#6 #7 Productivity Overload Week

Productivity Overload Week

...or busyness overload week


 It has been a very busy and fulfilling sixth and seventh week, work got so packed up that I haven't been able to squeeze out even a little time to write updates here, but here I am, although am late even for #7, I'm still writing.

 There have been a few things that have been occupying my time like a hogger, and for two weeks I got so squeezed out that I mostly do not have time for myself and I didn't even have had proper rest.

 Foreign Students' Week
It's a school's annual event where us foreign students in TKU holds a foreign students' week to introduce our country's food and culture and stuff to the mass public in our school. The event itself is primarily organised by the Overseas Chinese Students Association and the Indonesian Students Association this year, and for students from different countries, their respective students' association will be handling their part of the and I have been chosen to organise the Malaysian part of the whole event.

 Work had to start before the Winter break mainly because we had to decide what kinds of Malaysian food we are going to put on sale at the venue, we had to buy it beforehand as we can only get it from Malaysia. But the real busy part actually starts around one month before the event itself, of course, some procrastination later I have only got about 2 weeks left to make all the preparations for the week-long event itself. 

 I had to make arrangements for my fellow Malaysians to be on-duty for the Malaysian area of the exhibition, which itself is a very time-consuming job considering most people chose the same timeframe, leaving most other timeframes in the void of anyone to be on-duty, it is very annoying, plus there is a lot of miscommunication between us and the main organiser regarding the starting and ending time of the exhibition which added another layer of work to be done. 

 FInishing duty-time table and I have to oversee many other things that are supposed to be overseen by my partner, well, I wouldn't want to bad mouth but in the end, I carried on most of the work that I am not assigned to do initially. It does get on my nerves sometimes that I am doing work that I am not supposed to be doing, and I had to do it because of the fact that my partner has done jacksh*t about anything, and someone has to do it.

 Well, sometimes I do think that I am a person that is well-suited to do work on my own, I have always enjoyed doing work in a quiet office alone, without anyone to report to and stuff, I find doing my work like that gives me more freedom and I feel less constricted. Maybe it's because of this I haven't been learning how to communicate well with my fellow partners? There are many occasions during presentations that I just prepared the points to present and the PowerPoint slides itself while most of my teammates were just left aside waiting to do the presentation, I guess most students actually hate to do a presentation in front of the crowd, and they expect everyone else to do it, and most of the time if I am in their team they are lucky, I do all the work. 

 And for the foreign students' week, I guess maybe it's my inability to effectively communicate with my partner and this left her empty minded on what to do, or maybe she just couldn't care more! I don't know really haha.

 Overall, getting involved in this event is really fun, I almost forgot how fun it is to actually organise events. I really learned a lot, especially on how to do work and stuff, I learned to try to communicate more with partners and stuff, as I realised that it is really very important to the success of something, you have to communicate on problems, and communicate on how to solve problems, I guess if there is this one thing I learned on #6 and #7, that's it.





Early Thesis Writing
For some reason, I have decided that I could actually start researching what I want to write for my thesis, I'm not sure if I really am going to write the actual thesis before my senior year but I thought in case I really did it before my Senior year, I might have a honeymoon year during my senior year. 

 I have been thinking about writing a thesis in the field of linguistics, since my major is the Japanese language, the scope of what I can write is fairly limited to cultural stuff, or literature, or linguistics. I have been quite interested in the scientific study of language since quite some time ago, well, I've been loving science forever. I thought I can do some studies about language, and I choose to do language comparison between Malay (my national language) and Cebuano (Joyce's native tongue).

 For quite some time I have been quite interested in the Austronesian family of languages and I happen to have a girlfriend who speaks an Austronesian language besides Malay, it really got me very interested in the language family (to be honest, I thought Malay only started existing about 500 years ago before I learned about Cebuano and the Austronesian languages). 

