TOO NAIVE, TOO HOPEFUL

It is so distant from my memory, but I have never once forgotten it. The first time I heard you say what could have possibly broken me, I didn't believe it.

I was so hopeful of the world, or maybe I was just naive. I didn't believe a word you said, though it did hurt me. I was so full of hope, that despite what you said, I told myself it was only in a fit of anger. That in this world possibly, you are the only one who would love me this deeply.

It wasn't just once I heard you say that sentence, you said it twice, thrice, now so often that I stopped counting the number of times. 

But today, I will always remember. Because now I'm sure, since you said it so clear.

You'll be shocked, kids. When someone you thought loved you the most in this world, tell you that they hated it when they hear you speak. 

CHARMY'S 21

"If everyone in the room is awkward with one another and in their own little groups, then I don't want to hold a party" was something I kept telling my parents and my friends.

There were so many things happening at once last night. I was tired but I was happy and I was moved.

Because more than having my loved ones all in one place celebrating my 21st, I saw them interacting with one another. My friends with my grandparents, my cousins with my friends. There was a brief moment when I decided to stop what I was doing and take a look around and I quietly told myself that I have worried for nothing. 

I said so many "thank you(s)" to so many of you and I still don't think it is enough. I really cannot be more thankful. 

First and foremost, my parents for being my main sponsors for my party despite me telling them confidently that I would pay for my own. For helping me make sure that the food and beverages are all taken care of while I was in Perth and couldn't do the planning and ordering.

My brother, for helping me host my friends and being such a good and thoughtful one. From helping me with the decorations and food the night after he booked out from camp to bringing a bunch of my friends to play pool, bowling and for KTV and then having to book in the following day. You sacrificed your weekends out of camp and the comfy bed at home to make sure my party runs smoothly and I really am very thankful. I was so tired when we got home and only woke up to realise that you have already gone back to camp I didn't even have a chance to thank you. –But you know that I love you!! (Can't wait to get my present from you next weekend :P) 
And though the youngest one only came back the very night from his competition overseas, I know he'll do the same for me.

And it sure wasn't just my parents, brother and I who were tired. Because along side with my family, I had 3 super duper helpers. Or what they would like to call themselves that night, my managers Cassa, Jingci and Yanting. I whined about being tired but you girls didn't. Even when I know deep down, that you girls would be more tired than I am because you girls did much more than I had to do. From helping me with my decorations to being photographer, videographer, to helping me get food, feeding me and making sure that I was feeling okay to helping me host my other friends. The credits I have to give you girls for all that you did for me are so much more, I don't think anything I say can justify just how much you girls did and how truly thankful I am.

Last but not least, my friends and my relatives for taking time out from other celebrations and from work etc to come for my party. You guys weren't just great guests but great sports. Thank you for not isolating yourselves in a corner. Thank you for interacting. Especially my friends, for making my grandparents and cousins feel more comfortable. Thank you for my birthday song sang in 3 different languages. I kept touching my cheeks last night as you guys were singing because my cheeks were so painful from smiling. (I am not kidding, it was really painful). Thank you for all the gifts and more importanly, your presence.

God has given me so much and he even surprised me with an amazing opportunity on the week of my celebration. I am excited and hopeful for this totally unplanned journey of my life happening in about 2 weeks time.

OH MY GOD I AM 21 WHAT THE HELL.

Thank you for all the love thoughout the years (please contiue loving me even when I'm at my most stubborn and most annoying).

This is Charman, signing off!!!!!

Video: https://www.facebook.com/chgchrmz/videos/10153216162203192/?l=7607774438626761571

Let us forget, with generosity, those who cannot love us. —Pablo Neruda

How insane it is to be crazy over someone you barely know. To find it so tough to forget someone you've only met once. To wish so badly for someone who might not even remember you. To want someone so badly even though this is never your kinda "thing".

Been sick the past few days and I'm thinking it's because I've been walking in the rain after work and not showering immediately once I reach home but went to take a nap instead. (I never knew that the "tales" from our parents like "shower immediately after being in the rain or you'll fall sick" is true?!!?!?) lol. I think I'll start listening to these advices a little more now.


Anyhows, you might just be a little interested in what I've been up the past 2 weeks of my holiday. And to answer your (whoever's) non-existent question, I've been busy with facilitating the SYF event at TRCC.

while acting pretty much like a pedo.....

LOL

Was initially really pumped up during the first week of facilitating but then my excitement and energy went downhill the week after. –But I guess I can be forgiven for the lack motivation because it's mostly due the fact that my body was starting to fail me (thus I'm sick).

That aside, I was pretty glad/touched that Joey came to visit me during her break time while I'm at work! 

