Exactly three months ago, which coincidentally happened to be my 22nd birthday, I was feeling rather nervous about this whole exchange trip. What was I thinking? The only Singaporean travelling alone to a foreign place, spending three whole months (ok not exactly, I went back home for a week for a tournament) in a foreign town called Corvallis? A Singaporean who has never sat alone in a plane in her whole entire life, who has never checked her own luggage or gone through immigration on by herself? What made me think I could actually survive on my own for such a long time? On top of that, rent a place off-campus without even checking the place out? A mixture of excitement and apprehension swirled within me, but mostly the latter. Every time I had to go run an errand in preparation for the trip (eg, VISA, USD account opening, NCAA registration, shopping for travelling needs), I did it with a heavy heart and regretted ever having to apply for this alone. After all, being someone who chose to stay in a Singapore college when opportunities for studying in the US were aplenty, this certainly did not feel like the most exciting chapter in my life. It definitely felt like I was in for a life-changing experience, not necessarily a good thing on my part. But guess what? I survived. And this exchange trip turned out to be nothing like what I feared or expected.

Okay but the first few weeks were kinda tough. Suffering from major jet lag for the first couple of days, I had to get my act together and meet the Oregon State University Golf team and start training with them. And man was it intensive. We had to get up at 7am everyday and practice all day till 5pm, and it was a culture shock for me. Firstly, I had to speak Americano as opposed to my everyday Singlish. Secondly, I was really nervous as I wanted to perform well and play well in the team. Thankfully, after years of watching American TV and having American relatives, along with playing countless tournaments prior to my trip, I adjusted quick. On top of that, my teammates were super nice and fun. I adjusted fairly quick but nonetheless I was feeling homesick. Why? It was mainly because I missed the food back in Singapore and my family and friends. Frozen Chinese food tasted like death and putting up an accent was somewhat draining.

The OSU Golf Team

After the first few weeks of adjustment and getting to know my awesome team mates, classes started to kick in. This was when I begun to spend more time at the iHouse (short for international House, which kinda makes sense because all 40 of my housemates were literally from all over the world) and got to know the residents there. Every. Single. One. Of. Them were a bundle of joy to get to know. It was like meeting the world at one place. You’ve got the Europeans who could hold their alcohol like there wasn’t tomorrow, the Africans who lived with such great passion and energy, the Americans who embraced college life and knew how to party, and the Asians who worked and played hard at the same time. And the best part is how sincere and open-minded every single one of them was and all they wanted to do is know more about each other and share whatever they had with everyone.

The iHouse Crew

Making the decision to go alone and staying in a house filled with international people is, in fact, probably the best decision anyone can ever make while on exchange. Not only are you able to immerse yourself in the culture of the country you are in, you get to learn about a ton of other cultures all over the world. You meet people with very little knowledge of their background and get blown away by how different they live their lives from you and appreciate that there exists people who have different sets of ideals.

On top of everything, I met a few very special people and I really hope that they will stay in my life in time to come. The thought of leaving all this behind really saddens me. I guess these are phases in life we have to experience and move on. After this stint, it feels like the world is now my horizon. It has spurred me to achieve my goals and be more open minded about what lies beyond my borders.

I’m just so thankful that this has happened in my life and I’m gonna make sure that these very special people that I met in my time here stay dear to my heart.

I will never forget you, Corvallis. <3

What do I feel? Emptiness. Hollow. Like a great deal of flesh was ripped out of my heart and thrown away.

This is the first time I have actually gone a full course of a relationship without having anyone else in the picture, waiting for me to start anew. I wouldn’t say I’ve caught a dead end, but let’s just say that its easier for me to keep thinking and looking back over and over again.

I just keep thinking, if I did certain things differently, would we have come to this point where we can no longer bear each other’s mistakes and lies? I’ve always thought that a relationship is a working process, nobody is perfect and if we really love the person for who they are, we would accept their mistakes and help them to mature and grow.

I guess I have been taking too many things for granted, always thinking that I’ll be given another chance if I make a slip up. This cushion of thought has caused me to be mediocre in just about everything that I do, as I always had a ‘back-up’ plan to fall back on. Because of this, I had to learn things the hard way and cause hurt to myself and others.