For this, I have actually been talking to a Professor in my department regarding this, and he's good enough to support me doing this, for some reason, and luckily enough, I happened to have met a PhD student in my school from Cebu, who is also quite interested in the theme I am planning to do on, she has offered to contact me up with some of her friends currently teaching at UP and Universit of San Carlos, both in Cebu, whom expertise are in Cebuano history and language, to help me out with my studies.

To be honest, I do not know if I am capable of doing such studies for my undergraduate thesis, but I am very interested in a theme that I think I'd continue on it. I've signed up for some basic linguistics courses on MOOCs online to give myself some fundamentals on the subject of linguistics. God, I don't know if I am crazy but I really am doing this? It's hard to say if this will actually be what comes out on my thesis, but I don't really see this as something unnecessary that I am doing, I really see this as doing something I am interested in. 
These two weeks has been very busy and very fulfilling for me, and I might have learned some very important life lesson from it too!

 Well, this semester is going to be so busy, like every other semester before this, but I think I am getting more productivity this week because I am feeling like I am getting a hang out of not procrastinating!

#5 Bright Way Ahead

Bright Way Ahead

...and getting along with rules

The fifth week going, and I feel like I haven't been achieving a lot. Of course, as usual, things are getting a little out of hand as I am getting busier and busier, with so much work piling up while I am trying and trying to finish them one by one, but the burden keeps getting heavier and heavier.

 I started another on-campus part-time job at the Office of International Affairs, this is my first week and things are going along quite well, adding another 6 hours to my already tight schedule is a little burdening, but working there is, for the most part, fun and to say the least, kinda easy. I have been going to the Office of International Affairs for numerous times up to now and I have had a little idea what working there feels like, plus I had some experience working in an office, what's with the copying machine and answering and transferring phone calls, so I am catching up with work over there quite easily. Now I just have to understand the office rules there to make my life even easier. 

 I realized that sometimes we feel like it's so hard to work in some working environment is that because we are usually unfamiliar with the rules of that particular environment. It's not like the well-documented rules that are written on a guidebook, it's the un-mentioned rules, the underlying rules that we are unfamiliar with that gives us a hard time staying in a working environment. I used to work in some other offices and I feel so stressed and that everyone is so cold, I sat at the corner always minding my own business, doing tasks that I am assigned to and, for the most part, I am just working alone in an office with half a dozen people. Well, until I learned that I have to man up and start talking to them, to communicate with office-mates, especially some with similar age or personality with you, when you communicate well with them, they may share you some of the underlying rules like the dos and do-not in that particular office. You know, my teacher once said, if you want to survive an office environment, you have to know and understand all the underlying rules, and then that's when you can play with all these rules to your advantage and make your life easier. It's true after all, or so it seems. Well, took me quite some time to understand that.

 Well, I think I am getting ahead of myself and probably that should be a post on its own. Well, I think this week is half great and half not-so-great for me. Maybe I should try making a list:

 The Greats:
  1. I actually bought air tickets to Cebu for the coming spring holiday, it was supposed to be a secret surprise but it got blown, so it's ok.
  2. Started my second on-campus part-time job and it was mostly great, having quite some fun working there.
  3. I finally resumed my Spanish studies despite a very packed schedule.
  4. I started reading this book "Dracula", from more than a hundred years ago, and it's awesome.
  5. I am starting to think about what I am going to write about my thesis, and got a bottom line green light after I discussed with a Professor about the general direction of the thesis, might have to ask him to be my guidance Professor during my senior year.
The Not-so-greats:
  1. Association work is starting to pile up, 4 events to plan and prepare for in 2 months' time, well, 'great'.
  2. Classes are tougher for the second semester, although I have expected it, it is tougher than what I expected, so I have to actually put in more effort.
  3. My financial position is getting worse as the days go, but my schedule is currently so packed I am afraid that I won't be able to do any more part-time jobs.
  4. Although Spanish studies resumed, progress isn't all that great, currently on a 1-day streak.
  5. Learned that a friend of mine, who used to be quite close with me, ran into a serious accident, it gave me quite a shock and situation were bad, but a few days ago I got told that things are getting better and better, well, speedy recovery and May God Bless Her.
Well comparing the greats and not-so-greats, it seems like it not really worse than I thought, at least I do not have not-so-greats more than 'greats'

 Well, life is still wonderful I guess?
This week I also got to know this guy, who is also a Malaysian, that has been playing with stock markets with considerable success, I thought I might want to catch up with him more and actually learn stuff on how to earn money on the stock market, I guess that's one step closer to financial independent? 

