Goodbye 2014

Some things never change, do they?

Comfortably seated at a cafe on the 2nd last day of the year, once again, attempting to pen down a list of resolutions for the new year ahead. Hopefully, I'll achieve some of them this time?

1. Complete Project X
2. Pick up a new skill
3. Read more
4. Learn how to write an app
5. Get toned! (slowly but steadily ok...)
6. Become an Excel Wizard (hahahaha)
7. Write my own songs
8. Travel far
9. Get back to photography

Enough for now - should be pretty attainable I hope? Right, hopefully the new year brings exciting times ahead.

What a random post anyway hahaha. Happy Holidays all!

Midnight cries. No one to hear / see me but my new fluffy pillows and quilt to hide under when the eyes get teary.

Hearing the affirmation just makes it worse.

Fuck how bad this hurts.

Almost is Never Enough.

Sometimes, I wish I had that tenacity and courage to fight for what I truly want. Or what I think I truly want.

In more ways than one.

Even If It Leads Nowhere.

"So tell me, how has your life changed?"

"It's like I no longer feel that void in my life anymore. That emptiness... it's gone."

"Don't you ever feel that same void in you too?"

100 Things I Want to Do Before I Die

Saw this somewhere on another blog; decided to do this for keepsakes (or purely just out of amusement).

For future reference:

Achieved - 24/100

1. Visit the Maldives and bask in the crystal clear waters. (or even lay on one of those hammocks with a book + cocktail in hand)
2. Have a picnic right in front of the Eiffel Tower
3. Stand at the top of the Eiffel Tower with the love of my life
4. GO TO THE BIG APPLE (New York, to those who are not familiar with the nickname). Stand in the middle of Times Square and just to soak in the moment.
5. Take up a photography course in London/New York
6. Take the rides at Six Flags!
7. Attend a Full Moon Party @ Koh Phangan
8. Visit Machu Picchu, Peru
9. Go canoeing/kayaking once again!
10. Roadtrip in Aussie (Melbourne / Perth)
11. White Water Rafting
12. Scuba Diving
13. Attempt Laser tagging
14. Go to Cape Town, Africa
15. PRAGUE.
16. Run a marathon. (maybe someday I'll really be crazy enough to do this)
17. Attempt paragliding
18. Try out helmet diving in Boracay
19. Publish my own photography site
20. Travel Italy (Rome, Venice, Florence etc)
21. Attend Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany
22. See the Northern Lights!!!!! (Aurora Borealis T.T)
23. Visit Tokyo again to see the Cherry Blossoms. (without everyone hounding me about the risk of radiation)
24. Go skiing at Hokkaido
25. Take part in a singing competition
26. Attempt bungee jumping
27. SKYDIVING.
28. Travel Greece, Santorini
29. Ride in a hot air balloon
30. Buy a decent microphone and properly record a song cover!!
31. Compose a song of my own
32. Get a biking license (although I know this will never be striked off the list cos of Mom's objections :( )
33. Get a tattoo
34. Go to Bali (Yes I haven't.) 35. Stay in Montigo for a night. (Lie at the rooftop and star gaze/chill)
36. Attend Coachella Music Festival!!!
37. ZOUKOUT. (Procrastinating year to year)
38. ATTEND TOMORROWLAND, BELGIUM
39. Club at least once in Seoul
40. Go back to Taiwan again (the last I went was when I was 14)
41. Attend a wine-tasting session/class
42. Successfully bake a set of macaroons!!! (failed terribly the last time hahaha)
43. BUSK (at least once).
44. GET ABS HAHAHAHA
45. Drive a sports car
46. Take barista classes
47. Attempt Project365
48. DRINK TEA. (Don't ask.)
49. Go to the trampoline park @ Tanjong Katong!
50. Upgrade my DSLR
51. Fully pay for a retirement trip for my parents
52. Flying First Class
53. Master the French language (pity I didn't pick up right where I left off in Y1...)
54. Rent a villa with a private pool with my future partner
55. Befriend a random stranger
56. Watch a movie all by myself.
57. Experience a proper sunset.
58. Code and develop my own mobile app.
59. Go vegan for a week.
60. Reconnect with XXX, from my past.
61. Visit a castle in England.
62. Road-tripping in New Zealand
63. Visit Cappadocia
64. Ride a yatch
65. See Holland in bloom
66. AMSTERDAM
67. Conduct a photoshoot underwater
68. Buy a random stranger a cup of coffee
69. Walk barefoot in the rain
70. Dye my hair ash blonde
71. Cliff jumping
72. Visit the Niagara Falls
73. Gamble once at the casinos in Las Vegas
74. Live abroad for at least a month
75. Attend either a Xtina/ Jessie J/ Bruno Mars/ Jay Chou concert onceee
76. Try a flaming lambo
77. Master basic DJ skills with a turntable
78. Attempt a Beef Wellington
79. Prepare a really well-seared ribeye/fillet mignon
80. COOK A REALLY MEAN CRAB DISH
81. Get a belly button piercing
82. Try out one of the celebrity chef restaurants in London/NYC
83. Climb a mountain
84. Speak fluently in another language (not Chinese/Eng)
85. Successfully learn blading
86. Ride a limo for a night hahahahaha
87. Ride a tandem bike
88. Sleep in a hammock
89. Relearn the electric guitar
90. Spend the night in an underwater hotel
91. Try dining in the dark (eg. NOX)
92. Watch a movie as a couple with those couple seats! 
<3 br="">93. Write a letter to myself and reading it after a year
94. Make my own time capsule
95. Get serenaded (hahahah corny shit)
96. Rent a car and road trippin' in Hawaii!!!!!
97. Releasing sky lanterns in Shifen, Taiwan
98. Midnight biking/jogging at ECP
99. Make a difference in someone's life.
100. And last but not least, find the love of my life. hahahahahahahahaha.

