A Lack of Sugar

Had a lack of sugar these few weeks. Every year for the Lenten Season I try to either do something more 'religious' or 'faith-like' this is the first year I've actually tried to give something up. And knowing me and my motto: 

Pictures credit to Tumblr and Pinterest

I would try my best to at least do something hard/worthwhile. It didn't make sense to me not to. 

So I gave up something I really liked: Sweets. Not just deserts and chocolate, but sweet drinks down to even jams and honey on toast (I admit I cheated a little and added honey to my water, but that was because I was sick ok!) 

Sweet foods have always been a form of comfort for me. It's my go-to taste whenever I'm down in the dumps or tired out from a day at school. There's that strange euphoria that accompanies taking sweets. Whether it's teh bing or a bar of chocolate, the comforting coil of joy with a sudden rush of energy is the thing I've relied sweets to bring me. And for a long time it did. 

Denying myself sweets and the temporal moment of bliss when the piece of candy hits my teeth was a pretty, well, agonizing experience. I found myself more tired and probably a lot more irritable. Without something to perk me up, I was constantly a little less enthusiastic. 

There was also the feeling of being painfully aware since I've cut sugar out. Without the sweets to help distract with the bad moods, I discovered clear-headedness and self-awareness that although wasn't what I really liked, if I look back on it now, exactly what I needed. 

I think I'm a person that feels too much and I tend to let my feelings come in the way of a lot of things. But instead of dealing my feelings prior to this, I had a tendency of distracting myself school-work, writing, reading and eating. I spent a lot more time piling on the work and the food, trying to fill myself up and just divert my attention away from the mess that was my emotions  I spent more time figuring out ways to distract myself from my problems when I could have been dealing with them. 

Taking the conscious decision to not eat certain foods because they were sweet also helped me to make a conscious track of my own decisions and to be very aware. Not just of the people and situations and people around me but of myself. 

Very funny and strange how a small thing like cutting out sugar could lead up to so much. 

Lent is going to be over soon and Holy Week has just begun. And I am praying for a better term and a stronger resolution to do well and not to lose sight of my dreams and goals. I also pray for the people around me to be safe, happy and well in what they do and for them to achieve their dreams too. 

Current feel: Strange Zen mode that is very foreign to me but at the same time I feel a deeper stirring of emotion somewhere. Its like a still top on a body of water with churning undercurrents (water metaphors ftw!) 

Hope everyone has a lovely Holy Week ahead! 

Tsui

On Kayaking and Rivers

Just got back from the Year 5 Leadership Expedition trip to Endau Rompin!

Love my team and all the people in it. I think we all learnt a lot, not only about kayaking down rivers, but about ourselves and each other. There were a lot of things I learnt from this trip, to be patient when the people around you are frustrating you, to learn that sometimes its okay to feel uncomfortable but you can't let that affect you, to be tactful and mindful of the situation and circumstances around you and also that perseverance will take you very far. 

But one thing I took away from this trip was a metaphor that I thought up on the bus ride home. 

Life is strangely like a flowing river.

The river is constantly changing and flowing, its one way for some and another way for others. There isn't a hard and fast way or tactic to conquer a river, it depends on luck, timing, judgement and gut-instincts. 

A lot like life really.

We all go through life, and like the river, its going to be different for all of us. Sometimes, the current of life is going to push us along and help us paddle to reach our goals and destinations. Sometimes its not going to be that kind, it'll be so still that it seems like the river is stagnant and we have to work harder to get there. Other times the river have seemingly insurmountable rapids that makes you balk at its measure. 

I realized that I've been struggling with my own set of rapids recently. The endless torrent of schoolwork, deadlines, emotional commitments and stupid feelings that ruin everything. If it's anything that I've learnt that can be applied to real life in Endau, it's that when you hit a rapid, you can paddle left and right but there is one thing you should never do if you don't want to capsize and possibly endanger your life: You can't stop paddling. 

I've wanted to give up and throw in the towel for IB for the past term. It would be easier and its sorely tempting to just give up and sink back into the state I was in and just be swept away. Or change course and to some extent river entirely because life is getting tough.

But I can't give up now, what's infront is only going to get harder and harder, no matter which 'river' I choose. Plus I can't afford anymore 'capsizes' because its really easy to just be swept away and be lost in the torrent of negativity. 

Finally found it in myself to start being more proactive and knowing that I can do this. I can finish the IB and it's a lot more comforting to know I won't be in it alone and I'll have my family, my friends and my teachers around to support me too :) 

"For all rivers eventually flow to the sea, for that is the goal of all bodies of water." 

Go Rompinhoods! 