 I really have to learn how to play with investments, I want to be rich really, I mean, who doesn't want to be rich in this world? Nothing materialises without money in this capitalistic world. 

 Well, good luck to me!

 I guess this pretty much sums up my week and looking back, I really feel like I am living my life right now, although there still procrastination here and there, I feel like there's less and less of that. Well, what do I know? I managed to wake up early for half of the days this week! Which is a great improvement! Or maybe it's just the liver supplement actually working because I really feel less fatigue since I had that.

 Tough weeks ahead, but let's get through it!
New York because it's my dream destination, it makes me feel happier.

#4 One Step Closer

One Step Closer

A great step towards my Investment Portfolio

Another week passed just like that! To be honest, I did not realise that I have to write my weekly update today until just now! I really did not realise that another weekend has arrived. Even though it's a weekend, I've been spending my whole Saturday at work, so I didn't really have time to contemplate the fact that it's weekend again.

 For me, this weekend has been busy and so it's just like any other day, I had to wake up early today to go to work in a business suit, plus it's been raining for 3 days straight, so walking in a suit under the rain is anything but pleasant, at least it's springtime so I didn't have to endure the summer heat while wearing a suit. 

 Last week during class allocation, I've taken up a module on Business Evaluation and Risk Management, it's a course opened under the Honours programme and although it turns out to be way out of my league, I thought I might as well give it a try. For beginners, my school's Honours programme is open for students that have their exam ranking of the top 10% in their respective classes, which modules under the programme are designed to be more like classes for graduate classes with countless presentations and reports as well as short theses and with less emphasis on hard-core memorisation-frenzy-style examinations, I thought it suited me well. Another thing about the programme is that since students admitted to the programme are all from different faculties and majors, modules are designed in such a way that it's not too technical but it's in-depth enough for you in order to be able to apply it into real life.

 BUT. It's a big BUT. This module on Business Evaluation and Risk Management blew away my understanding of the whole programme. The module was very technical, in-depth and requires a very clear understanding and application of the concept of Accounting. Well, I've been taking classes on Accounting but I haven't been good at applying the concepts of Accounting to do financial analyses of firms to evaluate the value of a business. But well, as God-like investor Warren Buffet says, you have to know how to evaluate a firm in order to make a sound analysis in whether to invest in a company. I know it very well that it's not going to be easy this time, but I guess if I am going to have a great start on my investment portfolio, I guess I need some more professional knowledge.

 This week has been a hell of a ride for me, I did something so crazy I still kinda in denial of I did it, but I did. Well, I'll update on this in the future.

 Well, I guess that's it for this week, it's been a short week for me really, and weeks are just going to get shorter and shorter as I get busier and busier, probably going to be busy all the way until end-of-May, I hope I will still be alive.

 I've also set a little goal for myself this week too! I am going to restart my studies on Spanish, I realise I haven't been doing anything on Spanish, time to restart it. I remembered that day I was helping my roommate's friend to download MATLAB on his computer, which is all Spanish. I was surprised that I was able to read some of the things on the computer so I was actually able to work with that computer more or less. Of course, most of it is because I recognise the English counterpart of the word since they are so similar, but I was also able to recognise some of the words that I have studied before in Duolingo. 

Well, my little goal towards intermediate Spanish is going to be obtaining a 30-day streak on Duolingo, starting on the first day of #5, wish me luck then!



#3 Relaxing Week

Relaxing Week

But I should start gearing up

Third week going.

