Hello 2015! I love doing year-end reviews and the resolutions that come with me. You look back at what went right, what went wrong, and whether you have stick to the goals you set for your the year. Before I look back to the resolutions I set back for 2014, I would just like to say that this year is really weird as compared to others. Every year, I always have this wish to grow in some way, mostly it’s just simply to be a better person. This year, it felt more like a year of self-discovery rather than a year of growth. You could say that being in the army for such a long period of time sort of blurred my character. And poof it’s back to society in the form of university. I won’t talk about army because it really seemed very long ago, perhaps due to the fast-paced nature of university. Sorry again for the extremely wordy post, but what do you expect it is a review of the year HAHAHA.
GENUS, KDT and a new NBC
The bulk of what this post will be about, and the Nick who used to have zero interest in CCAs in the past, now has 3 CCAs in university. WHAT-A-JOKE… To be honest I have no idea what got into me as well, maybe it’s because of me feeling that I need at least 1 CCA so that my university life wouldn’t revolve solely around studies. If you have been reading my posts, it is VERY OBVIOUS that I wasn’t coping well with 2 ccas which have quite heavy commitments. Of course the first semester was grade-less so there isn’t any risks involved, but now in this new semester there isn’t a safety net for me to fall back on. To add on, with concerts going on for GENUS and KDT, my free time is going to be even less. I wasn’t doing well for my first semester, so what am I doing adding more commitments for myself? Logically, this is a stupid move to do and without a doubt my grades will most likely suffer from this. Not doing well is one thing, not fitting in is the other thing which is more depressing. When we look back, I don’t really think we really will care about how well we did (it only looks good on paper), but rather the friendships we made and the memories we create. With reference of my time in Dunman High: In the end my grades, my achievements ended up all a distant memory; it were the friendships that really mattered in the end. The problem is that, I’m not getting anywhere in my CCAs right now.
Let’s go onto GENUS first. Although I safely passed the workshop phase, it was without backlash as I was called out for my ‘poor attendance’. Of course, I just gave in and apologized. I know it myself, I just didn’t like the fact that I was being called out purely based on attendance issues. I missed Music Camp for GENUS and when I came back for my first practice, I was COMPLETELY LOST. This sense of hopelessness went on for a few weeks, as I had to go back to fundamentals and slowly work my way to just hitting all the notes in the piece. As expected, I was summoned to probation auditions which will happen later in the month. It’s really depressing in GENUS nowadays, I have little friends inside, there is close to zero interaction in the CCA for me. It felt so bad at one point of time that I told myself that I would get the fuck out of there when the concert is over. But again, I don’t want to let my short burst of emotions affect my judgement and regret my abrupt decisions because of it later on. Only recently, it got better because the seniors finally bothered to guide all the poor lost juniors. Something similar happened in KDT which I will talk about in the next paragraph. Short-term goal for now in GENUS? To pass auditions phase, and to just do my role well.
KDT… It has been a much more enjoyable experience there. The guys are quite close given how they are only 5 male freshies among the sea of girls, and it has been the biggest step outside my comfort zone so far in university. Unlike GENUS where I stayed in my comfort zone, I am very glad that I have tried something new in university. Where else would you get a chance to try out something after you go out to the workplace? With the KDT showcase being less than a month away, practices were more intense. Well not for some of us, as the Growl freshies were left behind. The seniors were more interested in doing their other songs, thus leaving us behind. We had to self-learn the dance most of the time and no one took care of us until like 1 month to the concert. After an internal review, the seniors were lamenting on how uncoordinated we are, and questioned if you were practicing seriously enough. *RANT TIME* This is where the similarity with GENUS comes in. Most of us didn’t have a dancing background and obviously we needed help. All would have been well if the seniors guided us step-by-step months ago, not 1 fucking month before our concert. The thing is that I’m only doing 1 song for the whole freaking concert, and I’m not doing it well. It’s not that I’m not putting in the effort, the problem is that I wasn’t given the opportunity to do so, which is really sad. One major thing is that in university (this not only applies for CCAs), everything is self-initiative. No one is going to care about you, and they only care when you suck and drag people down. HAHA that’s the sad truth, it’s difficult to pursue something without being judged by your ability. Honestly, because of this I’m really scared that I won’t even be able to pull off a single song with an okay standard. I know J is struggling like mad (he’s not the dancing type), and I feel bad for dragging him into it. I swear I’ll get allergic to 으르렁 soon, till then short-term goal again: Focus all of my effort into that 1 song, and do it well for concert. After that, then it’s full focus back to GENUS.