Today.

is the day I dread most every year.

There's some morbid sense to it, but I'd always thought that this was like a countdown to the end of my life, an expiration date to a good part of my memories, and a reminder of my inadequacy. Whatever.

Somehow, life always seems to throw a series of bad events my way on this very day yearly. Hence, this time, I've taken the liberty to call it a break from office/work. Made some decent plans for the day ahead, but I really do not have faith in my luck on this day every year.

We'll see.
23 hours left to go whoopeee.

(Got yelled at by the mom while drafting this. What immaculate ironic timing you have, Life.)

The Ocean's Song

xx

And it haunts me just a little every time I close my eyes.

Georgetown 2014

Finally got about to posting up the photos for Georgetown - all I can say is that it was the best 55 hours spent in the UNESCO World Heritage region. Randomly decided to take a solo exploratory tour around Georgetown some time back in Feb, mainly to visit the Camera Museum (which the sis bf invested in) and to also finally witness the street murals done up by Ernest Zacharevic for myself before it all fades away with time. So much love for the whole experience.

Thank you for being such a gem, Georgetown. I'll definitely be back someday.

Phantoms

Don't let the ones that want to steal your dreams,
They'll steal your dreams away,
Just laugh and let it go.

Haven't blogged in ages, but thought I'd post a short one here - simply because I can't think of any other alternate channel to vent this pent-up frustration.

These few weeks have gone by in a blur. I cannot remember when was the last time I ever felt so jaded. Dejected, jaded, panicky, angry, angst, upset, then jaded all over again. Life should not be this way, especially not at this stage of my life. Wish I can fast-forward to the end of May, when all my troubles can be temporarily eased then. But no, time is not kind, and mayhem floods this troubled mind. So till then, the only solution is to suck it in and hang on - cos' “Grit is a tenacious strength to hold tight, dig in and push back when it matters the most.” May this week be a better and more enlightening week.

When You’re The Girl Who Never Falls In Love

(Extracted from Thoughtcatalog, written by Charlotte Green.)

When you’re the one who has crushes, who thinks it might work, who stretches out an imaginary life with someone for years on end, but who never really makes it happen, you know it. You know that there is something wrong with you, that you can’t just have a normal relationship where two people fall into place and everything is happy ever after. Even when someone does fall for you in return, you immediately pull away, so sure that anyone who loves you couldn’t be someone you’d want to be with.

Maybe it’s because you never fell in love with yourself, never saw yourself the way others can, never made a real list of all your best qualities and forced yourself to read it. Maybe you thought love was just never in the cards because there are so many better things to do in life — travel, career, friends, new restaurants to try — and you kept putting it off again and again. And now, here you are, older than you thought you would be when you were in your “forever” relationship, and totally alone.

You don’t know how to fall in love. You don’t know what happens after the first few good dates, where it can actually go, except one of two places: Either you desire the person deeply because they withhold everything real for you, or you lose all respect for them because they want to be with you for real. There is never a third option, never a healthy one, never something that you can hold onto. You think you’ve been in love, maybe, but you’ve never really fallen. You’ve never held someone as the both of you let go completely.

You ask yourself all the time if you’re missing out, if your friends know that you’re making it up as you go when you’re all talking about the weddings and children and lives with someone that you want. You don’t know if you want it, because you don’t know if it’s possible. You don’t know if anything is particularly wrong with you, you just know that there is a storyline of love that everyone else gets to follow except for you. There is a secret club out there for people who have figured out how to fall in love, and you don’t know the password.

So you keep trying. You sign up for online dating and you let your friends set you up and you hope that one of these days, everything will change and you will get to live the kind of love that you have always imagined will happen in your “adult” life. You keep hoping that you won’t finish your life as the girl who couldn’t find love, as the girl who couldn’t let herself truly fall, the girl who only loved the people she knew would never love her back. Because being alone is okay today, when there is so much else to do, but one day you know you will be tired — and all you’ll want to do is hold someone.

To Remember.

In a world where so much is right,
But so much is wrong.

Of Well-Worn Strings and Better Things.

A bunch of my faves from the mini adventure we had that day. Haven't had such a carefree day in a while :)

“Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you - sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.”