The End?

Wow, it's been quite awhile right? Haven't been blogging at all.

The reason why I wanted to start writing again is because I just have a lot of things floating around in my mind. The best way for me to get them all organized is to put them down in text. Also, it's almost 2020 right? The end of a decade, and the start of a new one. Surely, there's no better time to write out a reflective blog post of this sort. So here we go.

I think first of all, I want to address the most recent happenings about me. There is that controversial situation that happened a couple of months back that you probably know about already. If you know about it, then you know. If you don't know, then I'd rather not dig out the past. But to be honest, I had been hinting about it on this blog for some time already. It's not like I was trying to deliberately hide it. You'll find it sooner or later, if you want to. Not that it's necessary.

So, what's there to say about it? Not much to be honest. Aside from the fact that most of the finer more important details that were left out, you probably know roughly what happened. If it hasn't been apparent, I have been suffering from major depressive disorders for some time now. That, plus a few other aggravating factors played a part. However, I make no excuses and totally own up for what happened. It was entirely my fault and no one else's. I would just like to focus my efforts on moving forward now, and hopefully you can afford me that same respect.

That's about the most I can divulge without talking to you in person.

Finally with that major baggage out of the way, let's talk about some reflections on the past decade. That's what this post is about right? Not specifically focusing on one incident. But boy is there a lot of stuff to talk about. I could go on rambling for days. But the point of this post and the blog in general is to organize my thoughts in a log so that I can possibly come back and reread all of this stuff should I ever need to. IN FACT! Looking back, I realized that I started this blog in 2011, and thus it has been almost 10 years that I have been blogging here on and off. What a coincidence, and what a way to end this blog!

I think I want to organize the remainder part of this post based on chronological order and split them up based on the phase of life I was in, for better clarity. Unlike a lot of my past ranting posts that just stated facts mixed with my own negative interpretative opinions and complaints, I aim to do a more balanced, objective, and in-depth reflection. I will reflect on what happened during that period, the takeaways, both the good and the bad, and possibly what I will do in the future. Let's start.


Phase One: 2010 - 2014 
Oh man, the university days. It was a mixed bag. I think it's helpful to understand my background coming into this. Perviously, I came from an all-boys secondary school, and then proceeded through JC in a H2 Computing class that had only 2 girls in total. Therefore, my experience with girls is limited to almost zero. At the same time, I was the top scorer for H2 Computing in my JC, winning awards and all, which gave me a slightly haughty opinion of my personal capabilities. Yet, the fact remains that I was thrown into a completely new environment after being 2 yrs out of touch because of NS and the lack of friends or connections. Goals to accomplish? Study hard, do well in university, get girlfriend, get job. All this while being my solo player self. I even ended up missing the summer orientation camp as I was working part-time, and somehow missed out on applying for hall and CCA. I really don't think I could be more introverted or anti-social during this period.

What happened during this period? Well, academics ate up a huge part, and somehow I chose to focus only on it. During year 1, I honestly tried very hard to try to get a girlfriend. But my shy inexperienced introverted self was unable to make first moves at all. Signals were sent, but that's about it. Then I got rekt by another dude coming into the picture. Thus, I think I became even more reclusive and decided to focus solely on academics. And I did do well, to be fair. Achieved the much coveted Dean's List award and scored a bunch of As along the way. Did a couple of internships here and there. Tried applying to banks, but they wouldn't take me. Eventually landed jobs with the government sector. Funny story is that the interview was such a joke. After the interview, they called me immediately while I was on the train home to offer me the job. I also learned a lot during this period, especially with the heavy weight 8 MC project and my FYP paper. I think I had a grand total of less than 5 friends during the 4 years. Most were just project group mates.

So what's my reflection? Well, honestly this is the most reflected on period of my life. I have always looked back on it with regrets and how I could have done things better. But today, I shall try to also see the positives. The negatives are obvious. I got rekt in relationships, I missed my second upper by a few points, flunked a couple of modules, didn't managed to secure my minor, didn't get into any high paying bank jobs, didn't really experience uni life, didn't make many friends, etc. I think I can go on and on because I have thought about the negatives too much. But on the bright side, I picked up key programming skills in Java, I was given the opportunity to explore web development during internship, I improved my vocabulary a ton by writing essays, I beat so many others to get the Dean's List, I read up on and picked up a knack for appreciating good design, I landed a solid paying iron rice bowl government job. And hey, I graduated from university! I was going places! Could I have done things better? Yeah. But do I regret it? No, not anymore. I am no god (despite the fact that it was my nickname), I can't have known and done everything. I already accomplished so much. It's no use regretting what happened. I can only move forward now.