For the new semester, I added one more burden ‘activity’ for myself, in the form of being a sub-committee member for Business Camp. I didn’t have any expectations going into this, it was a ‘whatever just try my luck’ kind of thing. I only signed up 1 day before the deadline and had a Skype interview 2 days afterwards. Thanks to L for putting in a good word for me :), and I would say it was seriously luck that the publicity section needed a video guy. Perhaps it’s really ‘Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.’ I figured this was a good opportunity to do something different, and also to get to know more people outside of my class and CCAs. After our first meeting and hearing all the things that we need to do, I’m certain that the 4 of us (pubz is such a small section) will be slavedriven. And again, I feel so out of place at times when I get thrown into a large group of people. Among us there are the people who are already in bizad club, so that leaves me alone again, and it doesn’t help that I can’t start a conversation for nuts. My scope of work is quite a lot tbh, and again I’m torn between doing my best and doing what’s enough. It would be a step outside yet another comfort zone (YAYS TO RESPONSIBILITY AGAIN WHEEEEE), so let’s hope that I can rise up to the challenge and do my job well.
Will all of it get better? I hope so, I really do… :((( For now, I shall just focus to do my best on completing my role; my dances; my concert pieces; my publicity roles. Whether I’m going to quit my CCAs is one thing, but since I’m already in it… back to one of my principles: “Do it once, do it well!”. Is there really a need to threaten people to go through auditions if they weren’t good enough? CCAs in university are different from when we were back as secondary school students, it’s now more of a choice rather than an obligation. Sadly, it all boils down to how people want their resumes to be as good as possible. It also made me think really hard on how I should be as a senior when I become one… if I still stay in my CCAs in the first place LOL. When I actually be one, maybe then I’ll talk about it. You could say that the joy derived from all the CCAs are getting blocked by all these worries, that is one aspect I really hate about myself. Sincerely, I really hope that I would be able to continue both my CCAs and of course be happy in both of them, but it will come to a point where I shouldn’t care so much about what appears on my resume right? 😡 And the next time I’m back in this WordPress, I really wish that I would have happier things to share here about my CCAs, because it really seems like a chunk of worries right now… (And it was worse before if I didn’t edit my initial thoughts LOL :x)
Being true to myself (and being with the right people)
When I referred to this year as a year of self-discovery, this is the main reason why I said so. My first steps into university were quite horrible to be honest, I had the forever feeling of trying to fit in among my OGs during these camps. This is why I was grateful for O’week and Wonderwoman, because there wasn’t this pressure to wear a fake persona in order to fit in. Gradually, Wonderwoman fell into the same category of Kratos and Hela, as most engaged in activities that I wasn’t too fond of and I started to be left out. I would say it’s more of me blocking myself from them, and of course loneliness crept in. Now I truly understands why it is so hard to make new friends in university. Many people have already settled into their new uni lives while I am still stuck in my own bubble. It applies to all 3 of my CCAs as well, which makes it even more depressing. Still feeling left out, and forever feeling the need to change yourself in order to fit in.
After finals ended, I flew off to Korea with the sister, and it is a trip I am SO thankful for. An escape from university, an escape from the parents, and just roaming about in a country we both loved. It wasn’t an escape from the books which made me so glad about the holidays, I have no idea why but there is this sort of suffocating environment in university? The need to please everyone around you, and the forever fear that you are not good enough among others. That is why I always think I’m better off alone LOL. Every time I am with the wrong people, I feel like my energy is being sucked away. Every time this happens, I don’t feel like myself and go back to my own shell. The best people to be around with is when you can just be yourself, and everyone knows this fact. But why do we still insist with sticking with the wrong people then?