I’m really thankful for the friends I have around me, telling me that it’s not me who screwed up, that we were just not meant to be. But inside me I know that ultimately, I was the screw up who couldn’t keep to simple promises just to treasure this relationship.

Well, all I can say that it’s over now and I’ve reached the end of another chapter of my life, a chapter where I had to be perfect to keep the one I love and accept his own flaws at the same time. It’s time to move on and have a time of my life in the next chapter: the Single Life.

[Chorus]

You say good morning
When it’s midnight
Going out of my head
Alone in this bed
I wake up to your sunset
It’s drivin me mad
I miss you so bad
And my heart heart heart is so jetlagged

[Verse 2]

What time is it where you are?
5 more days and i’ll be home
I keep your picture in my car
I hate the thought of you alone
I been keeping busy all the time
Just to try to keep you off my hand
Tryin to figure out the time zones makin me crazy

[Chorus]

You say good morning
When it’s midnight
Going out of my head
Alone in this bed
I wake up to your sunset
It’s drivin me mad
I miss you so bad
And my heart heart heart is so jetlagged

[Bridge]

I’ve been keepin busy all time
Just to try to keep you off my mind
Tryin to figure out the time zones makin me crazy
I miss you so bad
I wanna share your horizon
And see the same sunrising
Turn the hour hand back to when you were holding me

[Chorus]

You say good morning
When it’s midnight
Going out of my head
Alone in this bed
I wake up to your sunset
It’s drivin me mad
I miss you so bad
And my heart heart heart is so jetlagged

I’ve never felt like this before, given that I’ve spent most of my life saving up, ever since I was in primary school. Now, it seems that more than ten years of my life savings are just drifting down the valley of consumption and waste in such a short span of time.

But hey, money ain’t the key to happiness! Remember that. Family is most important and as long as you have them in mind in whatever you do, money will flow in naturally by means of working hard for them and reaping the rewards out of it. Just patience and for goodness sake start a frugal lifestyle already…

Peace out.

It’s like going through a test of some sorts, just that this one was purely about what I wanted in my life. Certainly felt like a roller coaster but I am sure of what I want now. It does help when things are kept at a distance and you are just left there by yourself to fend for yourself, to figure out what you’d do if you were just a single entity without the help of anyone.

I’ve learnt that at the end of the day, it’s really about what you want. I know, that’s cliche and seems easy to do. “What you want”, at face value just simply means to operate in your own comfort zone and just do what you think is right at that point in time. I thought that was how we should go about doing it, until what happened over the past few weeks. Well, it’s not like that for me, to say the least. I’ve learnt that knowing what you want is seeing everything in the big picture. Not just what you want in the present, or not just what you want for yourself in the future. It’s a combination of both.

I’m gonna sound pretty abstract now but what the heck.

Playing golf at its shittiest level, despite training your ass off is probably the hardest thing in my life to deal with. I guess its a good problem if I put it in perspective. In the past three years, I knew this as a fact and hence avoided training hard because I felt that there wasn’t any point because I knew that I’m gonna screw up anyway and feel like I wasted my life training so hard for it. Hence, I laid back and just went about competing without the need or want to push myself. It was only until recently when I realised that I had 7 competitions in 6 weeks that I wanted to train hard and made sure I performed well. Three competitions later, I find myself beating myself up harder than I had ever did in the last 3 years because I just couldn’t perform at any of the competitions. It felt horrible and since I had nothing else but golf to worry about all summer, I was at an all time low.

I took it out on everything else around me, including my loved ones. It was as though I was so consumed in my own grief and misery that nothing else mattered and I just wanted to do anything I want, even if it meant hurting my loved ones and breaking promises, in hopes to feel better at that point in time. It did feel better when I was going at it, but after that it was just emptiness and regret. Came to a point where the one person I relied on and trusted and love didn’t know me anymore. I started to feel even more lost and lost all interest in picking myself back up and continue to just let everything around me consume me and eat me up.

Basically, my mind was in a complete mess. I could even see everything around me crumble apart and my first instinct was just to scramble and pick it up and all I did was make it worse. Promises stopped meaning anything to me and I just threw them around at people like hot coal. I was desperately searching for ways to make everything normal again and sought in the wrong places. Nothing felt better to me over the past weekend.