Went to meet Joey after her work in town on Saturday to get some stuffs done. I felt so alive the moment I stepped into town despite being sick because it's been 2 weeks since I've left home to go anywhere (except work). And it's been 2 weeks since the last time I stepped into town.

And everyone knows I'm NEVER the kind of girl to buy anything girly. Much less floral. But yesterday, I saw this romper and made a spontaneous decision to get it. I kinda liked it too anyway. I can be girly too!!

Now, I don't know if I'll ever wear it/find a chance to wear it. lol.

Last day of SYF tomorrow. Gotta wake up super duper early and I am supposed to be asleep by now as agreed with Theo but here I am, blogging instead of sleeping/making an effort to recover. 

My effort starts now.

Good night.

DON'T TRUST CHARMING

Because the boy who can talk all the right words knows how to play it too well. 

And I know that if I fall I'll be the one who's gonna end up hurt.

But why does it seem like this time, unlike many other times, I willingly allow myself to risk it all –the walls I've took so long to build up, even though I'm pretty sure that you might be a flirt?

6 months is a long time to be crushing on someone that I'm starting to think that all these, including me, is getting so ridiculous. 

YOURS

I try to be normal around you, but the reality is that there is nothing normal about the way you make me feel. I’ve always been level-headed until you walked in and made it impossible for me to stand on my own at the sight of you.
There’s a small handful of unforgivable things that I’d rather do than to let someone take me whole. But here I am, at the tip of your fingertips, shamelessly begging you to bring me in. And I pray that your embrace will never find its way undone. 

connotativewords

FINDING TIME

Said I'll find time but I do have time. "Time" isn't what I have to find. It's my priorities in life that I have to get right.

Spontaneous Kind of Happiness

Been a long time since I updated my blog on a regular basis. But I just felt like yesterday was a day (or should I say, 'date') to remember.

Decided to make a number of spontaneous decisions yesterday since I was pretty much in the mood for it.

1. Decided to make a trip down to *SCAPE to visit the people at the office while dropping by SYMBIOSIS to visit some of my friends
2. Super duper crazy and spontaneous decision to meet up with someone I barely know
3. To go for LKY's tribute

You might be wondering why I would count them as spontaneous. I'll explain along the way. 

So, I headed down to *SCAPE in the afternoon with the intention of wanting to surprise some people. In particular, Baoer, Jeslyn and Likhock.... well, since earlier in the morning I received a message from Likhock asking me to go down. Also because, I kinda miss Jeslyn and Baoer. 

However, I've said many times to my friends and everyone else that I would NEVER go down to any RP related events after the last day of school. But I made a spontaneous decision to go down anyway. Not sure why I even did that because at the very moment when I stepped into the Ground Theatre, I disliked it already. Nevertheless, it felt good to be able to see Bryan, Likhock, Baoer and Jeslyn. And even have Baoer become my bodyguard to protect me from a certain predator. LOL.

After which, I headed to Shaw to meet GG. 

If you've known me since secondary school, you will probably know that I'm not the kind who would agree to meet someone whom I just got to know. It took me 4 years to finally agree to meet L outside of school even though we've been seeing each other around school. I didn't even meet Zac out of school even though he was "close" to me for almost 2 years? 

I have never agreed to meet anyone anyone whom I've met from online even though I do know them/have seen them around in school. –Unless, I've come to know them better and become really close. (Like Leon and Zhiying)

With that said, I decided to be really spontaneous (God knows what got into me to find that courage lol) and agreed to meet. 

Me: "I'm 26 this year."

GG: "Oh really? Because I'm 35."

We headed to Coronation Building for Thai dinner before heading to his place for him to put his stuffs down and get his key and then we walked from his place to Botanics. Yet another spontaneous decision.

Anyhows, I met the guys later in the morning at around 1am as we were planning to go pay tribute. None of us wanted to go initially because of the crazy queue. However, our hearts kinda prompted us to. Sadly, an announcement was made that the Parliament will not accept anymore people that night/morning so we gave it a miss and went to have supper instead. 

These spontaneous decisions made didn't turn out that bad after all.

And I'm glad they were made :)

Gonna go back to sleep or something.

Toodles.

3:18am, First of our founding father, is no more

The world mourns its' lost, especially this country in which you've built. You were clear, wise and resilient and even endured heartbreaks in the process. You dedicated your whole life to build this nation when there was none. 

I am honored and thankful to have been in this country that was built and lead by you. You'll always be my favorite old man.

Rest in Peace LKY. We will manage from here.

