Shots of Awe.

To be an adult is to figure out the parameters that allow you to be a kid again.

Always.

If you ever wake up, and think that no one needs you, I need you. 

If you ever wake up, and think that there's no love, I will always love you. 

If you ever wake up, and can't find your purpose, I will hold a candle and help you find it. 

If you ever wake up, and don't know who or why you are, I can tell you. 

If you ever wake up, and don't know why you bothered, I will remind you. Please remember me, and let me give you reasons.

The Tension Between Who You Are

You want to be so many things. I always thought you would settle down one day and be ok with just being who you are. And what kind of monster would I be, to ask you to want to be less? Maybe wanting to be so many things, is just who you are.

How little they think of you.

I’m reminded once again on why Before Sunrise franchise is one of my all-time beloved movies. The characters are as real as you and me, and importantly the dialogues really touch me in a way that very few movies can.

When a movie speaks to you on such a personal level, it’s really quite something else. Especially for a hopeless romantic like me who loves words and finds meaning in every little detail. There are so many quotes from the movie that I love so much, but in this instance I would like to share one quote that resonates well with me.

“You know what’s the worst thing about somebody breaking up with you? It’s when you remember how little you thought about the people you broke up with and you realize that is how little they’re thinking of you. You know, you’d like to think you’re both in all this pain but they’re just like “Hey, I’m glad you’re gone.” 

I think it doesn’t just apply to romantic relationship, but also to friendship. You would think that when two people fall apart, we both would suffer the loss equally. But no, that’s not the case.

Sometimes I value my friendship too much, or I put too much expectation to it, I’ll just end up getting disappointed because it turns out that the other person just doesn’t give a fuck.

But then when everything is said and done, and you’re left with the loss of friend.. and you find yourself missing them, and think to yourself that they must miss this friendship too.. well, guess what, they probably don’t.

It’s just like that dialogue from the movie. That’s how little they think of you. And it hurts, it does. But reality hurts, and I’d rather deal with reality, no matter how sucky, than live in daydream illusion that the other person cares.

Growing away

When I look at you, I can see the person you used to be drowning in the person you are. And it makes me nostalgic and sad because I know when you look at me, you must see the same thing.

How I took part (and finished) my very first marathon.. (ever)

Last Sunday, I took part in my very first marathon!

"Whaaaaat?" I can hear all of you screaming in disbelief.

"But.... it can't be! You are the laziest, most unfit person I know!" Yes, I can still hear that!

Honestly (and shamelessly), it's true. What do you expect from a girl whose favourite past-time is sleep, and favourite day is Sunday just because she can sleep some more?

But hey, this year is all about change, right?

And I'm at that point where I feel that things are going well for me. Having a change of job this year is a huge positive step, and I'm truly happier, more aggressive than ever to do things that are normally out of my comfort zone.

So when I came across Great Eastern Marathon and one of my colleagues persuaded me to take part, I was like "Oh yes baby! This is for the new and improved Tina!" and before I knew it, I've signed up for 10km.

I thought I would have trained for it, but I didn't. Oh wait, I did, once. I ran and walked mostly for about 6km, and the second training never happened because oh well, life happened.

*Dramatic pause*

Next thing I knew, I was sent to Jakarta for over a month, and the race was nearing, in fact it was just a week away when I finally remembered that I haven't been exercising at all!

But it was too late to back out and besides, in my mind I was like, "How bad can it be?" So being an overconfident person (overcompensating for the fact that I really am not fit at all), I went to the race with 0 training. It was the first time I put on my running shoes after probably 2 months. Ha!

Before the race, having serious "Wtf, what am I thinking?" moment.

But hey, the fact that I'm writing this, 2 days after the race, means that I am still alive! Yay! And I completed the race with flying colors! (I'm also the teacher who passes the flying color mark) And although now my whole body is sore, and I'm walking with a limp, I feel really happy and proud that I did it! I would never think that I would be able to run 10km in my current state.

Mind over matter, baby.

The race was a fun experience. There were tens of thousands of people participating, and it's indeed encouraging to have so many people running around you; you can't be the only one slacking, can you?

