It's strange to finally reach the end of 2016.

This year has been like no other. It's been a very long journey and one hell of a ride. (And that ride isn't even over yet.) It's been a year of change, of growth, of learning.

Maybe it's because I graduated. Maybe it's because I started working. Or maybe it's because of what has happened over the past few months, past few weeks, past few days.

In any case, a lot of things have changed for me.



I started off 2016 with studies in mind, working on FYP, trying to get that last extra module done and to pull up my CAP because I failed a module in year 4 sem 1. To be honest, after what happened in sem 1, I wasn't even sure I could manage a 4. I spend the first few months of 2016 mostly cooped up in my room in hall, doing work, studying, applying for jobs, writing my FYP report. Thank goodness for friends who still came around sometimes and my roommate, all of whom made my life a little less like a mugger/workaholic/phantom. I was also in a dilemma concerning jobs because I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted yet I guess.

Anyway, it was a tough period in terms of studies & stress, but come the end of sem 2, when we finally got our results, I was delighted to know that I did it. I managed to scrape a 4 after everything that had happened in sem 1. It felt good to know that something had gone right, that my hard work had paid off. By then, I think I was so drained from FYP and everything else school-related that I had lost about 5kg from the stress and skipping lunch so often. But things seemed to be going well for me and I had gotten a job related to my course and was going to start work in June, so I was happy and glad.

In June, I started work. I also broke up with my boyfriend - which actually felt like a relief, because I really felt like we couldn't go on much longer..It took a while to adjust, but it felt like I was finally free again. I slowly got accustomed to working life and although it sucked having to wake up early for work and not having free time/personal time during the day, it felt good to go home after work, have my dinner, and turn on my laptop to watch an episode of my drama, without having to think about work at all. I could sleep early on weekdays and I was usually free on weekends. Rest was aplenty and I now had money to hang out with friends when I wanted to. I was pretty much satisfied with life. Although I knew that this probably wouldn't last forever - I didn't intend to spend the rest of my life outside of work watching drama/reading books (because although it's really nice & relaxing, it's not very meaningful you see) and I guess I started thinking about what else I could do with my time outside of work.

I guess partly because of that, when I was at amk hub one of those days and walked past a roadshow and found out that you could actually volunteer with spf, I just decided to put my name down on the spur of the moment. It was pretty random, but I thought hey why not? I thought there would be some time to find out more, ask around more, before I made a proper, confirmed decision. Who knew that that would be the start of this long journey that I'm going through right now. It was a long process, but somehow or another, without too much thought, I just followed through and one day in October I was told that I had gotten through all the preliminary tests/interview and was accepted and the training would start in a few days. It was a pleasant surprise, but still a surprise nonetheless, and on very short notice. Still not sure whether I had jumped into the decision but I just, once again, went with the flow. That was around my birthday period and I thought it was a great present and really, I didn't need anything more.

But I guess that was also around the time when things kinda started to go downhill for me. During that period of time, I started to have some health problems. Like feeling dizzy in the middle of the day when I wasn't even doing anything strenuous, probably just sitting at my desk at work. It freaked me out and I went to see a doctor. He took my blood, but the test came back without much clue as to what was causing the dizzyness. After a few days, a week or so, it kind of died down, so I tried to resume my normal activities, which included going for a run once a week or so because I had started training for ippt/to just keep fit in general. I guess that was the first scare. After that, I guess I was just so busy with training after work & trying to make sure my health was ok that I didn't have much free time or energy to think about anything else.

And then recently, a few weeks ago, I had another health scare. At first it was just some rashes on my leg, so I went to see a doctor. Then the next was urticaria, or hives, which really freaked me out. The first few times I thought it was just mosquito bites, and I told mum to spray the rooms and toilets, etc. Then one night it was so bad that I thought it must be something else. It couldn't be mosquito bites. So the next day I went to see the doctor again, and she told me it was urticaria. Gave me anti-histamines, and told me that it could be because of a physical reason such as pressure, hot/cold, etc. or a sign of some other illness. This was early in the morning but by late morning, I was having really bad stomach pain instead, so I took half the day off and went back to rest instead. The craziest thing was that the next day, I had taken leave for ippt. And on that day, in the afternoon, I was still pretty much feeling like crap from the stomach pain the previous day and I had some breathing problems. I couldn't seem to get enough breath/air to feel satisfied. It was so weird and I was kinda freaking out and went to search for some idea/clue/solution online. Eventually, even though I wasn't feeling totally ok yet, I did leave house in the late afternoon to go for ippt and I managed to get a silver which I have no idea. But so damn thankful for that. Anyway, I also tried to think and deduced that the urticaria and stomach pain and all was probably because of the new pants (uniform) that was kind of tight and therefore some sort of pressure and so I decided that I should get a bigger size pants which should make everything better. In the meantime, I borrowed a pair of pants from my friend (omg so thankful for that).

