Compromise, Ideal,and Perfect

This is 2 years in review.

I will probably focus more on school stuff, over hall stuff, or even family and relationship stuff, because there isn't the time to talk about those, but you may see some cross-overs here and there. Because life's like that. Nothing's mutually exclusive.

That's a really interesting thought to think about. When I started school, like many people before me, I had this mentality that I was going to focus on school and then just pick up the other parts of my life during the holidays. Everything seemed to be planned out nicely; I would focus on just getting schoolwork done, then either go on holidays to unwind or commit to Orientation camp committee during the 3-month summer break so that I could remain in hall, which is what I really needed to just even be on track to finish schoolwork on time. That sounded like a solid plan.

But what they don't tell you is that you will end up picking up pieces.

Time passes by very quickly when you're in a studio. It feels like every moment is dragged on when you're inside, but as soon as you leave, you see people moving on without you. Every time vacation rolls around and then I find out X and Y have done this and A is going to retire or whatever. It shakes me at the core to fully comprehend that people are moving on, and they are moving on whether I'm in their lives or not.

2 years in, and I still haven't found this elusive thing called "work-life balance"

I made the "mistake" of committing to the wrong thing in my first year. Like I said, I compartmentalized my life into school time, followed by hall time, followed by NS and overseas time, followed by orientation camp time and then back to school. The problem with that is that other people "socialise" throughout this entire period, but I've managed to break them up into chunks, often with too much intensity and not spread out enough. My family went through a brief period of bad times during my year 1 and it was the first time I broke down as a result of stress. I just huddled with my dog at the stairs and cried for a good while, and then once more a day later when my parents probed me after realizing something was wrong. I'm not really ashamed that I broke down even though I don't really discuss it with people outside my circle of trust. (that circle is extremely small.) Suffice it to say, it wasn't one big reason, like a close family member passing away, but a series of small events that converged at the same time and the fact that they happened almost successively (or at least the time that I was informed of them). I remember the exact reason I broke down the first time was because after a hard 3 days at the studio, I thought I would be able to rest my mind and body, only to realize that there were in fact more problems at home that I just hadn't been aware of. It's like something snatching away your chair just before you sat down when you've been walking for miles and miles. It makes you feel totally helpless and just stunned that you couldn't even rest properly.

Then I made the mistake of forgetting I need to rest in year 2. I remember talking with my supervisor at my part-time job about my availability over the next few months, and it slowly drifted toward the direction of how I handled my time. I have never been this exhausted over such an extended period of time and yet this is the semester where I have slept the most throughout. It is true that I have actually done more deeds this sem than any other, possibly in my life, but I have come to the conclusion that I do not have the stamina, both physical and mental, to keep going at this pace. When I was 18, I roomed with this RJC kid during an inter-JC conference. I peeked at his desktop and it happened to be his monthly schedule and it is packed with colours. This is the first time I've resorted to using google calendar, and when I look back at the stuff I've done, my mind takes a mental sigh of relief and panic at the same time, because it's still intimidating today.

I hope it's not too late to "repair" my relationships with peers. Both in school, hall and outside. Too many friendships have ended in "we just drifted away" and I thank whatever god or gods that are watching over me that I remember to take the time to appreciate my circle of trust. Those 3 misfits are the only people I have poured out to more than anyone else and I owe them so much more than they owe me. The strange thing about all 3 is that those friendships are built almost exclusively as we were leaving each other's presences. They were built as we left school, rather than when we were in it. Maybe it's the absence that reminds us of each others' importance. I don't have the same level of trust with anyone in hall currently, and it's definitely not something that you can force.


I've done all in this sem that I can think of. I've made the most of the opportunities that hall has presented me at this current time. I've tried working for actual money when just a mere 12 months ago, I thought it would have been impossible. I've picked myself up after a terrible interim crit to make something of it, and become sufficiently proud of it to include it in my RIBA portfolio. And I couldn't have done this without my peers and mentors. But all of these remain very professional relationships. I won't ever forget the help and guidance they have rendered me, but they are, at its core, a relationship of necessity. I'm not going to walk into someone's room and spill out my guts in the middle of the night because I don't have that type of friend here on campus. And vice versa, nobody's going to come into my room with anything other than work-related stuff to discuss. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I do know that it's a thing that's missing in my life and I can't judge that which I have no experience in.

~

I started this post thinking that I would write about the inadequacy of architectural education. Now, I seem to just be lamenting the losses that I never knew I signed up for when I accepted this course.

I don't know how much I regret, or if I do regret anything at all. I just seem to be at this crossroads where I don't really know what is the right thing to do moving forward.

Hello world

This post should act as some kind of disclaimer. I foresee a few new students stumbling onto my facebook page and seeing that I in fact do have a blog. (I actually realized it's much harder than I expected to find this page) No matter.

If you do choose to read beyond this post into my history, do take what I say with a pinch of salt. I am an incredibly vulgar person, (which at this point I'm still debating if I want to tell that to you guys in the first place), and the views represented in my history is one of a younger kid, one much like yourself or even younger, if you choose to go that far. Some of the views I present are pretty one-sided and in terms of language, horrible.

But I'm choosing not to take it down or hide it because I think anyone, and most importantly you guys, should be able to discern what to listen to.

That said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The Office

Another stupid professional mistake. WAH LAU EH.

Yo manners, why you gotta have so many rules man?