Tina, time to hide your true color. Act like you're so into running!  

But seriously, there were times I had to stop running and did a slow-jog or brisk-walk instead, but overall I think I did okay and I enjoyed it! It was fun coming to different checkpoints, each km brought a wide grin over to our faces, and really, when you were in the moment, you couldn't even have thought of quitting. The energy was awesome!

And look, before I knew it, I completed it! (Not really, actually I knew it very, very clear) 

So that's the story of how I managed to do my very first marathon. I even have the medal to prove it! :)

Hey, if a lazy Tina can run for 10km, millions of life's possibilities are now within reach!

Kids! Go out there and explore! Be a scientist! Go to space! Learn dothraki! Anything's possible!

Lessons.

In recent years, I have learnt to appreciate genuine friends as they truly are. When we were younger, having a lot of friends was everything, don't you remember at how we used to measure one's popularity by seeing how many friends they have on Facebook? How vain can we be?

I come to treasure a few gems in my life who are not just convenient friends, or accidental friends, or even fake and superficial ones; but real, sincere and caring friends whom I know I can always turn to in times of need.

They may not be someone whom you meet every day or even every other week. But I think that's how you really know.

So let's cheer to our real friends whom are unaffected by life's circumstances.

Adventures in Jakarta

So yeah, life happens.

Long story short, I've had the opportunity to work in Jakarta for a temporary basis and hey, I can bitch about it, or I can be positive and have fun while I'm at it!

My best friend got married too! Timing of all timing, it was a beautiful experience to be a part of it! I'm now back in Singapore, but I won't see the last of Jakarta. Bring me more good food and cheap massage!

What touches you lately?

Sometimes a song can touch your heartstring and make you feel all sorts of emotions, and when that happens, it's just beautiful. 

For me, any songs from Sam Smith just frikking do it. If you haven't heard his songs, you totally should stop reading this junk and quickly start looking him up on youtube, trust me. 

He reminds me of Adele - but just better. His vocal is incredible - he has such a range too and it is thick with emotions. I find myself being very sad sometimes when I hear his songs - but that exactly what his songs are about, so I think that's really powerful.

My favorite at the moment is his track's called "Leave Your Lover". It's a song about a man's desperate plea in loving someone and begging that person to leave their lover for him. It's honest, heartbreaking, and really beautiful. Other tracks worth mentioning are "Lay By Your Side", "Latch" and of course "Stay With Me", but I've listened to his album and all his songs are equally great and it's definitely one killer album you have to hear it for yourself.

What's NEW this month?

1. NEW nail colors!

The inspiration? Passion! Because red is striking and purple is elegant.. and glitters? Well, they are fun and sparkly, just like moi! (cough cough)

2. NEW hair color!

Earlier this month I finally dyed my hair lighter! A few years ago I decided to go black, but I think lighter color suits me better, so I went ash-copper brown. It's not terribly light, but bright enough that my curls looked better under the light and I love it!

3. NEW experience!

I had the opportunity to go to Kuala Lumpur for training in our KL office and it was awesome! It's always great experiencing another culture in different branch and just see how the team works and it's truly inspiring. It made me feel proud to be a part of this big family and I'm grateful to be able to play my part in spreading more love to singles out there!

4. NEW friends!

During my visit, I got to meet the KL team and they are so friendly and welcoming too! I think on normal circumstances, we don't really get the chance to meet them in person and during retreats, usually only the managers come around. So it's really great meeting everyone there and thank you for your 'northern' hospitality!

5. NEW motivation

Let's make it happen.

Toodles!

To Someone.

Dear You,

Glad to know you're doing well, thanks for reaching out and saying hello. I know it's been a while! And I know you're happy now, I hope you could look back and remember our memories in nothing but fondness too. That's all I want!

One of the most important lesson that I learnt from knowing you and having spent all the time that we have, is that it is okay to trust someone again. Never judge a book by its cover, never assume and lay judgment on people when you haven't made the effort to get to know them.

You were my wild card. I thought that you would be one way - but you proved to me otherwise. You were nice and caring and funny and truthful and gentle. Despite your sarcastic and nonchalant front, I think you are genuine and lovely and I feel lucky to have known you. 