When finals ended, it should be the time where you meet your friends to do a little catch-up right! And the groups of friends whom I meet never really changed: It was still mostly the 4F guys or the army guys. The class had this trip to KL and year-end BBQ, which I didn’t even make an attempt to go. Kratos is meeting up again for some night cycling event, sorry don’t give a shit HAHA. Yes it really did made me a loner, but I don’t see the need to force myself to go to these things. And this goes back to making time for the right things and people. I had this wrong conception beforehand that I needed to be more extroverted if I wanted to make more friends. Well it totally didn’t work out and I turned back to being my old self again. The thing is I still made friends in university, okay maybe less but I’m contended and really happy like this ^_^. No matter how busy I will be in the future, it’s important to always make time for those who matter in my life. And this is something I did quite well for Semester 1 haha, and I would want to follow through for 2015! (I believe I would have to skip quite a lot of CCA activities then whoops hehe)
Resolutions, resolutions
If you are still reading, good job for enduring close to 3000 words hahaha. I’m almost done so bear with me a while more. Originally I had an extra section to talk about exclusively studies, but I dropped it because it just wasn’t anything much other than worries and trying to do the best. Although cliche, I will still do it this year LOL! I won’t really cover my resolutions from last year, I made really simple resolutions last year and I did follow all of them a little, which was always good. Okays maybe not the keeping fit part… finding the time and energy to run during school is really hard :(. On following resolutions, the best thing you should do is have them visible somewhere in the room so that there is a constant reminder of the things you should follow! During the holidays, I had an HTHT talk with D, JK and YS 1 night and I think it was the deepest HTHT talk we had so far. Okays maybe because I was slightly intoxicated, which will always leave me just talking about anything which goes through my mind. We talked about each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and the good thing about this HTHT was that we didn’t hold anything back. I always sort of knew what my weaknesses are, but it was cool to know about my strengths. What others think of you and what you think about yourself can be totally different! After weeks of writing this post, may I present to you the new year resolutions for 2015!
1) Stop comparing my life to others.
Although I told myself MANY MANY times, as well as others, not to do this, I still do this a lot. Thoughts like: “This person has better results, that person has more friends. Why can’t be as luck as the person over there.” Well, GOTTA STOP IT ARGH! I find myself comparing A LOT to L since both of us are in Business but our school lives are totally polar opposites. The thing I forget is that we are very different in many ways as well, so why compare? “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Sometimes you just need to recognize your limits, you can’t get the best of every world out there. Most importantly, practice contentment!
2) Stop worrying (and be happier)
I think this is the main reason why I hold back on many things. Cons of growing up I suppose… When we were young small kids, we didn’t care what other think, we didn’t really care about the results of our actions, we just did whatever we wanted to do. Perhaps because there is this need to excel in whatever you are doing, and that is where the worry comes in when you are not good enough. Live a life with less fear, because it is this fear and worry that is holding us back from doing greater things. And like always, with less worry comes more happiness 🙂
3) Have more confidence
The problem that has been haunting me forever, during the HTHT everyone mentioned this point about me. You could say it is because of my introverted self, and naturally I only have confidence in things that I’m good at, such at Maths LOL. Even if I’m not good at it, just fake confidence la hor right HAHAHA. Always present a more confident and happier side of myself to others! More confidence = more self-belief, and with that I always say half the battle is won.
4) Make time for the right things/people (in short: better prioritizing)
Stop giving excuses to myself, it all boils down to whether you want to make time for it or not. As time changes, these priorities will change and it’s very easy to lose sight of certain things when your mind is only focused on one thing *cough* studies *cough*. Yes in the end, studies should always be the main priority of a student’s life. But in pursuit of the As, don’t forget and ignore about those who matter. Grades are only temporary, it would be just plain letters in the future. Whatever happens, don’t let myself have any regrets and yes be more organized Nick LOL. Time to use more of that organizer of mines and list the things out clearly for myself to see.
5) Be kind, and be nice
For everyone is fighting their own battles. Again, it’s easy to just keep thinking that the whole world revolves around yourself. Do what you would want your friends to do, just be there when you need each other. And it doesn’t hurt to show some appreciation as well! Return of the welfare packs? HAHA I think it’s going to be more exclusive this time. Don’t let anger get the better of you in moments of angst, because when you say something you can’t take it back. Time to control the temper *breathe in*… *breathe out*
5.5) Whenever I address someone, call the person’s name
BONUS point that D mentioned that he was following as well! I think this works really well when you talk to people, especially for us introverts. It makes us feeling slightly better when people say our names, idk if its a psychological thing, but I think it’s a very simple thing which I can definitely follow!
2015 really feels so dark right now, I never felt so pessimistic going into a new year. I just ended Week 1 of school and there’s this depressing feeling already. ONLY WEEK 1 LEH NICK!! Like that how am I going to survive. Again, shout out to those who have been such great listening ears to my forever rants about my CCAs and the feeling of forever not fitting in, kind of similar of what I posted here LOL. At tough times like that, where it seems that everyone out there only cares about one’s self, a little support can go a long way. 🙂 Remember what you set for yourself, follow them and that’s about it. Don’t chase perfection, as you are not them and just live life to the fullest, enjoy whatever it brings even though yes life does fuck you big time HAHA. Another blog post soon? Yes of course! But remember priorities, so I would have to ignore my WordPress for quite a while. 😦 Until then, signing off annyeong!
Jayesslee live -> checked! (p.s. there’s a reason for the name of this post, go listen to the lyrics if you’re curious hahas)
Nick // Guardian 