April to end of June; One of the exciting happenings that happened to me in 18 years. I traveled on a airplane for the first time. It wasn't with my parents, it was with Evelyn. My virgin airplane experience. The feeling of taking an airplane is so awesome, though it was kinda boring but FIRST TIME YO. And the best part is, we headed to Boston, Massachusetts, in USA! It's been like a dream to be able to go to USA, but having to stay there for 3 months, it's super awesome. It was such an honor to be affiliated to Harvard University for my internship, working at a research building at Boston. Internship at a research building is definitely something new to me; it's not the usual lab practicals we have in school, etc, we have to read research papers to understand what and why we were doing these experiments. We used new tools, machines, etc. We met with many PhDs, attended lab meetings (and realised how lab meetings are so much different from presentations in schools), having to stay in the lab till late night to finish a time course experiment, it was so fun.
Apart from lab work, our supervisors were fun people to be with, they joked often, bring us out to different cafes to grab lunch, talk to us, etc. One word: EXCITING. Surviving out in a foreign country, being dependent on roommates and being independent and away from home is such a new experience, and I really loved the feeling of being independent and not relying on my family, apart from financial wise. You will yearn for the freedom to do things you want. It was good to travel around and at your own time own target, doing your own things, planning your life out slowly as time progresses.
Also, with Evelyn, everything is amazing & fun. We had burnt many things at the kitchen, baked with pans, made pudding, microwaved literally everything, including uncooked rice, it's just fun that there are many things you thought you will never do; you are doing them because of the freedom this place had given to you. It is fun/trilling to do your own laundry when you run out of clothes to wear, having to cook your own meals when you are starving, having to explore many places and do many things on your own without any constraints from the family & having to survive in the cold weathers coming from a country with a constant HOT weather all year round. We even get to travel to New York City during one of our company off days, it was fun there, at the same time, we were new to NYC, so exploring and travelling around gets fun as we do things at our own pace, not following any routes, just exploring.
We also had to endure difficult sh!t there, but everything went smoothly days before we came back. This is totally a life experience, having to train your patience, courage (lots of) and being open to many things around us. I met friends that I didn't wanna leave; I was crying my eyes out when I was reading Kal's last email regarding the cards we gave to him, LOL. T.T Being there is just amazing, seeing beautiful scenery, enjoy the presence of the nice and heartwarming citizens there. We tried to speak proper English there, so if I still have that asshole-sounding-like-failed-American accent, I am terribly sorry but I wanna speak good English. You will finally realized how nice English (not Singlish) sounds when you are finally in America.
July & August; the months my FYP started and it was really hectic having to rush my experiments due to time constraints. This month, I met HaHa & Skull at their press conference. But I regretted not going to their concert! I also met Kwang Soo. My bias in Running Man, someone I wouldn't wanna miss seeing! Went to his amazing fanmeet.
September & October; the months that I started working part time jobs to save money to return to my dad for internship. Over the 1.5 months, I had taken up to 8 (or 10) different part time jobs from working at different restaurants, flyer distributing, packing of stuff, event based jobs. Though many of these jobs are one to two days job, I had met quite a few friends that I am still in contact with now. Especially those jobs at the restaurants, I had made a lot of friends, and I really did have fun working there, and it's all because of my friends. I am pretty sure that my friends are indeed my source of happiness (lol, so cheesy), but I do smile at texts from my friends, even if they are of the same gender. It was really an eye-opening incident to realise that your life isn't just about earning money (in my case, I wanted to return the money to my dad for spending during internship), but to enjoy what you are doing, having & enjoy that carefree life now because you aren't really into the working society yet.
On 30 September, I finally decide to go for my first ever dance lesson, ever since I have the urge to really learn dancing because I wasn't given that chance to learn that when I was younger. Overcoming my fear to learn dance in front of everyone and to learn something new was the best decision ever, because I fell in love with the fact that I could learn to dance. I appreciate that I was able to attend lessons. Though I first started out dancing as a hobby, the more I went for dance practice, the more happy I get, and I realised dance was kinda taking over my student life. And at that time, I just felt that doing the things that you always wanted to do is the right thing to do when you are young. As long as something makes you happy, I am sure you will give time for that activity, you will never regret starting it.
Also, in Oct, I met the 5/7 Running Man cast, it was an unforgettable night with the RM cast!
November & December; Nothing much had happened for this two months except for studying, but dance is keeping me going on.
Throughout this entire year, I was taught of many things.
1. The ability to live on your own. Of course, I am not financially stable yet, but if one day I am, I will have a total control of my life to where I wanna go, what I wanna do, etc, and I will be working towards this point. One day. Just wait.
2. Freedom & not having any commitments. Enjoy this before you lose it as you grow.
3. There are many people out there that you could mix around with, so don't always be within the 4 walls that you had built yourself in, so, go out, meet people & have fun.
Do the things you love before you regret not doing it. Don't wait, just do it if you have the opportunity, it's gonna be an experience!