It wasn’t until this morning when I received a harsh phone call half a world away to tell me to wake up and figure out what I want out of my own life. Do I really want to waste it away dwelling on my shortcomings and finding ridiculous ways to make myself feel better again? It wasn’t until that point when I realise that I’ve been making blind promises only to break them because I didn’t know why I was making them. Got me thinking and I’m getting it clear in my head now.

From today onwards, I’m gonna think on my own two feet and do things not to prove to others but to prove to myself that I am sure of what I want in life. It’s clear in my head now and I’m just gonna take it step by step and work towards my ultimate goal in life.

Peace out.

Since you’ve gone I’ve lost a chip on my shoulder,
Since you’ve gone I feel like I’ve gotten older,
And now you’ve gone it feels as if the whole wide world is my stage
And now you’ve gone it’s like I’ve been let out of my cage,

You always made it clear that you hated my friends,
You made me feel so guilty when I was running around with them,
And everything was always about being cool,
And now I’ve come to realise there’s nothing cool about you at all,

Since you’ve gone I’ve lost a chip on my shoulder,
Since you’ve gone I feel like I’ve gotten older,
And now you’ve gone it feels as if the whole wide world is my stage
And now you’ve gone it’s like I’ve been let out of my cage,

Since you’ve gone I’ve lost a chip on my shoulder,
Since you’ve gone I feel like I’ve gotten older,
And now you’ve gone it feels as if the whole wide world is my stage
And now you’ve gone it’s like I’ve been let out of my cage

For most of my life, I’ve just been floating around and just finding someone to really love with every bit of my heart. Along the way, it felt like my heart was just constantly being trampled on and taken advantage of in so many different ways and permutations possible. I would hold on with every bit of energy that I had, in hope that in time love could be reciprocated and just keep hoping that things will change in the future.  Every single relationship I had been in was the same thing over and over again. It’s like no matter how much I fed the cow, the cow wouldn’t grow but yet I still keep feeding the cow and the cow just keeps eating and nothing happens and still remains the same helpless and lifeless cow, y’know what I mean?

Ah well, all of that is behind me now. I’m going to start afresh and do things differently, and in the right way. This time round, I’m choosing my cow carefully and make sure the cow actually moos and runs about and finds his own food and actually appreciates what I feed him and respond accordingly. No more picking a weak cow and hoping I can actually change it into a strong cow.

Nothing’s gonna stop me now!

If it meant dashing of hopes, just let it be

If it meant placing one’s needs above yours, have your own grounded beliefs to keep

Notwithstanding what lies ahead of you, live in the present

Love yourself, as you are the only thing you’ll take with you when you leave this place

What is love really? Is it finding someone worth dying for or just a deluded thought that is really unnecessary?

If love meant doing things absolutely absurd and illogical, is it really still love?

If love indeed breeds jealousy, is it worth the trouble?

Love is secondary, happiness is pure.

Living in a rather sheltered home, I was always spoon fed with everything. My parents doted on me a lot and taught me everything they knew about life. But they were never unreasonable when it came to restricting me to certain things, as they would rationalize with me why certain things are wrong. Slowly I had developed a way of thinking such that when I see a certain act, I’d think about how my parents would react to it and develop my judgement from there. Overtime it impeded my own judgements and led me to be thrown into many deep ends feeling bewildered and lost.

I’m not trying to say that my parents raised me up the wrong way, in fact I’m so grateful that they have guided me on building up a sense of rationality as it helped me to be independent. What I failed to do is to place things into perspective and seeing everything in a bigger picture. I experienced a lot of conflicts and unhappiness along the way as I’d find myself angry when people around me just don’t behave the way that I perceived should be right in the given situation.

Realizing this, Ive learnt that compromise can work wonders. I did just that starting from two years ago. Many were shocked and confused when I made that move that required me to make a good deal of compromise. Sure, it did put me down a lot as I was a hard headed girl who thought things in one direction and was quite affected by what people thought. Even my own parents were at loggerheads with me at certain points in time. But for some reason, I persevered cos I knew I was into something special.

It feels like God sent an angel to watch over me but at the same time learn the hard way on how to appreciate things from a different perspective. Overtime, as I learnt to give more and expect less in return, that was when I experienced happiness from ways I’d never imagine if I continued to demand for things my way.

I think I’m speaking in riddles. But the bottom-line is, it’s always good to take a step back and look at the big picture. You may never know it but u may be part of something beautiful and worth the while.