All this time, since a few weeks or a month ago, mum was having these rashes on her leg and she complained a lot about it, but she didn't do too much. And sometime during that period she went to see the doctor and they referred her to a hospital, but she had to stay in hospital, so she refused and came home. By this time, I think it was getting really bad and she could hardly sleep at night because of the itch, so one day when I was finally feeling a little better after seeing the doctor 3 times in a week, I told mum that she should go to the hospital and not worry about the stuff at home, since I would be at home for the next few days and had taken leave as well. Thankfully, she finally decided to go, which left the 3 of us at home. Around that time as well, dad was 'on holiday' because his job contract had ended and the company didn't want to renew it. So he was at home most of the time. Mum stayed in hospital for about a week before finally coming home. Slightly better but still not recovered. That was on Wednesday. I also had an exam on that day, part of the training. Thank goodness for passing that as well. It was a relief and one more thing down, after ippt.

Thursday, I came home late after training and my mum told me about what happened that day. Apparently my dad went to run, came home, and suddenly looked very lost at the door and asked mum why he wasn't working, and when she explained to him, he asked for proof that he wasn't working. I wasn't even hearing this directly from him, but that was freaky as hell. According to him, he couldn't remember and only after some time of explaining did the things/events/memory come back to him. Mum decided to bring him to see a doctor the next day.

Then Friday passed, and today's Saturday, going Sunday now. And that's pretty much how things have been for me over the past few weeks, days, months, year.



So 2016, you've probably been the most crazy year I've had so far. I guess I wasn't kidding when I said that it's been one hell of a ride, that is not even over yet.

But since it's 1 Jan 2017 now, I'm hoping that 2017 will be a better year for me & my family, wishing for good health for everyone and happiness in a way that makes us satisfied with life, even through the challenges we face.

Thank you 2016 for showing me so many things I never knew, for teaching me how important health is. Please let 2017 be a better year for us and for me. I don't want much, just good health for me & my family & the people that I love, that I hold dear. And I will work out the rest - being a better person, helping others more, loving my parents more, being more patient and tolerant with them, being nicer to my brother (I will try ok?), smiling more, laughing more, learning how to relax, giving myself time to rest & relax & for personal time, and working out what I want in life.

Happy new year guys (:

I'm not sure how most of my peers grew up. I'm not sure if it's the same as me. But in my house at least, there's little room for privacy. The doors are always open. (Unless you're in the toilet. And there's a limited amount of time that you can spend in there before someone (aka mum) starts asking what's taking you so long and what you're doing in there.)

Meaning that you can't go into your room and close the door and have some privacy to yourself while you're doing something (eg. surfing the net) and not have anyone walk in to disturb you. Things just don't work that way in our house. For one, we don't have our own 'fixed' rooms. My bed is in this room. My stuff are in another room. (Or for me, my stuff are in shelves/corners all around the house.) I eat outside in the living room. I do my work at this table. And so on.

In fact, it used to be worse, because my bed would be in one room and my clothes in another and I could only do work in the living room and so I was practically living in the living room (haha is that punny enough). It never occurred to me that this was strange until I moved into hall during university and found that you could have everything in one room along with the privacy of that one room. It was such an amazing feeling, so damn comfortable, that I couldn't stand my previous life when I moved back home after 4 years of being in hall. So I tried to clear/dig out a place for myself, tried to put a flag that said 'This room belongs to Jane' in the room that my bed was in. (I didn't have much choice.) I shifted a table into my room, set up some power plugs, cleared the cupboards so that I could put my stuff there.

But 6 months later, even though this is kind of 'my room' now, it still isn't. And I don't think it will ever be the same as having my own room like in hall. My stuff are still scattered around the house (there's not enough space in 'my room' to put them, since my parents' clothes and a lot of other items are in the room, which I can't shift) so I have to walk out to the living room or another room to take things, and 'my room' has terrible lighting for doing work/studying/reading, so I usually end up doing my work at the living room table.