So, whoever you are with now, I think she is lucky to have you and I know that you are truthful and loyal and caring to her too, if not more. Continue on being yourself and enjoying life and laughing your silly laughs and... keep on loving!

xx

Me

Colors!

Hope you week has been great! If not, check out my awesomely bright dress (which oddly looks so much like a cheongsam here!) When all else fails, look a brighter colors!

Quickie about the new Transformers movie!

So here are some of my thoughts after watching Transformers: Age of Extinctions:

1. Oh Michael Bay, you did it again!

2. Those scenes - panoramic view of a wide open space against the orange, sunset sky and killer soundtrack.. seen them in past Transformers movies, see it again here. I'm pleased to see those!

3. Mark Wahlberg was born for this role - he's just perfect in here!

4. Those Autobots! 

5. OMG, the cars!

6. Love, and I mean LOVE the slow-motion scenes during intense battle action! It's signature Transfomers too to capture the transforming action and fighting scenes in slow-mo! It's just soooo cool, I'm a complete sucker!

7. Oh, I wish the Dinobots had more scenes in the movie, because they are badass! 

8. Bumblebee is still so cute and endearing as ever.

9. Some parts in the middle are kinda draggy and the story isn't the best overall. 

10. But then again, I'm still thoroughly entertained by this movie! So much explosions, so much adrenaline, I expected nothing less!

Here is a picture of me being all fangirl in front of the 3D movie poster!

So my verdict? Well if you love Transformers for the same reason I do: for the action, you will definitely love this too! I'm not very familiar with the characters, so I can't really make any critics - you have to ask my boyfriend on that. And trust me, he has A LOT of comments about the loop holes in the movie, but if you ask me, I wasn't thinking of any loop holes because I was too busy being excited to see Optimus Prime save the day once more!

Where I want to be...

Clear, blue skies.

Soft romantic clouds.

A space full of people speaking in foreign language.

Colorful bricks.

Hair swept by the cool winds.

... That's where I want to be.

Living life!

It's been a whirlwind of activities and business these past few weeks! I'm really enjoying my work tho, although it can be overwhelming sometimes. I think the secret to cope with everything is just to keep a positive mindset, and instead of looking at it as obstacles, think of it as challenges and goal that you can achieve!

Anyway I'm so grateful for my new colleagues and also friends who keep me happy and motivated just by being there! It's important to keep a balance too, you work hard and you gotta have fun! 

I'm looking forward to having my elder sister back in Singapore! She has been away in Australia for the past 1.5 years and I'm so excited to have her back! She still is my best friend and closest confidante, it's truly a blessing to have a sister that is also your friend. At least you can't shake her off even when you have arguments! Right?

I think from now on I have to focus more on doing things that I enjoy too. I'm glad that I have made more time to meet old friends and reestablish connection with people that I have lost in touch with. I think working close to town has a lot to do with being able to do that. I promise that I won't take them for granted anymore. 

I think this post is so random, I don't really know what I'm getting at, but hey who cares right? It's great to just be able to write at my heart's desire. For those of you who don't know, I have another blog that I share with my sisters: www.threeof1kind.wordpress.com. I'm making a mental note to write more in there too, but yes you should check it out if you like reading about travel, food, photography, pretty clothes and basically just happy things!

On that note, I'll see you soon and hope that you're doing great too, wherever you are! Remember, happiness is a choice!

Our catch-up dinner!

If you're lucky, colleagues become much more than just colleagues! These are the people who made my years so much fun and meaningful!

Zade.

I have a feeling that if you ever truly let yourself go, you might fly.

A rant on "your life's calling".

In the days that I doubted my own capabilities, when I wondered whether I'm doing what I'm supposed to, God lent me a hand through helpful advice from people around me.

The truth is, only a handful of people can be truly certain of their dreams. Sometimes, we don't even know our own aspirations, or our life's greatest purpose aside from the generic need "to be happy". I'm definitely one of those people. I'm one of the people who sometimes find myself in a meaningless job with no motivation or satisfaction. I'm one of those people who sometimes lay awake at night wondering if I'm gonna spend the rest of my life feeling like this.