Phase Two: 2014 - 2016
The working years. It was short, but also rather eventful. In the first place, I was put into a weird spot. I was originally supposed to work for that department. But because I delayed my starting day, funny enough my classmate applied and got into the job ahead of me. So, they wanted to reassign me somewhere else but I negotiated with them and got into the same department as my classmate. This situation is strange because they didn't really have a clear role for me to fill and so I was doing odd jobs, random admins and "research" work. The two main issues I ran into during this time, was people issues, and my existential crisis. Not having a clear role aside, at this time I was still fresh out of university and trying to discover what I want in life. I still didn't have a girlfriend and didn't know how, especially not in my department of uncles/aunties. This meant that I was young and free enough to literally do anything. The endless possibilities clearly overwhelmed me. An 'incident' also occured due to my lack of EQ. Somehow there was a strange dynamic in my team where everybody hated our boss as they claim that he was 'parachuted' in and didn't understand any of their problems. One day I accidentally exposed one guy in an implied message in the group chat, and boy did he take it badly.

What happened next was an almost team-wide boycott towards me. I was still too emotionally immature and didn't know how to handle all these human interactions. I was trying my best to ignore it, but it clearly affected me. So again, I withdrew into my reclusive self and went back to solo life. Just to add fuel to the fire, the parties working on the project were constantly not working together or straight out disagreeing entirely. The challenge was how to make all parties satisfied AND deliver on the project. Meanwhile, our people started leaving the team 1-by-1 in some kind of slow exodus. Some transferred to other departments, others left the company entirely. This just meant more work to spread out among lesser people. And all this while, I was still having my existential crisis. Questioning myself constantly, is this really what you want to be doing for the rest of your life? Is this how to live life? Do you really enjoy or find purpose in doing your work? Are you ever going to end up anywhere with this? Will you ever meet that special someone while holed up in this place? There were plenty of questions and endless self-doubt, it was miserable. Eventually, I didn't know how to handle it anymore. My mental health was deteriorating and I was on the verge of going crazy. So I left.

Now that I think about it, I have seldom reflected on this critical period of my life. Perhaps it was too painful, perhaps I didn't know how to face it. I really wanted to ignore it and move on. But I now know that the more you run away from a problem, the more it will come to haunt you. And the thing is, no matter how badly I have painted it, there were positives during this period as well! During this period, I started to reconnect with my best friend from primary school and started attending all those cosplay events and started getting into photography. I needed an outlet for all the pent up stress that was building up. Not to mention that I was somehow secretly hoping to get into a relationship with the cosplayers. Not with my introverted self, that didn't happen. On the bright side, what did happen, was that my solid paying job provided me with the finances to do what I want OUTSIDE of work. Being so engrossed with academics at school, I also assumed that work would be my everything. I overlooked that work/life separation that was also viable. Having a stable income allowed me to attend events freely on weekends, allowed me to eat at all the expensive restaurants without budget, allowed me to gym and study Japanese, allowed me to buy camera gear and pursue photography as a hobby, and most of all allowed me to travel. And we all know how eyeopening my visit to Japan was.


Phase Three: 2017 - 2019
Possibly the most 'eventful' but yet also the most turbulent period of my life. 2016 ended on a rather sour note for me. Not only did I quit my job with no plan in sight, but also my mother was suddenly afflicted with a stroke. For several months, she was almost immobile on the entire right side of her body. What a way to start the year. For a short period, I was toying with the idea of starting a business or using my savings to open up a subway franchise. The naive idea was to have freedom to do what I want and not have to answer to any boss. But I slowly learned that freedom and responsibility come hand in hand. Sure you have no boss, but how are you going to motivate and push yourself for your own sake? Turned out the plans didn't go anywhere. I wasn't fired up enough to pull through anything. So I turned to an old secondary school friend that I hadn't contacted in over a decade. He was currently starting his Masters program at NTU, and urged me to do the same. Having no concrete plans at the moment, it made the most sense and was the path of least resistance. After all, as much as I complained, I realized that I really loved academics and the student life. It was really the only thing I was ever remotely good at doing. So I signed up!

And I really had the best time of my life doing my Masters! Second only to maybe my primary school days? I felt alive again. I felt like I could really do something. Heck I even had a crush on the cute girl in my class who shared the lift with me on the very first day! Somehow we became friends and did almost every project together. But she kept a lot of her private life secret, and it took a long time for me to figure out that she was already attached. Oh well, I still enjoyed out time together. As for the actual academic content, it was more or less easily manageable as I had studied similar stuff before during undergraduate days. Nonetheless, it was a good revision, and I got to meet many cool people as I formed close bonds with a small group of our Singaporean minority. We constantly supported and looked out for each other. We even had project meetings and outings to many places. It was really fun times. Behind all this though, I was hiding the dark clouds that overshadowed my life and was eating into the back of my mind. You see, the 'incident' had already happened between me registering and starting my Masters program. I was basically just waiting out the procedures to happen and bring it to a close. I had no choice in the matter, but I will say that the Masters program helped me very much deal with some otherwise very tough times.