How weird it is that the world doesn't stop for anybody. Even when everyone is grieving for him.

https://twitter.com/kissonyou/status/579807539048513536
https://twitter.com/kissonyou/status/579795633478873089

Imagine receiving a call last night from the doctors to go to the hospital because he was informed that his dad, wouldn't be able to make it. But yet, having to drop by to visit the crowd at the tribute area to shake their hands and thank them for their well wishes before he could go and see his father for the last time. And even after the passing of his dad, he had to hold back his own emotions to address the nation on National TV.  Lee Hsien Loong, it hasn't been easy for you to have shared your father with the nation and I thank you for that.

I remember telling someone that there's no way I can ever deal with death. The death my loved ones or even the death of my pets. And he asked me, "Would you cry over the death of someone you don't know?"  And I answered cooly, no. 
But today, I woke up after hearing my brother say "Lee Kuan Yew passed away this morning" to my mother in the living room. I wasn't feeling exceptionally sad. After all, I kinda expected it to happen since I saw the news that Lee Hsien Loong went to visit his dad yesterday. 
But my heart broke when I saw Lee Hsien Loong all choked up while in front of the national television. It broke when I saw the tribute video playing on tv with Lee Kuan Yew crying. It broke when I saw the flags being raised mid high. Today, my heart broke many times. 
You would ask me, "What has his death got to do with you so much that you have to be this affected?" 
And I would answer you, it has got to do with me, and us in every single way. Because he was the one who built this country up from when it was nothing. He was the one who had a vision for us. If not for him, I wouldn't be staying where I am staying today. We wouldn't have the education that we get to take for granted of, the transport system that we even have to be able to complain about as well as the clean sanitisation that we currently enjoy. This small global metropolis happened all because of him.
This year as we celebrate SG50, many of us will miss your presence at the parade.
I asked my mum this question many times, "how do you make sure that a person stays on, even when he/she is gone?" and the answer is simply to continue whatever that he/she has been doing when he/she was around.
#RIPLKY

Exams and CNY

Hello to you who's reading my blog!
Finally decided to get my ass up to blog again instead of lazing in bed on days when I'm not busy. I was back at *SCAPE to work for a week after my tests so I hadn't really had the time to blog...... and when I have the chance to blog like the past 3 days, I decided to wake up in the afternoon and have lunch then sleep my whole day away again. lol

I really gotta stop going out at godly sleeping hours and then waking up feeling restless the next day.


Anyhow, here's an update to how I spent my CNY this year!! As usual, my first 3 days of CNY are the busiest. Day 1 for relatives, day 2 for relatives of my dad's clique/grandparents' of my childhood friends and day 3 would be what my family likes to call, "Our open house"!


On the Eve on CNY, Theo and I made a dental appointment to get our teeth checked and cleaned!! The last time both of us had our teeth checked was in 2011?!?!!?!? But anyway, my teeth is still in good condition!! OH YEAH.

Met my family at Sakuraya after my dental appointment for lunch and got two see my brother after his 2 weeks for NS confinement!

And still very happy that I went to the dentist. 

And as usual, the first day of CNY was spent visiting my extended family and relatives.

Ended my Day 1 visitation at my paternal grandparents' side like every other year and I helped my daddy win quite a lot of money. heheh. I was on a winning streak!!!! Seriously. I was either getting ban luck, ban ban (double As) or 5 dragons for many consecutive rounds!

The second day of CNY was spent visiting the parents of my dad's friends a.k.a the grandparents of my childhood friends.

And the third day like every other year, was spent with people coming over to my place.

On Sunday, which is the 4th day of CNY, we had our neighbours gathering as usual and I headed to Yanting's place for steamboat after.

And then, I had to return to school for tests -.-

WHY MUST TESTS BE SET DURING THE CNY PERIOD SRSLY.

But not like I was really bothered because a few days later I went over to Nais's place for steamboat and gambling even though I had an important test the next day.

But it's not like I didn't try studying. I did. Just look at me holding my specs in the above photo.

Then again, it didn't make a difference whether I studied or not because my friends who have studied all didn't know how to do the test as well.

The day after, I went to school for my last paper.

Made a spontaneous decision to meet Josh at his place later in the night and Eugene joined us later for drinks till like freaking 5am. 

OH MY GOD.

So here's my update on CNY.

It's boring I know. 

):

But it's so hard

to even sit myself down and start a post these days...

I tried.

HAPPIEST DAY OF MY 3 YEARS IN SCHOOL

My 3 years of suffering and torture has finally ended!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so freaking happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TWO OH ONE FOUR

2014 has been quite a good year for me.

If there's anything in which I've learnt this year, I think it would be learning how to let things go. 

(Finally)

Because this is one thing in which I've been struggling with for years and years.

But this year, I realised that it isn't as hard for me to let things go and I think I can handle letting go of things now especially in the area of friendships.