 Time feels like it's flying when you are so busy with everything. It just does. This week I have been busy decided on my modules, same as every beginning of a semester. I have decided on 24 credits points for this semester, 2 credit points less than last semester. For some reason, I have been overly relaxed since the start of this semester, albeit only the second week for the semester.

 I have been tracking my credit points since the last two semesters what modules that I have taken and what modules I still have to take in order to graduate with an honour degree as well as a minor. It's been tough to plan which modules I should take each semester, and I need about 30 more credits than normal to graduate will all those additional modules. Therefore, I think I might have to seriously consider taking on summer classes to help with lessening my burden during normal semesters.

 This week has been relatively relaxing for me as I only had 3 school days thanks to so public holiday and weekend being back-to-back, so I had two days of holidays on which I spent it quite recklessly, frankly speaking, although I am not sure if that's the right word. I have been spending my days on food and movies, nothing more and nothing less. I might have to catch up with work more during the real "weekends". I have to say, today has been relatively productive and I have had less procrastination than normal.

 Here is a thing I realised this week, the thing about procrastination, the one way to overcome it is to take the first step in starting whatever you have to do. This week, I have been trying to overcome my procrastination and achieving moderate success. I started by first creating a working environment that is suitable for me to work in - I closed up the curtains in my room and turned off the room light, leaving only the table light, that a perfect working environment for me. I realised that I am really a night person, and if I can't make nighttime come faster, I might as well make myself a nighttime environment. I do realise that my productivity is much higher when I work in a night-like environment. Well, now that I have found a way to be more productive, I guess I should use it more.

 I haven't got any calls from the steamboat shop that I have been looking for a job at, so I wouldn't say I have met my $8000 per month income yet, but I hope I could meet that as soon as possible. 

 In conclusion, this week has been relatively relaxed for me and think it's a good thing, but I think I should start gearing up on the things I should be doing. 

 Well, wish me good luck on #4 then.

#2 Off to a Good Start

A Great Start

...never felt so alive


 It's the first week of school I've been picking up my pace fast at school. Time flies when you get busy, and I got quite busy even for the first week of school here, I've got my work in my Malaysian Students Association, I've got a lot of classes to attend to, I had quite some work assigned to me at my part-time job, and many more to come on #3. 

 Speaking of which, I tried to find some extra part-time job this week to get more extra income. I went for an interview for a part-time job at a steamboat place near my home, a place I have always been to because, to be honest, Taiwanese steamboat are so nice and much better than Malaysian steamboat, albeit more expensive. The owner of that steamboat shop has basically employed me but there are still some things that needed sorting out before I can start my work there, so fingers crossed there! 

 Besides, I got accepted to work at the international students' office of my school, not much as I've only got allocated 60 hours of working quota for the 18 weeks coming during the semester. So as for now, I have got 3 part-time jobs not including the steamboat place yet, it'd be a heck of a semester just on work but I am inclined to think that I would be able to handle it.

 Still, I've been fighting with constant procrastination this week. I've got lots of work to do but I am still piling up my work to a later date, not really urgent work but still, I have got to deal with my constant procrastination towards work and stuff or else it might, as usual, become a hindrance in all I want to achieve.

 At school, I have been challenging myself to take up more classes that I have never wanted to take as I was afraid that my results would be pulled down by them. "Hell, I've got nothing to lose," I told myself, and I took it up as it would be a big help in my future investment portfolio. I've decided to take up a module on enterprise evaluation and risk management, like Warren Buffet said, the trick is to know how to evaluate a firm, only then you can make a sound decision on investing in a company. Well, I guess I had to start somewhere.

 Overall, I think this week is a good start for me on my 52 weeks challenge and I will keep up on it, I feel kinda alive since I started doing this challenge, maybe it's because I am actually keeping track of what I am doing to achieve my goals? Not too sure about that, but to be honest, I am looking forward to looking back on all my posts on #52 and see how much of a change I have achieved.

