.e. as mentioned above.

today, one of my close friends from rg shot me a dm with reference to how she finds my solo travels to faraway foreign countries inspirational & that other people on my feed would think so too, that in doing so i smash the stereotype of what a petite, twenty year old girl can accomplish. if you are reading this, thank you, thank you, thank you. after a week, life here has become so normalised that most of the time i forget that i am here alone, with my family & everyone i love living on (almost) the other end of the globe (new york was literally half but spain's not as bad). it sounds crazy but it's true -  i have to remind myself constantly that this is not normal, that i have become comfortable with the uncomfortable, that i am far more capable than i sometimes give myself credit for. that i have & am actually conceptualising a vague longing to learn spanish in the country of its origin ever since i embarked on learning this language. that i am now proficient enough to have very substantial & entertaining conversations with my host & her partner - about how corrupt spanish politicians are, unemployment particularly amongst youths, differences in cultures, how male chauvinistic this language is (which she didn't realise but later agreed with me) & about politics in sg etc. there are still hiccups in my grammar here & there but i am picking up things as i go along. sometimes this still feels like a dream, & i am so privileged to be able to partake in such an experience w/o predominantly spending my parents' $$$. i cannot wait to piece together a video of all the clips i took/have taken for posterity. i want to be able to look back on my youth & not harbour a tinge of regret, but feel immensely proud for achieving big things at a young age. so here i am, turning 21 in two days, by myself in a country i speak the fourth language of. so here i am, hoping for a more fruitful summer'17 over a summer'16 that's hard to beat in every aspect.

you - a homecoming

fell asleep on your sturdy chest while drifting off into a subconscious blur on the train ride after a blessed brunch of poached eggs & smoked salmon, how herculean your chest felt as you cradled the side of my head with your cautious hand, the crevice of your neck leaning into mine, how safe, how sound, how dreamily i smiled as landon pigg's falling in love at a coffee shop became backdrop in our ears - the one tune that had made me want to fall in love in rj days, how blessed i was to be able to listen to it once again - this time with someone who makes me feel like i will be safe in his loving arms, even with the walls crumbling all around me - with you, in your arms.

i thought the romantic in me died when my heart kept getting broken by the reality of boys who were never careful enough, but you bring out that side of me again, the latent writer & poet who finds beauty in the expression of feelings into words, so that i can paint a picture of you not only in visions but also in words. how ironic, that you deal with numbers and scientific terms better than poetry & art, that you are able to make me feel more connected with the innate humanistic psyche that got gradually lost along the way until i didn't want to write anymore bc there was nothing joyful worth writing about - only pain & sadness that had to be catharcised, letters to myself that had to be set alight & reduced to ashes. but you who affirm me, who not only celebrate my joys with me but also carry my burdens, who uplift me & lead me to the One Thing not only in brokenness but even in the little things - you who are willing to have both mindless & necessary conversations with me, you who always do things not for yourself, but for "us" -

you who unlock the girlish, soft side of me while continually supporting the fiercely ambitious facet of my personality that needs to soar in my own personal & professional life - it is you who are my homecoming, the sturdy reel of the kite that is me.