Maybe this has all got to do with me finally getting sick of being disappointed and hurt that I finally had to force a foot forward or maybe it's just because I've grown older and I tend not to take it too hard on myself when I lose a friend. I don't know. 

Btw, is it just me but I seriously think this year flew past damn freaking fast?! Like wayyy wayyyy WAYYYY faster than the previous years.

Anyway, as 2014 comes to an end, here are the things in which I am extremely grateful for/which made me especially happy this year. (According to what I wrote in my planner -because I write everything done and on days when I'm happy, I have it written down too).

1. 23/02: When I got accepted by *SCAPE for my internship right after the day of my interview. Despite the OTs, and never ending workload, I enjoyed my internship so much and had lots of fun when I was there. And I guess it speaks for why I would go back and help out once in awhile, as and when I can. And following that, on 21/03, my very first work being put up for an event. I don't think I'll ever forget how it feels like to have my work being printed up and put up in real life that is like x100 times the size I see it when I was designing it on the com. I really did felt so good I felt all teary inside lol. (x)

2. 11/04: Wasn't exactly a happy day for me because I didn't do well for my test but was extremely thankful for John Lim for asking me out and he even wanted to treat me for dinner to cheer me up :') following that, we met Minjiang and was stuck at the causeway for freaking 3-4hrs because Minjiang didn't want to listen to me when I told him to exit highway and would rather trust his GPS which lead us to join the massive jam to Malaysia. What's more it was a freaking Friday -.- HAHHA. It's so weird that this day kinda sucked but I still put it on my list. But that's cause I really am thankful that John Lim wanted to buy me dinner to comfort me. Though I didn't allow him to pay for me in the end! 

3. 17/04: This day was also nothing special but then I met Josh for dinner and we had out first heart to heart talk at some bpp semi circle which lasted for 2hrs PLUS, he sent me home after?!?!? Imagine how shock I was LOL. Not exactly a super happy day but it's definitely a memorable one. 

4. 11/05: I wrote "OH HAPPY DAY!!" on my planner and I don't know why I felt so happy that day. LOL but I remember I was really happy. It was mothers' day and Josh came and meet me for lunch after which, he accompanied me to go get presents for my mum and Yanting. Then we headed to PlazaSg for me to surprise Yanting before going to the museum together and later at night, I got my iPhone. I think what made me really happy was the fact that I almost spat water at him!?! Kidding. I think it was because I went to surprise Yanting with her presents, got a present for my mum, got accompanied to the museum (which I never thought I'll ever be at with a friend) and my parents got me an iPhone that's why I was happy. Am I starting to sound naggy? (x) 

5. 30/06 – 06/07: WHAO. THIS IS DEFINITELY THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY YEAR. MY 20TH BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!! ♥ So much to say about this one because so many things happened. I was truly truly happy and if you wanna know why, I blogged it all out so go ahead to read this one cause I can't possibly type everything out. It's long enough to turn into another blogpost. (x)

6. 19/07: Drinking at Cuppage, this I won't say happy but it was memorable. Walking around town at 3am is definitely something I wanna do again.... that is if I can't sleep lol (x)

7. 02/08: Nerf gun! Need I say more!?!?!? I think I would e equally happy if my friends were to play block catching or something with me. lol. And omg I'm starting to get quite annoyed that almost every freaking single thing listed is somehow related to Josh. (x)

8. 25/08: Not that I was super happy or anything but hello, new milestone for Charman. Just be happy for me. Passed my driving

9. 31/08 – 05/09: Boracay trip with friends. Another highlight of this year for me. Everyday single day in Boracay, I was happy. I also felt that it was very dirty. But irrelevant. lol. I think that was one of the best days in my 2014, including my birthday. I laughed so hard every single day in Boracay, adding on the beach, the sun, the waterspouts which is my fav hobby. I wouldn't wished for it any other way. I also met 2 new friends there and we've been hanging out ever since we're back in Sg like going to zouk together and stuffs. (x)

10. 02/10: Went to have Kbbq with friends and then we played pool before I had dinner with my brother. I got no idea why I felt happy this day either. But I was laughing a lot and I was just happy me. (x)

So many things that I'm thankful for this year.

The big ones, the small ones.

I'm thankful for the people who've stayed in my life and I'm glad to meet some really nice and fun people this year.

They say you meet many temporary people in your life from age 17 to 21. I'm glad I only have a year more to go. 

But right now, it's pretty clear who the true ones are. 

This year has been nothing short of amazing. Here's to new adventures, new goals, new perspective and new friendships and more accomplisements for the next year. 

I seriously can't wait to graduate. And not to forget I'm turning 21 next year (sadly). 

For now, HAPPY 2015 people!!

Can't wait to be back on the 4th and reunited with Theo who will be back in SG!

Till then, 

Xoxo