Friday, September 16, 2016

The Day I Say Goodbye to Schools,

Hello,

I have so many backdated entries that I think I could use more than one year to finish updating them! NTS: to post entries about 1) Graduation (which is not) 2) Graduation trips to 3 different countries with different groups of people 3) How we spent our days before Baby flew off 4) Baby's farewell to Beijing

My graduation was on the 25th August 2016. This also marks my last graduation in my life. No more exams, no more studying, and no more schooling as well... Just, the start of job hunting and stress over finance.

The stress on job hunting is so overwhelming that my eczema has acted up. Not sure if it's also the reason that my emotions are unstable recently or what... Anyway,

GRADUATION


Don't mind my messy room. This is the test shot that Baby took because we are still new to our camera.

Woke up at 10am to prepare for my convocation. I've wanted to buy a dress for my graduation but I thought, why waste that money for that few hours? I have a proper bodycon dress to wear on that day, so why not? Hahah! And there, I wore this dress that I bought for CNY this year.

I'm a fresh grad! Please hire me!

No photos of me in the hall because I walked too fast and it didn't focus on me. HAHAH!! The ceremony started at 3PM sharp and ended at around 410PM. It was a fast one. The chancellor gave his speech after their walk-in at 3PM and another lady (I totally forgot her position) as well.

Anyway, I paid full attn to their speeches bcos after the speech, Baby was telling me what he heard and I said "I REMEMBER! SO APT PLS!!" The lady said smth along this line "When you're finding a job, do not focus on the starting pay. Instead, focus on the experience that you will gain because you will be earning more in future after gaining the experience that you need". Yep, that's what I need too because I've been focusing way too much on the starting pay when I was job hunting!

First off, thankful for family & friends who were present that day to witness this significant milestone of mine! Of course, I wouldn't have done it without parent's support for paying the super expensive school fees for me. It's like one semester for 6k++! Just how much do we, the people from average family background, have to work to earn 6k+?! Then 6k+ multiply by 4 semesters... Thankfully, I graduated from Polytechnic, hence I was exempted a year of studies. So, it's like 13k off the shoulder from the very beginning!!

Also, the daily whines and grumbles when I was chiong-ing for my assignments and studying for exams. The no-day-and-night period was rlly hectic. All I wanted was just to sleep them off because I had no motivation to study during exam period. We would normally have 1-2 weeks of study break and I would stay at home for that whole 2 weeks. Yes, staying home means not going out at all for meals. All I had was to wait for my family members to come home with my meals, chiong for dinner within 10mins, bathe and that's it, BACK TO MY ROOM! I was literally living in a cave during exam period. As said by my family, "exam period is here agn... Eileen is gna be a caveman again!" hahahah! #Truestory! I'm glad that all these have came to an end because I no longer have to neglect them for my exams or assignments. My mum used to say that I was always very quiet and would shut them off when I was stressed over schoolwork. Hahahah! :/

Also, on the day of my graduation, my family waited patiently for me to finish taking photos with all of my friends before going to them. Rlly appreciated it because my friends would not be staying in school till late. Whereas we could take photos after them, and stay till whatever time we want. And yes, we stayed till about 7PM before leaving the school compound. The best thing was, we caught Rhyhorn (or was it rhydon) at the old bus-stop!

Ohana means family




Secondly, a big hug for my boyfriend who has always been there for me. No doubt there's arguments between us but he's always placing me before anything. He was supposed to fly on the day of my graduation day but he postponed it to a later date just so that he could witness this milestone of mine even though that meant that he would have lesser time to settle down in Beijing. Just so thankful for having you in my life for almost a decade! More to come, baby! :)

Also, times when you had to lend me your ears and listen to my rants and all. Telling me what I should do though sometimes I didn't heed bcos all I wanted was just a "listening ear". Hahah! Still, very happy.





Thirdly, my uni-mates who never left me despite the down times. These are the people who got stuck w me for two full years. If not for them, I think I would have flunked quite a few modules because assignments were always either Distinction or high Credit!! School aside, they are also my entertainments most of the time as well as my GPS! I remember that it was one morning in Year 2.1 when we had Comm Law lecture at 830am. I reached school at about 823am but because I had problem trying to locate my lecture hall, and I ended up reaching late T_T It was rlly that bad, I had to call Dumb for help because I rlly got lost in that area. And guess what! I walked past the LT a few times. I saw the signboard stating that LT (room number) is in that particular direction but damn, I COULDN'T FIND IT AT ALL! Yalah, I get lost very easily lah. No sense of directions too! Hahahah!


Also, there's a module in the last semester that required us to group with people whom we did not know at all. The group was formed by the head of the course. That sucks, we thought! We were all alrdy so comfortable with our own friends, then all of a sudden, we had to break the group and bond with people who are of different personalities.