Graduation happened in 2018, and it seems that we all went our separate ways. A sad departure from one of the best group of friends I've had in awhile. I couldn't even seriously look for a job given my situation. Meanwhile, I can only observe my ex-crush doing stuff and going places. Must be nice. It also seems that at this period, most of my peers from my cohort in NUS are getting married and settling down. All while I was drifting and held in limbo. If there was a tougher time and more mentally draining time than when I was at work, it would be this. You don't know what you got until it's lost. And then 2019 rolled around, and I knew I had to face the inevitable, so I made the mental determination to own up and just go through with it. At this point, I had already been on medication and psychotherapy for close to about 2 years. I was feeling better mentally. But as ready as I was, it was difficult for the people around me. I basically spammed the drugs to keep myself together over that difficult period, and only came off towards the end. I honestly lost everything and had nothing left to look forward to in life. Thankfully I still had 1 Japan trip left with my friend. It was great, and made me want to go back for more.

These days, I have been 'drifting' more than anything. I feel like I am doing nothing. I mean, I have been applying for jobs every now and then, but not getting any good responses. And me being adamant about working in Japan doesn't really help either. I still go to gym, and I still do photography at events. But I had stopped my Japanese lessons for so long already. Also what am I doing that is productive use of my 30 year old life? I don't know, and I still didn't have a plan. Wow, this period is disorganized. It's my first time seriously reflecting on this period of my life actually. I guess that will be the first step for me in 2020. So let's close this by trying to come up with some reflections on this period. Negatives almost don't need to be stated, it's blasting right in my face, basically wasted away a large portion of time, setting myself back from my cohort. Positives are a bit more nuanced. Firstly, I'd say that the academic part was really good. I had the opportunity to work with an excellent prof who had some serious OCD for essay writing, and really took my writing skills to a whole new level. It's amazing the kind of work I was able to produce under his influence. In terms of student life and friendship, I will say that I had an awesome time. Although, I'll probably never contact them ever again as I am too afraid of them judging me. Lastly, I want to say that in terms of mental health, I have made some serious progress. Things that were unbearable to me before, I can now handle in my stride pretty easily. I am generally more positive and less depressed.

Happy 2020!

So when I say Happy New Year, I really mean it. I want to be Happy from now on onwards. And it took me awhile to get it, but happiness comes from within. You cannot look to someone or something to make you happy. It's about expectations, and it's about your reactions to situations that determines your happiness. The first phase of the past decade was really the foundational years that helped me build a base of knowledge and intellectual background. It was where I really honed the technical and design skills I have today. The second phase was confusing, but a very good teacher in hindsight. It taught me to be thankful for the luxuries and resources I had. It showed me that a better understanding of your self vs your work and how you can segregate, balance or integrate it to your discretion. I will definitely look to working on that when I get my next job. The third phase was arguably the toughest. It gave me hope, but then took away everything I had built up. I really really enjoyed my time in NTU, and the friendships I built along the way. Above all else, it really trained and helped me to improve on my 'human interactions' skills that I so lacked. Towards the end of the year was painful no doubt, but also helped build up my psychological resilience and maturity. For that at least, I'm thankful.

And I think that will be the theme for the coming year at least. Learning to be thankful for what I have, what I encounter, what I receive, and what I will achieve. Life is too short now to be an emo pessimistic cynical bitch. I mean, I need to get stuff done dammit. In the past, it was definitely the case that I had focused too much on studies and work that I had totally neglected mental health. I was always in the camp of: "aiya somehow I will get over it", and treated it as a trivial matter. But in reality we often overlook how important it is to manage our mood and overall wellbeing. While I was away, I've had the time to read plenty of self-help books on the matter. Most agree that it is important to regularly take stock of your blessings and what makes you happy, so as to maximize your happiness. To that end, I will be starting a new blog to replace this one. I haven't thought about the name of it yet, but it will definitely be more positive that this one. I mean, "Incomplete Perfexion" how did I even come up with that. The follies of youth. Hahaha. But yeah, the new blog will be mainly focusing on 2 aspects that I want to work on. One is the happiness log, to teach me to be more thankful for what I have, to notice the good stuff, and to stop being a sourpuss. Two is for regular action plans, so that I commit and be accountable to execute what I say I want to do. I've had moderate success in the past with these "Action Plans" on this blog before, but it got kind of lost in the other messy emo stuff I was going through. So, I want to give it another shot.

I will post the link to my new blog here once it's up. Do follow me there!
[EDIT] Here it is! https://journeyofjubilation.blogspot.com/

THAT'S ABOUT IT! This blog post is way longer that I wanted, and that Phase 3 had more rants and mess than I would have liked, but the gist is there. If you know me in person, then you can clearly tell the difference in my articulation between when I try to talk and when I am writing. It's a world of difference. I am constantly working on being more expressive in person. ANYWAY, I would also like to take this opportunity to wish anyone reading this a very happy new year and successful decade ahead. I want to say that we are all in this journey called life together, and there should be no reason why we cannot make the most out of it. Let's do our best from here on out. Happy 2020!