Tsui

Overseas Service Learning: Cebu

All image credits to Lloyd Koh

Found this post on Cebu which had no words but just images and felt very nostalgic and suddenly sentimental. I wanted to do a write up on it but it doesn't seem very necessary right now. Very glad I'm going back there this May and can't wait to begin GPS with the Cebu Team :)

Tsui

Reasons

"Just give me a reason
Just a little bit's enough
Just a second we're not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again
It's in the stars
It's been written in the scars on our hearts
We're not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again"

Sigh, where to begin, where to start.

I would like to be positive and happy about where I stand, but truth be told I'm not. I don't like being tired all the time, having a perpetual short fuse and being emotionally apathetic to keep myself from breaking down.

Sometimes I think blocking things out will help, that if I close myself off to my emotions and feelings things will be okay and they will eventually pass. I'm trying to channel that whole Zen Buddhism thing, where you let feelings go instead of letting them fester inside you and consume you into a pit of unhappiness.

I refuse to be that sort of person and let that happen to me again.

But, lately I feel I am slipping into that negative state of mind, these sort of questions and thoughts pop up all the time in my mind:

"Are they secretly judging me?" 

"Why should I bother anyway? Not like anyone will appreciate my efforts."

" What am I even doing?"

"Why do I try so hard?"

Or something along the lines of just being negative and second-guessing everything and everyone. I dislike that cautious front I get nowadays, that I watch myself when I say things and to whom I say them to. I'm letting my past hurts and wounds fester up. Old insecurities come back and my guard is up again. I've tried to hard to cover it up, mask it so that I pretend that it's okay and that I'm fine. But what happens to wounds that don't air out or time to breathe? They begin to rot. They decay slowly and infect the whole limb, before taking and consuming your being.

I need to stop this infection before it consumes me like it did before.

It's easy though, and vastly tempting to fall into a state of ever-consuming bitterness and join the ranks of self-reveling misery.

But, I wish for different things now.

I've been stuck in ruts before, I believe we all have been in that position where we feel lost and we hold onto the pain and hurt because we don't know what else to feel because we've been holding onto it for so long. That we hold onto our pain despite knowing it's poison because we're scared to try something else lest it be poison too.

I don't want to be dependent on my misery to fuel me forward, because from my experience it won't. It'll be like quick-sand and drag you deep into its dark, earthly embrace and shatter your body as well as your soul, if you let it. Only, if you let it.

There will always be pain, there will always be hurt, there will always be misunderstandings, there will always be bruises, there will always be tears and there will always be fear.

But at the same time there will be comfort for the pain, there will be relief for the hurt, there will be joy, there will be hope, there will be grace and most importantly there will always be love.

:)

xxTsui

p.s. in other news, the brother just got back his results and I couldn't be more proud of him :')

Time to Work Harder

Hello hello~

Promised myself I'd get back into the habit of blogging again. Been procrastinating too much these past two months. I promised myself that despite everything, I would still work hard in school, how wrong could I be on that account.

School's been okay. Okay, scratch that it's been a roller coaster of insurmountable pressure. It's like what Augustus says to Hazel in the Fault in Our Stars: "I'm in a roller coaster that's only going up."

That's how I currently feel at the moment, with IB making me feel like I'm just going to drop any minute now with no warning whatsoever.

I'm actually glad I kept going back to school despite applying elsewhere. I'm glad I kept up the rhythm of working and getting stressed. It made me rethink my options and re-evaluate where I stand. It's not hard honestly and I hate to sound like a coward but the truth is: I really am scared.

Scared of a lot of things. If someone's going to ask me what I'm afraid of I'd probably say:

It scares me to the point that my mind balks at its measure, sometimes I try not to think about it so much but it's hard when the people around you are. My brother Andrew just got back his results, he's going to join SAF and then go onto University. Emma's left for the US and is trying to get into NYU and people around me are just going places and I'm just scared to move. Too scared to move.

 I know I told my parents I would try to adapt over there if I got in. I assured them that I wouldn't be so bothered not having family and friends beside me. But it's hard, in all honesty. Having the recent Chinese New Year celebrations and my friends with me to celebrate my birthday made me rethink how much I really need people in my life to support me. It's funny, because half my internal lamentations is just me wanting to just rant to someone about everything, but I catch myself because one: I tend to be really melodramatic and negative when disillusioned and two: I shouldn't impose myself and my feelings on other people just cause I feel like it. If I can deal with it without involving other people I tend to do that, but I find I tend to bottle things up a lot too so IDK man.

Now that I'm staying, I gotta:

 

 Thank you to Nat, Gwen, Amelia, Ching Yi, Sing, Ethan and Diego for dealing with my rants and breakdowns for the past two weeks. I can't thank you enough for honestly dealing with moods and self-induced situations. 

Hope y'all have a great weekend!