*depressed*

(I feel like a fifteen year old girl after writing this)

Reality Bites

i don't why or whatever compulsion i have for marking this
but for some reason i feel like there's a need to write this down

today i saw a link on a contact of msn. it said a sale.
first thing i thought of was that it was some clothing blogshop but i clicked anyway trying to click links and get to somewhere with more interesting things, maybe gadgets or funny shirts.

so i click on it, and saw a rather polished shopping site, not like the typical blog shops with different entries as their shopfront, a sidebar with tagbox for ads and arbitrary stuff like that.

anyway, it was a shop selling clothes for ladies. and more importantly, i saw an old schoolmate as the model for most of their products.



what struck me was that, for possibly the first time in my life, i saw someone use their natural gift to help themselves out, by natural gift, i meant looks and by help themselves out, i meant earn free money and merchandise.

i mean of course, i've heard of people using looks or talking to get their boyfriends to buy them stuff, but that was always from word of mouth, there was never any real confirmation that they explicitly did reveal a little skin and got a branded bag in return.

so, i felt high for who knows what reason and decided to blog it down. anyway, at least she's pretty. it would definitely help her business that she didn't have a camwhore-y look, which ot me is definitely a deal breaker. she does have the potential to be a model, or something. but that's her own gig, i mean i never even talked to her back in school, so i guess i don't stand to gain anything.


as per my to-do list, i decided to break down the average singaporean salary and show how i would splurge on it.

based on MOM stats, the average salary for 2008 was $3977 per month.

without doing any math prior, i will try to break that down to see how much i would spend.

looking at the CPF rates, i would have to give up 20% to the government, that's $795.40

and then there's food. If i spent an average of $4.50 per meal ($3-$4 for the food itself and $1 for drinks, give or take) so i would spend $13.50 per day. Assuming i eat everyday, i would spend $405 on food per 30-day month

For transport, if i take public transport and i travel to work 6 days out of 7, assuming i spend 70 cents per trip, if i'm lucky enough to work close to home. i would work 26 days and spend $1.40 per day, hence, $36.40 per month. plus trips i take on my off day, so around maybe $15 for all 4 days if i were to take taxi once per month, plus buses for the rest. so around $51.40 per month for travel

and then for rent and utilities bills, just as a projection or a target ( meaning by 25, i want to stop living with my parents), i would want to live in a 3 room apartment, if i'm still single. for electricity, i'm guessing 55 to 60 and maybe another 5-10 for water, so around $70 i guess. for rent, i'm guessing around $1500 from all the classified ads i'm getting on the net.

For phone and online bills, my phone plan now is around, $20-$30, but i'm thinking more people will call me when i grow up HOPEFULLY, so maybe $40 for phone. And for my internet plan, if i had the choice, i would go for the fastest net service plan, so around $90.

and then for different small little funds, where i keep my money for a rainy day, or when playstation 4 comes out.

i'm thinking around $80 per month for games.
$150 per month for medical and other emergency bills, if i don't use it, just save for next time.
$1000 per month for my parents, preferably



so after all that, adding them all up, i would get



$4181.80
i exceeded my salary by about $200. which is quite reasonable because i could just scale back a little on internet and games and whatnot.

but don't forget, there are probably other fees i haven't took into consideration like insurance, paying off debts, and romance, because girls are more or less high-maintenance. so i'm guessing probably $1000-$2000 over my salary.

so yeah, that's a lot of money.


on to other news, we had a 2s10,2s11 combined barbeque. OMGWTFBBQ. Quite fun, at least people didn't separate into their own separate cliques like my past experiences. the food was good, not much gigantic wastages. so great job i guess. thanks to samuel and everyone else i don't really now was involved in organising the bbq.


woohoo.

www.lightamillioncandles.com
they have 2 million already

The First Day Of Work ......EVER

The first day of work sucked. I work as handphone sales at bedok, clementi or imm, whichever 1 has less people. I worked at bedok from 1030-2100 . The pay is about $30-$40 per day, so itz kind of a loss.

I went in with my dad at about 1030, then see a guy opening the shop. His name is Jason and he is quite friendly. he asked me to vacuum the floor before any customers come in. so i did for about half an hour. then the first few customers came in and jason served them, because he didnt teach me anything. So throughout the whole morning i just sat there and watched him serve. Then about noon another guy came in, Desmond. He helped him out a little and did a little paperwork. Then A Chinese Guy came in and asked me why he phone kept hanging up when he called others. so i tried it on my fone and it worked smoothly. Then he asked Jason why so he just help him reformat the phone and teach him how to off programs properly. Then after that, there was a message that it diverted the call, so he kept bugging Jason about it. Then he tried to ask Desmond to help while he went to buy lunch. then Desmond still couldnt help, so jason beg the guy to let him finish lunch firs tcuz he never eat breakfast, so the guy say that he will wait till he finish his lunch. So he try calling nokia hq but they also cannot solve the problem, then he say ask his friends who also have his friend, then jason become so happy.

After Lunch they teach me how to write the plan application for ppl who want to sign up a new line, so i finally knew what to do , at least a little bit. then the afternoon i just sat around until they have customers, otherwise i would explore the computer a bit. then near 530 pm, i was drawing on the computer, suddenly a voice told me i couldnt use it, i was shocked lor, summore the voice very familiar, like my past instructor during camp. Then as long as he was inside i just moved away or pretended i was looking at some handphone manual.

By Dinner, he went off so i just helped around a bit. I sold a few hi-cards and helped a few customers, by the end of the night.

My parents fetched me home, and they said that they might not have helped me if I wasnt their bosses son. They were the kind that are very crude in their language, so i wasnt surprised. I was thinking that if i gt another job where no one knew who i was, would i be able to slack. Its like they have to be good to me, or as they scared i tell my father and they might lose their jobs. So I was wondering how i would survive in the real world outside.

Many people I have come across call me rich or lucky or 'shao ye' (boss son), basically beacuse of my dad's work, and they treat me differently. I never really felt what the real world is like, especially those less fortunate. I probably never will. Although this is actually at my advantage, i dont like it 1 bit, because if you think for the one at the losing end, how does he feel that hos boss is treating someone else better than him for something he did not do.