About Studying Abroad

I thought I could just make this post into my #2 post but I have decided that since I am free, I might as well spend my time into writing this post about studying abroad.

 I have been studying abroad for almost two years now, although it is not too far away in the global sense, it is far enough in the sense that it is a hassle to go home frequent. Ever since I started high school, I have had the dream of studying abroad to countries that I have never been to, although my only study-abroad destination back then was only Japan.

 In the end, I realised my dream of studying abroad and it was nothing really like what I have expected - getting to know many foreign students and having fun studying and enjoying a picturesque life, nothing like that. I have been in the comfort of my home ever since I am born, I do not have to think about food, money, daily routines and stuff, everything is scheduled properly for me and I only had to follow it and everything would go just fine.

 Ever since I came to study in Taiwan, I have been battling with many anxieties that I have since this island nation has (almost) everything that defied my expectations - it's not as clean as I thought it is, people here are not as friendly as I thought it is, food here is not as friendly as I thought it is, it is not as developed as I thought it is. Sure, some may beg to differ or even dispute what I am saying here, but this is purely my own feelings about this country and it doesn't and shouldn't matter to anyone else, especially those taking offence for it.

 Point is, I was so anxious about everything that defied my expectations and I had some hard time trying to make myself used to the new environment there, luckily I had some mental support and over time, I was able to get used to it and be more independent in facing many problems here and stuff. 

Being Homesick

This is the thing that I have really not expected. I have never thought that I am a person that can feel homesick since I haven't been exactly a family-centric kind of person, or so I thought. I remember myself leaving the bus terminal in Ipoh with my grandma sending me away, I'd always remember how she looked sad to send me away with tears in her eyes. For all my life, my grandma has been a very strong person and I have seen her cried once when my grandpa passed away more than 17 years ago and that was the only time. The second time was at the moment she sent me away. I knew if I'd ever felt homesick, it will be because of my grandma.

The first two months of me in Taiwan went well because it felt more like a vacation for me since everything is new and I am still trying to adapting to many different new things in that new environment. 

The first time I felt homesick was on my grandma's birthday on 11th November that year. I was in Taiwan, I couldn't be with her and thought of her feeling lonely over there back in Malaysia. I thought of how much shorter and weaker she had become over the years. Grandma is getting old. 

It hurts when I had that thought in my mind and I wanted to spend some time with her, caring for her and have a good dinner with her to make her happy that night but distance made it impossible for me to do so. It was hurting to think that I might not have a lot of time left to spend with her because let's be honest, she is getting old. That day I knew, that I might be a little family-centric after all.

I went back to Malaysia for the first time in May 2018 since I went to Taiwan, it was for the election, so I had the opportunity to go back home for a little while.

 I went back home alone at that time and it was a crushing moment when I entered my home. It was empty, the air is dead, it was dirty, it feels like it was deserted. It was crushing to me to see that scene because for all of my life, the house has been clean and it was always filled with human activities and the voice of my grandma. But this time, there's none.

 I started rewinding my memories back to the previous year before I went to Taiwan, I remember my grandma always keeping stuff into boxes and covering many things - to prepare to move out of the home to my uncle's after me and my brother went to Taiwan. I started to understand how she felt when she was keeping all the stuff, the sorrow, the anxiety of moving to a new place, and the loneliness above all - to leave the place she has been calling home for almost 30 years and having to say goodbye to everything. It must've been hard for her, and I didn't understand it back then.

 I was there, standing in the middle of an empty house, feeling crushed from all of the feelings.
The thing about studying abroad is, besides the usual perspective-opening and experience-gaining part, is that it brings out something about myself that I haven't known before. I never thought I would feel homesick, I never knew how much I love my grandma up till the day when I felt the heartache because I couldn't spend time with her. It brought out the part of me that I had never thought I had.

 If I had not started studying abroad, I wouldn't have started appreciating many of the things that I have always taken lightly of. 

