As I come undone

Have you ever had a playlist in your phone, whereby each song reminds you of a certain period of your life, or rather, it brings back memories of the times you were going through a few months back? 

Well, I guess this is one thing that songs can do. They bring back memories. 

University life is starting soon, in fact in 2 weeks time. And, I'm feeling rather... reflective these last few days of my 9 month holiday. Also, I just wanna get my thoughts settled before moving on to the next phase of my life. 

Since 24th November, the last day of my A levels, till now, I feel that I have learnt quite a bit of myself. This past 8 months was indeed a world wind for me, it was something different. I wouldn't say that this period was the most comfortable for me because I was put into situations I have never experienced before. 

As I reflect back, I spent the entire December with my family, going to Japan, getting immersed into the culture. Not only that, I went clubbing for the first time, had vodka and cranberry and fell in love with it for the first time. I ended my first relationship... And then, January, February, March... and then now. 

There were so many events that happened during this long ass holiday, some were good, some were bad but mostly they were good. 

I think I have mentioned to many people that my experience working in H&M was a sore, bad, disgusting, tiring, stressful. 

On the contrary, I guess there were some positive things about H&M.. Like, it really taught me customer service skills (well, customers love me a lot), how the retail market works, how things are done in the retail sector, how to be a cashier (eww I hated it but).

That job made me realised how important my family and friends were to me. Well, if you don't know me very well, you'll just think I'm some crazy woman saying that family is number one and all. But it's really true. 

I remember there was this one night, where I got dissed by my manager, D and there were people talking behind my back. I felt as if the whole world was against me at that point of time. More importantly, I felt lonely for the first time because my parents were overseas, my JC friends won't exactly the closest to me anymore, Vanessa was busy and yea. 

To cut the whole story short, I learnt to treasure my family and friends. More importantly, I realised that only the opinions of the people closest to you are the ones that matter the most. 

Oh yea, since we're in the topic of work. I think working for my parents really made me appreciate my parent's scope of work more... (You can ask me personally what they specialise in if you like) 

I guess I can count my Germany trip as one of my trips that were meant for 'work'. This trip to Germany was different, it was more meaningful than the usual overseas grind of continuous eating, rushing for plane flights... Instead, it was more of meeting my dad's work suppliers, associates and other international distributors. 

It was meaningful because I got to meet my parent's overseas friends who last seen me as a 9 year old kid.. I felt rather nostalgic when they told me what I did when I was younger.. 

Also, travelling to Germany was the trip that I spent the most amount of time I spent with my dad, simply cause it was only me and my dad. 

It was a very father-daughter thing. We did guy-ish things, like, speeding at 207 km/h with our E350, standing at on a very random bridge across the autobahn, watching other cars swift pass whilst eating strawberries, waving at random European truck drivers, eating chocolate in the car, drinking schnapps AKA shots..

What was really, really special during that Germany trip was that, I was out of my comfort zone. If you guys know me very well, it's not just out of the blue that I can just start a conversation with some random person/girl/boy. I have always been trained by my dad to talk. 

I realised that my dad always puts me in situations where I need to step out of my comfort zone and talk to adults ranging from 24 years old to 50 plus years of age. Yup. 

There were moments in the bus (where there were many other playground distributors) where he got me to sit next to a Taiwanese lady in her late 20s. There, there, I was forced to start a conversation with her. Slowly, during coffee/tea sessions, he would introduce me to his friends, and then slowly.... he'll jump to another acquaintance to say hi and he simply just leaves me alone with his friend. Yes. And this happened a couple of times throughout my growing up years especially when I accompanied him for conferences. 

Yeap, so I'm really grateful that my dad has challenged me in such a way, to step out of my comfort zone. He taught me how to communicate with foreigners, with people in general. Of course, I'm not the master of it and I still have a lot to learn about all these communication skills. :) 

After this trip, I got to know my dad a little better and I started to appreciate him more actually. I hope my future partner can be as adventurous as my dad. Just so you know, my dad is a really cool person simply because he bought a bottle of jager for me. Not only that, he agreed to buy 4 dunkels for my best friend as well. 

Woah, sorry, I have been babbling on about my different epiphanies I had during this holiday. Come on, its my blog and I have a billion things on my mind. Give me a chance mate. 

I think during this 9 month holiday, I really got to know a little bit more about relationships. I mean, not just BGR shit but friendships as well. 

After working for my parents, I specially set time aside to spend time with my current friends from secondary school, JC and church. Now looking back at it, I really thank God for those people who really stood by me during O levels, A levels, my nonsensical hardships and problems. I hold on really tightly to all these relationships, its quite hard for me to let go some when uni begins. Well, I just don't like to lose people in general. However, just recently, I realised that it was okay to move on with uni life and the people who are genuinely my friends will still be there. 

It's so funny like how can you can become so close to someone and people can just walk away from you in such a short period of time. Right now, I think having a relationship has its pros and cons. For those good ones, it's a good thing that you grow together with your other half.. Moreover, its always nice to have someone to appreciate you for who you are and to love you despite all circumstance. It's really nice to have someone fill that unsaid loneliness in your heart, to have that someone to snuggle, to hold your hand, to listen to your nonsense, to look you into the eye, to say that you're the most beautiful person in the world... 

Yup, all these happen when you're in love. However, in the process of being in love, things become difficult. Insecurities start to come in, trust issues, being protective, not living up to expectations, things like 'oh, I have no more feelings for you' come in, 'Let's remain as friends', and suddenly, dating someone will seem very tiring. Don't even mention about NS boys. 

I think dating.... its just very complicated now. After this long holiday, I realised that its more than just 'liking' someone per say. Being in that 'amber light' stage is complicated, there's so much to consider. Haha, I think being in the 'red light' stage is another issue. 

Hence, just let things be, if its meant to be, let it be. 

Boy-girl relationships are one thing but I think there are other relationships like family, friendships and the relationship you have with God are way more important. There are moments this year where I realised how important these relationships are. I've invested quite a lot of time on such relationships, hanging on really tightly to them this holiday.

I must say, I'm really lucky to have other people in my life such as Vanessa, Terance, Marcus Gladys, Regi, Bobby, Jean, Jia Yan, Jean, and so many more. I wish I could have spent more time with everyone though.. 

I guess we'll never have enough time to do everything at one go right? Haha, its so ironic like how it 9 months seems like a very long time but we can never have enough time for things like that. 

Also, from all these people and from all the different circumstances that occurred this holiday, I've learnt a lot of things about myself this 9 months. It's impossible for me to type everything here. 

Making decisions, how I behave in public, how I interact with people, being a leader at home and in church, taking care of my own finances (well something that I'm still struggling with)... are really some of the things I learnt along the way. 

I'm glad that I had this 9 month holiday because it was an eye opener for me. It expanded my capacity, my emotions, thinking, everything. Looking back, I don't regret anything that happened. 

It was the experience for me. How wild it was, to let it be.