My SM group was the only all-girls group in the class. So, you can imagine how bad it was!! The bitchiness when one didn't do her work. Initially, I thought that the group wasn't cooperative. Thankfully, we still managed to to score a Distinction for our assignment 1! Then it was assignment 2 that led us to more disagreements because apparently, there were not one but two free-riders in the group. The lecturer even asked us about it and told us to go for peer evaluation/mark down if that's the case! Whatever it is, I'm glad that the 4 out of 6 of us worked together and stayed in school till 11PM on the day of submission to chiong everything.

Most of the group knew their PowerPoint score but we didn't. That's a sad thing seriously because we couldn't rlly estimate how much we got for our second assignment. But no matter what, still glad that we didn't give up at all despite ranting so much during the assignments! Rebecca (left) was also on the Distinction list. So happy for her!

+ Yvonne who wasn't there

Lastly, my friends who came down specially for this!! Friends for more than a decade, and I rlly treasure these friends so much! I mean, people whom I'm still in contact with as well. Because as I grow older, I realised (and know) that the quantity of friends can never beat the quality! People come and go. We just have to know who are the ones that are more worthy!




***

That was one of the days that I was so truly happy and proud of myself because I did not expect myself to enter a university at all. Even though it's an overseas degree, I thought "hey, at least I made it to university and I FREAKING COMPLETED IT!!". So what's there not to celebrate!

I'm not a studious girl to begin with. I have nvr made my parents proud at all. Topping the class for Chinese was a norm for almost everyone in P1 and P2. Then it was P4 Streaming where we would stream to EM1, EM2 or EM3. My bro, who got streamed into EM1, inspired me to do the same too. However, I wasn't that lucky lah... I got streamed into EM2, first class of EM2 though! Hahah!

My dad promised to buy me a discman (way before MP3) if I got into EM1. But he said "First class of EM2 is good enough too". So yep, I earned my first discman through this way. Then it was PSLE when I scored a mere 199. I couldn't even reach 201. There isn't 200 for your info and I've no idea why!! I rmbred walking in and out of the hall and burst into tears after leaving the hall and walking towards my parents. I've no idea why I did that when I wasn't even feeling sad right after taking my result slip. But I guessed that I woke up after knwing that I was one of the lower scorer in my class. Most of my friends got 210-230. It's like, Heaven and Earth yknw!

My parents took me on recce and we shortlisted a few secondary schools. There were PHS, KCPSS, YSS, AISS, and the list goes on. But I chose Anderson Secondary School because I liked their uniforms for both genders. That was also the school when I had my rebellious moments throughout Secondary 1 - 5. My parents couldn't handle me when I was in Sec 1. That was rlly my most rebellious period. I attribute it to the friends I made, rlly! I stopped hanging out with them when I was in Sec 2 and things started changing positively and I was finally single again. HAHAH! Yknw the puppy love which I wouldn't say "Hey, I was in love back in Sec 1". Seriously, that's bull!

I started hanging out with good people, the guaiguai and studious ones, but errr. Sadly, the studious traits in my had never increased any bit at all. All the way till O Levels and this time, I cried immediately after getting my result slip knwing that I scored 24. Like, hey... FML! I knew at that point of time, I WAS SO SCREWED!!!!

Took 3 subjs as a private candidate the following year because I rlly wanted to enter Polytechnic and not private diploma! I have friends who took private diploma and completed their course within 15months which I thought that it was rlly rush. We took 3 years to complete our dip whereas they used only 15 months. Also, polytechnic allows students to take up internships unlike private ones. So yep! I studied rlly hard for my 3 subjs but as expected, English failed me. HAHAH! Retook it during my Year 1 in TP and finally got a better grade, a grade that I had not expected at all!

Times in TP weren't as smooth. I struggled my way through Year 1 because everything is damn dry and errr, Physics. I hate Physics and disliked Math. So imagine my pain when we had to take these modules during our first 2 years. I almost had to go for supp papers, yo! Hahahah! Luckily, the curve bells rlly helped me! Year 3 was a breeze because I understood more of the things that were taught!

Then it was UNIVERSITY. How did I come about to choosing Business Management as the course that I wanted?

My Bro's girlf entered SIM-RMIT one semester earlier than me. She took Mgmt, while Bro was taking Marketing as his major. I have never liked analysing things but I'm more of theory-person. Knowing that Mgmt requires more of memory work, of course I chose this course. And plus, I would rlly like to work in HR dept despite many people telling me that it's a very boring job. I haven't tried any HR job now but will be working in a company real soon. I hope my mind will stay firm even after the contract ends!

With that, I shall end here abruptly with this...

Success in life comes when you simply refuse to give up, with goals so strong that obstacles, failure, and loss only act as motivation. 

YAAAAS, shall live with this quote (I hope!). G'bye!  

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