 Soon I will be going back to Taiwan after spending a month back at home, no matter how much I am unwilling to return back to Taiwan, I had to. At least I will see my grandma again soon, this time she's going to Taiwan.
A sunset view of my school

#1 A New Start and a Challenge

A New Beginning

...with a new challenge


It is Chinese New Year and I decided that my blog needs a reboot so I did a facelift for my blog which decidedly needs more polish in the future. For the year 2019, I have decided to make some changes in my life and how I live so that I could achieve some goals that I have set out to reach within a new school semester and within the year.

 I have actually been setting out semester goals for each semester since the last two semesters and I have been getting mixed results with various degrees of achievements. As for the coming semester starting on the 18th February 2019, I have decided to record the goals that I want to achieve and make a log in the form of a blog post describing what I have been doing and how it relates to the aim of achievement of my semester/annual goal. I thought that this is a good way for me to reflect on what I have been doing so far and how I should improvise in the future.

 I have decided to make this a Challenge for me as I will be trying this method out for one year straight starting from this week. This means that the challenge will be down for 52 weeks straight with one blog post be written every week until the counter on the post title reaches #52.

 I do sincerely hope that I do not procrastinate on doing all these extra work that I have assigned to myself as well as I will persevere through this journey. Doing this makes me feel like I am actually doing something for my future rather than always just sitting around and procrastinate. By making myself review on myself every week, I would be able to become more conscious about what I am doing every day and I would be able to improve my daily routine to become more productive.

 Now, I have been thinking of a few goals that I want to achieve within the next semester and within the 52 weeks period starting from this post.

 Semester Goal:
  1. Achieve Monthly Income of at least NT$ 8,000
    2.  I will achieve a monthly income of at least NT$8,000 within this semester independent of any scholarships by looking for extra part-time jobs.
  2. Finish Reading a Japanese-written Novel
    3.  I have chosen the book「君の名は」to be finished reading within this semester to improve my Japanese.
  3. Finish Reading a Book in Investment
    4.  I will choose a book in the field of investment to start reading on it as I intend to start doing investments to supplement my passive income.
  4. (Optional) Finish on the Web Development Course
    5.  This would take more than a semester to finish but I intend to finish the online course that I have bought many years ago. The best investment to make is the investment made on oneself.

 Annual Goal:
  1. Achieve Intermediate Proficiency in Spanish
    2.  I have started learning Spanish recently and my goal is to be able to have a smooth daily conversation in Spanish by #52.
  2. Double my Cash to the Amount I have in my Fixed Deposit
    3. I have recently placed some funds into a fixed deposit and by #52 I will have cash double the amount currently in the fixed deposit.
  3. Retake JLPT N1 Exam in December 2019
    4.  I haven't been happy with my JLPT N1 result and I intend to retake the exam and score at least 120 on it.
  4. Start an Investment Portfolio
    5.  With the Cash that I will have in #52, I will allocate 20% of it into an investment portfolio.
So, there I have all my goals to achieve for this semester and for this year, I wish myself all the best in the pursuit of said goals and I'd like to see myself achieving all my goals on #52.
＃千里の道は一歩から

2018

Ah...it is the time of the year again with all the red celebrations, it is Chinese New Year again. It hasn't feel long since the previous Chinese New Year with all the same celebrations and stuff, but like every progressing year, the celebrations seem to be on the reducing side. Chinese New Year is not the Chinese New Year it used to be anymore, it has became more like another day to me now.

Last year has been a relatively good year for me, mostly uneventful but the peacefulness of it is worth cherishing. Several great event did happen though, like I spend some of the best times with my love Joyce when she came all the way to Malaysia for me, otsukaresama. The first time I flew to a country so strange up till I knew Joyce I knew nothing about, but still, it's more fun in the Philippines and I miss that place from time to time. I finally went to Taiwan for my long-longed major in Japanese. Taiwan does not turn out to be anything near my expectations though but through a few months living there I found another way at looking at the little island nation and found the beauty of it. I do miss my Monash days from time to time, like miss it a lot, but I do not regret transferring to Taiwan and studying something I do like. Although sometimes I still feel I am not myself having leaving the realm of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), sometimes I do wish I get to study them again but for now, let that just be another daydream for me.