I envy people who have extraordinary skills, like my good friend Elsa who is a piano maestro, or those who can confidently say, "ever since I was a kid, I've always loved singing, so this is what I want to do for the rest of my llife." Or even those folks who can fix computers, talk gadgets, play video games and become really, really good at it. Wouldn't it be easy if each one of us is blessed with one extraordinary skill?

My problem is that I dabble on every little things all over the place, and I end up not getting really good at anything. I took organ class, art and drawing class, cooking lessons, did scouts throughout my school years; tried diving and rock climbing, learned Chinese, and other nonsense but always stopped halfway because... I didn't think they were for me. I stopped doing things before I even got the chance to see if I were gonna be any good at them.

I've always known I have a short attention span, but this is just ridiculous. I think out of everything that I have tried doing, the only few things that stuck with me 'til now is how much I like writing, traveling and sharing my experience. But even those things I can't do consistently and something always seems to get in the way.

In short, I think I'm someone who likes to always keep moving. Maybe not forward, more like sideways until I end up getting lost. And in those times, when I questioned myself whether 'marketing' is my forte (being in this line of work for 4 years now - which seems short in a span of a lifetime, but long when you come to think of those years spent of almost half your 20s), my sister said to me that it's really okay to feel this way, But don't just stop and admit defeat. Instead, continue dabble and figure out your true passion, While at it, try to do your best in marketing, or in whatever your line of work is. Because until you find something else that you can be really good at, who knows what you are capable of now?

Suddenly the song from Pocahontas crossed my mind:

How high will the sycamore grow? 

If you cut it down, then you'll never know.

I think, eventually only a few people in the world were born with an extraordinary skill. I think most of them achieve then through hard work and dedication.

And another quote I would like to share with you is something from my new boss:

Never stop learning. The day you stop learning is the day you stop growing.

So, dabble away and find your true talent.

Or at least, don't ever stop trying.

Loves.

As we grow up, we realize it is less important to have lots of friends, and more important to have real ones.

Hello May!

It's been a while. Hello! I've missed you, blog. And what better way to start writing again than in this brand new month where change happens? Changes! I believe in changes! Tina for President, y'all!

Okay, just because I keep yelling 'changes!' doesn't exactly qualify me to be the next Obama, but hey, I'm embracing changes for once. If you know me at all, I'm usually terrified of changes and surprises. But because it's the new month and all, well, let's try to change that mentality, shall we?

Of course this has nothing to do with the fact that I'm starting a new job tomorrow in 4 years. How am I feeling, you ask? Well, honesty? Nervous. Very nervous and excited at the same time. After being a senior, I'm back to being the newbie who doesn't know where people keep their papers! You know what I mean right?

I'm also excited for that, though. I'm looking forward to the things I can bring to the table, to the changes and ideas that I can offer, to the new colleagues and supervisors that I'm going to work with. And most of all, I'm excited for the new challenges and opportunities in the months and years to come. I am!

I guess having these butterflies in my stomach is normal. I am looking at the positive side of things and I believe that the next job will be better. Now, will you ride along this new journey with me?

I will try my best to update this space more often. I'm sure I have a lot more stories to tell, and I will have more time on hand too (hopefully) because the office is quite nearby and I won't spend 3 hours of commuting every single day, so I think I will be more productive and efficient with my time.

So let's raise our glass and cheers to change!

Stranger.

Have you ever felt like you're losing someone? Like, having known someone so well and suddenly realizing that you don't know that person anymore? You think about the 101 different possible reasons, but in the end, you just come down to the conclusion that maybe that person is going to a complete opposite direction and you're not willing to follow.

I'm still the same old me, yet you are no longer you. Maybe it's the company you keep, maybe it's the environment that's changing you. But you are responsible for your own action, and regardless of the people around you, you are the one making decisions for your own life, and nobody else is in charge but yourself.

Change is about to happen.

There's a reason why I always order the same thing whenever I go to a restaurant. 

I'm scared of change.

Now, it's not such a good quality to have, because not only it makes me very boring and predictable, but also that means that it gets too easy for me to be stuck in my own comfort zone, not moving at all. Sometimes I need a push. Something or someone to remind me not to stop going forward.

