What is enough space?

I feel single, even when I am attached.

When I can't take it anymore, it's time to say good bye.

SEP

They say you have a lot of fun on SEP, you play three or four times harder than you study. If they were referring to the hardcore partying, then I can only be very disappointed because for some reason, I don't enjoy that anymore.

I came to Stockholm with two friends. One of them was a good friend I met since year one. For reasons that I am not quite sure of except that I was oversensitive and I take things too seriously, I am no longer hanging out with them.

Being here all alone, and feeling very alone is crushing me. And I'm letting it affect my relationship. Right now, I walking on thin ice. The thin thread between me and my boyfriend could snap anytime. I wish, I wish, I could be stronger.

Mood Swings

I have officially become menopausal and totally unattractive. Mood swingsss... I try not to show it to my friends, but I am like an open book, it's extremely easy to know how I feel- it's written all over my face.

And honestly, the packing, the admin stuff, the module mapping is frustrating me. I feel annoyed. Everyone asks if I am excited, ehh, the hassle is zapping every bit of my enthusiasm away I think.

In any case, I have learnt a lot from the people around me recently. A friend told me, "To gauge/measure the success of an organisation, you see the number of people who turn up for unofficial events, not the official events."

To him, NES was a big failure. The leads/president/vice president only bonded with the directors and the executives bonded among themselves.

However, to the last president, she felt that if she could choose again, she would have focused on expanding NES, such that NES can stand on it's own, and not rely too much on its flagship project. Given that the management committee changes every year, I think she did the right thing given the situation.

Alright, I am moooooody.

moving on

there's been a lot of unresolved issues lately and it makes me upset.

i know the only solution is to walk away, only two willing parties can find a solution together. because the other party is a douche, i really want to walk away.

but i get distracted, i check my phone, i wait for text messages.



pathetic is me.

back from san fran

i blogged a really long post about my unhappiness with my cca a couple of days ago, and my cat had to jump on the ac wire, and pull the plug out of my lappie, and now everything's gone.

I have a NYC -national youth council report to write because they gave us some money for the trip. Honestly, I was the only one who didn't take down notes. Hah, what do you expect? I am the organiser. I didn't sign up to learn more about entrepreneurship.

I am living quite a charmed life right now. I am totally in the vacation mood right now. I wake up, have breakfast, chat online, watch Sex and the City, talk nonsense to my grandma, have lunch at Dempsey, dinner at Clark Quay, drinks at Dragonfly, late night movie with the sister and favourite cousin, wine at a friend's place. Life is so blissful, if only my bank account has an inexhaustible reserve.

I am not quite sure what has gotten into me, I am giving my neighbour's son tuition for ten bucks an hour, I seriously can't bear to charge them any more than that. Every monday, I will be giving tuition at Boys' Town, foc, voluntary work. And yes, if I keep on doing this, the world will be a better place to be.

Maybe San Francisco changed me. I hate to give a day by day account of what happened, who we met, what we ate etc, but I will list down the things that could have possibly changed me.

1. There was one day where we had to run around, complete tasks like buying a beggar a meal, and asking about his/her life story, ask an immigrant for his/her proudest achievement, buy THE famous fortune cookies from Chinatown and give it to strangers.. I spoke to an old lady who came from Beijing. She's a Fa Lun Gong member, she was arrested a few years ago in Beijing but was released. She lived in fear when she was in Beijing, she couldn't let her relatives or neighbours know. But over in San Fran, the Fa Lun Gong members could promote their religion as freely as they liked, and they are even protected by the police. What amazed me about these people was not their escape. It was their faith. To let people know about them, they published their own daily newspapers, foc. I asked them where they go their funding: from members' donations, advertisements and the editors, writers, photographers who are probably members of that organisation/society/religion contributed without collecting a single cent. It's not just about having faith, it's also putting time, effort and money in something so intangible.
   
   
   
2. One of the tasks was to go to Castro Street and ask someone about Proposition Eight. Castro Street is like the gay street, gay rights activist, politician Harvey Milk starting fighting for gay rights there. There are Rainbow flags everywhere, commonly associated with gay pride. Men walk down the road hand in hand and at every corner, there's are a couple of gay bars with very interesting names. We didn't make it there that day, but we did walk into a liqour shop and asked the owner his opinions on Prop Eight- He first pretended he didn't know much about it. Then he revealed that he supports the proposition, even though he has been gay for the last 7 years. By allowing same sex marriages, it opened doors to other morally questionable actions such as marriage between human and animals. He feels that those gays who want to be married just want recognition, but to him, marriage is just a piece of paper. Two people can live happily together without it. -Interesting how someone can be so objective.
   
   
3. Having lunch at Bucks' Woodside. I have never met a waitress who loved her job so much in my life. That itself, is inspiring. I have a lot to learn from her.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. When we saw Steve Jobs, we were like, "Omg omg, is that Steve Jobs?!" "Where? Where?" But the other Apple employees walked past him, didn't even greet him,hah, they treated him like he wasn't there.
   
   
   
5. It's not the water threadmill, nor the napping point, or someone doing work in the ball pool
   at Google that amazed me the most, but the fact that the co-founders take time off on every Friday- I could be wrong about the day, but definitely once a week to talk to all Google staff. Being co-founders of such a large company, I think they could be one of the busiest people in the world. -But look at what their priorities are, their people, their talent.
   
   
6. And if you want to work in Google, you need to get through like TEN interviews. If you pass the first or first two done over the phone, they fly you to Mountain View for the rest of the interviews.
   

Will continue with the rest a few days later, definitely before I leave for Sweden.

irrational. yes, me.

in case you're wondering why I have been MIA for such a long time, that's because I am now in Palo Alto, California. This is crazy. First, my parents didn't allow me to go, but look where I am right now.

The night before the trip, I think I made my mom kinda guilty by complaining how everyone's still going except for me. The next day when I sent the team off at like 6am, I was totally envious and I decided, I needed to go to Silicon Valley with the rest. At 8am, I went to Raffles Place to re-re-route my air tickets from Melbourne to San Francisco, paid a $75 administration fee. I called my mom, TOLD her I was going to San Fran the next day if there were tickets, she just said okay. I went home, settled the visa waiver thing and insurance, printed the relevant documents, packed, and packed. Went out for lunch, visit my grandma before I leave, go for dinner and get supplies. Got home, packed, barely spoke to my dad, packed, slept for two hours, woke up and went to the airport.

took a three hour flight to hk, transit, then a fourteen or twelve hour flight on my own to san fran.

okay, im tired. im visiting Oracle tomorrow, the CTO is speaking to us. Night

sometimes i try so hard, i think i've moved on, i end up backsliding.

i realised i went down the wrong path for so many months because of R, the guy who was always there for me, but broke me at the same time.


okay. im so sick of posting depressing entries.

it's going to change. it will change.