This year, I do not have any particular resolutions in mind, because let's be honest, resolutions are doomed to fail the moment you set it, so why go through such a hassle. I do have some future plans in my mind that I would like to materialize, plans in academics, in my own economy, as well as future plans with Joyce. Of course, some things may be too early to say but things just feels better when you have a plan in mind.

Life - May 5, 2017

I graduated from Tenby Schools Ipoh after pursuing my General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (which is known more casually as A Levels) on June of 2014. I started working part time at a tuition centre as an assistant teacher in which I worked two and a half hours on weekdays and I am totally free on weekends. I worked until the end of October and quitted my job because I was planning to look for a temporary job in Singapore but I did not manage to find a job so I came back to Malaysia.

I was free for about 2 months when I was trying to find another part time job as a teacher, I changed a few job until I landed on this job right now where I am still working at, still a tuition teacher. During the start of this life, I was quite positive about it where I took it as a gap year where I tried out a lot of new things and try to get new experiences (although not much has been done), I planned what I would like to do and what I wanted to achieve.

All was well and good for the most part of 2016 because I was able to keep myself busy as I was all motivated, I had an experience of having a formal interview for my application to Nagoya University in Japan although I couldn't get it at the end. Before that, I was so busy trying to prepare for my university application to Nagoya Unversity having a personal statement and a themed essay to write, and then also application to British universities, as well as writing my script for my Japanese speech contest. The later half of 2016 got a little bit more boring to me because I did not have a lot of things to do and I was actually losing motivation to do anything, I was so pumped up for my first trip ever in my life to Japan though, and I was preparing to go to Monash University.

After I quit Monash University back in December 2016, I came back to my old life that I have spent almost one year on, this time I lost all my motivation, although I am still excited to go to Taiwan to study Japanese and to have a trip to the Philippines in August, a place where that is so foreign to me all the while. Other than that, I felt like I am void of any purpose in life. One thing is although I work part time, most of the time I am alone in my house and I couldn't hang out with anyone because unlike 2016, all my friends are out of this lonely little city at somewhere else and I am all alone in this place, I do not have a normal social life anymore. All I have right now over here is Joyce since Joyce just graduated from her college she has the time to spend with me, but she is going to start working soon on June, she will be busy with her work and I will be truly alone during that period. "Human is a bunch of social animals, isolating a person from society can bring to a lot of depressing thoughts", that is an article I read on the internet although I couldn't remember the source of it. From June to around August, I will be so lonely, especially June and July since August I will spend my time mostly in the Philippines and when I come back to Malaysia I will be flying off to Taiwan in about one to two weeks' time.

Maybe it's all in my mind but sometimes I feel kind of useless because looking at what I have achieved in these 2 years, really nothing much. Yes I gained experience in working, and yes I did got a national second place in my Japanese language speech contest which I never dreamed of getting, but after all, it seems like that's everything I have done for these two years. There are a lot of smaller aim that I have set for myself like learning Korean, learning web development and so on, none of them really got any traction and nothing has been done really.

For one thing, I have a very low self-motivation, I feel a sense of satisfaction when I am working with other people, to keep myself busy because I am obligated to because maybe it's my job or because I am a student that I have to study, that gives me a very clear aim of what I should be doing. During the days of me staying at my home where most of the time I wasn't doing anything. When there is a reason for me to "not do it", it is very hard for me to get the motivation to do it. I guess this is the part of me where I have to work hard to change, although I have absolutely no idea what to do or where should I start doing that.

For now, I just want to start my life in Taiwan as soon as possible to bring in new colours to my life. I want to spend time with friends, burning midnight oil doing group assignments and reports with coursemates, keep myself tired, exhausted and busy each and every day, just like life in Monash a few months back. But as Joyce has told me, I chose this life when I quit Monash, guess I couldn't blame anyone. I am not blaming anyone, I just want this kind of uneventful life to get to an end as soon as possible. I see no light in my life right now.