It took me a while to get here, but I made a promise to myself at the start of this year that I will make a major change in my life. Because when I looked back to the things that I've done and achieved last year, I'm not happy. I'm not happy being where I am now, and I realized that if I don't do something about it, I will be in this exact same position 5 years down the road and wonder, why the heck am I doing here? 

This year is going to be good on me, I know it. And that push finally happened, and I'm more determined than ever to make a change even though it's scary. It's scary stepping out from what's familiar to uncharted territories. But it's necessary in order to grow. And I know that it's about time.

At the end of the day, what's important is your happiness. What's the point of staying if it's not even rewarding anymore? Doing something day by day just because you have to. There has to be something in it than that.

I'm scared but excited. But baby, bring it on.

No one deserves secondhand love

Don’t settle for secondhand love, for the friend who was there all along. Don’t settle for the one who stuck around regardless just because you knew they would. Just because you knew they would answer your texts late at night, laugh at your jokes, and call you on your bullshit doesn’t mean you love them. Not in that way. Settling for secondhand love wouldn’t be fair to them.

Don’t settle for a friend because it’s convenient, or because you know it will make them happy. Don’t say your heart’s in it when it’s not. It would be cruel to give them false hope, to make them think you’ll change your mind. Logically, you could, because on paper, it makes sense. You make sense together. You could grow to love them the way they want you to, but chances are you won’t.

Emotions and logic aren’t the same thing, and they never could be. And they’ll still hope that things may be different, that you’ll feel differently about them in time, but you both know that isn’t going to happen. You know they deserve more than your resignation, and they’ll think that you shouldn’t have to settle for them, because friends don’t like to see their friends settle. And you’ll both know you agree.

There are always going to be those people we keep around because it’s convenient for us. Because it’s easy to put them on the back burner, to place them within arm’s reach, because we know they’ll stay there and be content with at least the hope that maybe one day, we can get a little closer, as long as they stick it out and pay their dues. There are always the people who we think would make a decent worst-case scenario, and who are reassured by the idea that even though they’re our safety net, we’re their first choice. There is comfort in ego and in knowing you’re wanted. There’s a freedom in the knowledge that somebody will still be there, even after all is said and done.

They will want to reassure you, to comfort you, to be there. But instead of settling for them, you should let them go.

They deserve more than being your runner-up, though it wasn’t your intention to treat them poorly. They deserve someone who doesn’t want to lose them, who will go to the ends of the earth to keep them in their lives. We all deserve someone who thinks we’re the first choice—not just that we’re the best possible option or that there was no other choice, but that any other option didn’t even stand a fighting chance. But when you let someone settle for you, when you wait until they’re ready and they’ve decided and everything is on their terms, there’s always the nagging suspicion that maybe you’re still not quite everything they want. They will resent you for that suspicion. It’s better to let them go.

And you will miss them, of course, just like they’ll miss you. You will mourn, but there’s nothing wrong in that. And they will still check their phone for your texts at all the usual times, and you’ll force yourself to delete their number, and they’ll steer clear of your neighborhood, but still, you’ll each find a way to heal. They will wonder how they could have changed themselves for you. But if you had validated them, if you had let them become something they’re not for your love and for choosing them conditionally, they would have resented you anyway. And if you choose who someone is trying to be over who they really are, you will resent yourself, too.

It will take time, and you will wonder if you did something wrong, if it really wouldn’t have been settling after all. But no one wants to come in second place to the idea of who they are.

Don’t settle for someone because it’s easy, because they’ve come ready-made, because they already love you. There’s more to life than what’s simple and convenient and available. There’s struggling, striving, and holding onto the silly, inane, naive hope that maybe something perfect exists after all. And when you find something perfect, if you find someone perfect, they won’t be an ideal, of course, because no one is without their flaws. But there is bound to be someone who will be right for you in that moment. They will be what you’re looking for.

Don’t settle for someone just because it’s time you made a choice, and they just happened to be there the whole time. A person’s heart isn’t a consolation prize. Don’t settle for them because they’ve been there all along. No one deserves secondhand love.