This might seem pretty trivial to some people, but I think I realized at some point in time that I am a person who needs a lot of privacy. (And not just that. I also need a lot of alone time, a lot of quiet time. A lot of not-having-to-talk-to-people and not-having-to-see-people's-faces and not-having-to-hear-people-nag-at-me time. Because I swear, hearing mum nag can be so bloody stressful I sometimes feel like I'm going to explode and then I really do explode inside. And having my own room in year 3 was so damn peaceful it was heaven. I could close my door and cry inside. I could leave my door open for people to pop in and say hi. I could do anything I wanted. And if you think not wanting to face people makes me anti-social or something, I don't think so. I had a great time in year 4 with my roommate who was just amazing - didn't bother me when I didn't want to be bothered, great listening ear when I had to tell someone something, random chats, amazing friend, and most importantly, NO NAGGING. Ok maybe I do have something against mum nagging... ok fine I admit. I definitely have something against that. I swear it is so bloody annoying and stressful I feel like exploding and killing someone every time she does it.)

Ok so back to my point. This might seem pretty trivial, but for someone who needs a lot of privacy and alone time, this sort of arrangement at home makes it really difficult. Really, really difficult. It's not like I want to do anything illegal at home (come on, I don't smoke or take drugs, I don't drink at home, I don't watch porn. What else would I do with a closed door? Watch a movie, play a game, read a book.) But if that's the case, then it's not like a closed or open door should matter, right? I don't know.

For some reason, it does. I don't intend to do anything illegal, but I do prefer my door closed. Especially at home. I prefer not to see mum walking past, or walking in to check on me, check on what I'm doing, or worst of all, to nag at me for not helping out with chores. (Here, 'chores' is a whole different matter/topic and would require another post altogether, so I will leave that for another day. Sufficient to say, I can do my own chores and I do not need a mum to nag at me for not doing chores. In fact, I would rather live/rent a room outside and do my own chores than live at home to be nagged at for this.)

So in the end, my point is this - for someone who needs their own privacy to do things better/more efficiently and to have better mental health in general, this sort of open-room concept + no private/individual room policy just makes it really hard to feel at home in your own home. And I've come to wonder how this might actually be/have been affecting my brother for the past 26 years of his life. I wonder if he is also someone who needs his own privacy (doesn't everyone though?) and how much privacy he needs and how much this policy at home might have infringed on his freedom and way of life, had he not been living under such a policy.

And so, sometimes, when he gets really mad or annoyed at mum, sometimes I really do understand. The pent-up frustration and annoyance and anger and wanting to explode. Because if I feel it, then I'm sure he feels it too. And sometimes I feel sorry for him because of how mum seems to pick on him more (for good reason though - he does much less things than me under mum's list-of-things-my-children-should-do eg. chores, thus earning more nagging from her) and I wonder how he takes it, especially since he's at home so often, almost all the time. If I were him, I would have exploded. I would have been killing myself time after time just having to listen to the nagging. I would have been crazily mad. I might have walked out. I would have thought about renting a room outside every single day. So maybe my brother does deserve some admiration after all, and I hope that this nagging will stop soon for both of our mental health because honestly, mum's nagging is the bane of my existence and it has been the case for the past 23 years of my life.

#pleasestopnagging #wearedying #godsaveus #notevenchristian #butpleasehelp #sigh

Went for lunch with the aunt today. I wasn't particularly excited, but it felt nice that my presence made her happy and to be able to treat her to lunch for once. Because I'm finally working. She also got me a water bottle, which I was looking for the last time we met (months or maybe even a year ago. I don't remember). I don't consider her to be very close to me, but even I have to admit that that was nice of her.

It's the weirdest feeling to be hanging out with your ex again after a year of not talking. It's like seeing a friend that you haven't seen in ages. But when you talk, some of the old habits and familiarity comes back. When they say certain things and you reply, and you both realize how much you knew each other once, to the point that even after such a long break, some things will just stay in your mind. Their likes and dislikes, their character, the kind of choices that they would make. It's the strangest feeling, but also a nice warm feeling. Of finally meeting this familiar part of you/your life once again.

At the end of the day, I'm just so glad that we met, because it feels like I've finally gotten a friend back. A friend that I lost, that I didn't even know I had been missing. Thank you for being so amazingly kind and forgiving, for being so willing to meet me even after everything that I'd done, and most importantly for initiating to meet up with me today. Because I know I wouldn't have dared to do it instead. Yes, I totally owe you a hug to apologize to you and to say thank you. ♥