9 Years of Blogging - March 6, 2016

I started my first blog back in 2008 when my friend who was using Blogger to blog about his daily lives and his football craziness. He persuaded me to start blogging a lot of times by saying how fun blogging is and he always ask me to read his football entries, so out of curiousness I tried out my first blog, I had no idea what I was doing back then, I did not even know what is a "blog" exactly back then. But nonetheless, I started a blog. I don't remember the URL of that blog moreover whether I have ever posted a single blog entry.

I started to make blog entries when I entered secondary school, back in 2009. Back then I had two blogs that I maintained, one of them is this blog that has had numerous facelifts and another one written all in Japanese called "Chocolate Memories" (as far as I can remember), don't ask me why I named it "Chocolate Memories", I had no idea, because I am not a chocolate fan, to begin with. All and all I have been blogging for about 9 years now if I have to count the time when I do not have the slightest idea what blogging is.

I have maintained about half a dozen blogs to date, I did not keep track of it but I guess that is the number of blogs that I owned/contributed to. This blog lasted the longest from 2010, and it has a lot of records of me as a person for all these years. There are numerous occasions where I wanted to close this blog down and delete it forever. But then I always remember what I told myself when I first started maintaining this blog, that I am going to keep this blog no matter what, no matter how embarrassing my entries used to be. Indeed, when I look back at those entries that I wrote years ago, sometimes I laugh uncontrollably thinking how stupid I was, and sometimes I feel like punching myself in the face/gut because of the stupid things that I have done.

The year when I posted the most entries and had the most traffic to my blog was on 2012 when many of my friends were doing blogs too. I am still subscribing to their blogs to this day (partly because I am too lazy to remove them from my subscription list). Fast-forward to 5 years later to this year, most of the blogs that I am subscribing to is literally dead. In fact, most of them haven't been updated once since more than 3 years ago. On my subscription list, there are only about 3 blogs that are still occasionally active.

Many of the entries that I have posted has been reverted into drafts by me when I gave this blog a facelift again a few weeks back, those entries shall remain my own memories and I intend to make it that way for now. Entries about me having a crush on someone and got sad because of that is a considerably large percentage of all my entries, guess what's all on my mind was love, love and love back then.

One thing about writing a blog is when I look back on all the entries I have written, I can notice how much as a person I have changed/grown into in all these years. For example, the way I write entries. I have this entry back in 2012. I used to write my entries with one line per sentence so that a very short entry looks long enough. After I gave my blog a facelift, I decided to change the way I write too because this way it looks better and more mature. I guess this is the direct influence after I read Joyce's blog. I mean after I met Joyce, I think I have changed a lot, for one thing, it felt like I got more mature in thinking, I started reading books and started thinking more critically. Maybe it's an illusion but that's what I felt. But from all the reading of my old entries and comparing it to the entries I wrote back a few weeks ago, I have definitely become a more mature person and the way I think has definitely changed.

Another thing I noticed is how drastically my linguistic ability has improved. I dare not say about my Mandarin proficiency because I have not noticed any improvements in it, although definitely, the way I express myself using words has become better. My English has definitely got much better compared to, say, a few years back. My English is definitely not very good still, but I am surprised how much better I am right now compared to before. Definitely, too, my Japanese ability has improved much, I guess I have to thank my Japanese teacher, Yamada sensei that helped me so much with my Japanese when I started attending to her class back in 2014. 

It's funny how people tend to think that everything in this world is static, things don't change with the flow of time. The fact is, every day, things are changing, for better or for worst. Through all these years when I am blogging, every time I post something, I don't feel like I am a better person compared to the previous time I posted an entry. But over the years, the change is so drastic that I almost couldn't recognise myself, it felt like two totally different people. I guess blogging is a good way to realise and to remind myself how dynamic this world is.

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