sarah suggested i write a letter to myself.

so you've had this on your bucketlist for quite a while. today, i'd say you're in a pretty good mood, so if there ever was a time.

deep breaths. here we go.

i know you've been away for a while, so this is not going to be easy but heck, it doesn't really matter now does it? probably, you'll look at this in the future and cringe at your use of words, adjectives maybe. but in the end, it'll just be funny. so ya know.. like they say, let it go..

it really is something you've got to learn.

well a lot of crap (good and bad) has happened in the past week.

you've been having trouble completing your assignments and getting them handed up. you realised how much of a perfectionist you are this time round. how impossible it was to start writing even though you had everything drafted out .. but without that first perfect sentence you couldn't go further. the number of times you told yourself to just botch it and write whatever.... the number of times you did. ... but you couldn't.

all the crying and isolation where you thought it'd work better (where you kept throwing figurative knives at yourself. at something you hadn't even produced. which is so completely ridiculous.)
but really all you needed was to have some social contact and then things flowed. you need to forgive yourself about that. let it go. cut yourself some slack some time.

you have friends that you know care about you and while they maybe wouldn't go to the moon and back for you (who would really anyway, space travel isn't that easy), but they will try their damned hardest to if they had to. and i know this used to make you feel even worse because you never seemed to understand why anyone would. but. it shouldn't. you really need to know that. remember that.

stop making things harder for yourself.

i want you know, if you're ever ragging on yourself in the future (which lets be honest, is very probable), that out of everything, the horrors etcetera.. you did a good job. you are worth something. today, you thought everything was over. you expected the worst, but you still tried, and hard too. you were dead tired, fell asleep on the floor at 8pm only to wake up at 2am, hungry, looking for dinner and with a buttload of things to take care of.

you've been doing this quite a bit this week...you need to understand that while this is obviously severely maladaptive, it has helped you so much more than you could even imagine. but you really need to learn to.. well. to not. just learn to not rely on this all the time.

so this week you handed in two late submissions, and both HUGE late submissions at that, costing you a chunk of your grade and possibly your first class honours. sure you felt terrible. you still do, but that part is starting to learn that it doesn't really matter in the bigger scheme of things. it doesn't make you any less.

today, running on an hour of sleep, you did your colloquium slides at 4am. i want you to remember that you told yourself that it was shit.. that it didn't matter. but. i also want you to remember that you still did it, despite that. you kept going, you pushed yourself, finished it and went for your colloquium assistant duty.

you kept your cool and when it was time for you to present, you were so nervous. you were so worried you wouldn't remember a single thing because you hadn't rehearsed it out. but it was your study. even though you didn't think it at the time, you knew your stuff. you did.

you did it. you didn't even refer to the notes you had hurriedly scribbled down in a flurry. you just presented, and it just flowed.

you KNEW your stuff. and,

they liked it.

they paid attention.

you went over the time limit but noone stopped you. the time keeper forgot to check the time. when he did, the chairperson shushed him. and after you were done - with all your blunders and mispronunciation of the word "psychological", you took a deep breath and it was okay.

your judge asked you a question and you answered it, no sweat. you knew what you were talking about.

this time, you attended the prize giving ceremony for colloquium. you've never done that before (of course there was less of a point to do so then). you weren't going to go. you'd told yourself how pointless it'd be. but you're so glad you did.

it was only an RM50 book voucher to borders. but it felt so much more. it was like your entire degree life, the whole year working on your thesis, condensed into a little moment (you'll probably feel this way again). this was it. it's not even counted but. and you'd have trouble admitting this, but you had fun presenting your thesis. you had fun talking about your study. no matter how many times you called it a piece of shit, how you said it was worthless. it isn't. and you know that. don't lie to yourself. you know it.

you're so thankful for everything, at this point.

thankful for your supervisor... there were up and downs.  but she showed you how research could be. how fun it is. how to think about other things. how you could improve on other things. how it's dynamic and changeable, not rigid like how you were taught before. you know that now. and to be honest, even with all the hard work and your complaining, you kinda loved it.

and for this, 

thank you, dr chua.

back to yourself (how self-centered!), if you're not realising this on your own now, i want you know that although you said nothing mattered and did'nt want to try, you still did. you always do. who does that?!

sometimes i feel like i should slap you.

that has to be worth something. if it were anyone else, this is what you'd tell them. it's what you'd believe. so why doesn't it mean the same for you? what kind of double standard do you have against yourself?

you're much more than you give yourself credit for. you have to know that by now.

remember that.

one last thing. i know you've been thinking about it a lot. and this is may be the hardest thing to say, but. even if you can't get your first class honours, it's okay. i know it's hard because it's just so close. you're already there. but. i think you and i know that you didn't do great this semester. the late submissions are really going to affect this.

i'm not saying that you should give up, obviously. there's still finals for Gender and comparative. try to redeem yourself then. but if you can't. it's okay. it is imperative that you remember that. it's ok. it's okay. it's enough. don't kill yourself over it.

it's going to be okay.

give yourself a hug. get one from someone else. i don't know. just get one. even if it's awkward.
free hugs anyone?

and i know you need validation from others to feel like you're worth something or... well whatever, you know it. and you don't like it. but it is true. you're going to work on this. because you really shouldn't need it so much.

remember, you can't please everyone. but try to please yourself at least. i guarantee you, no one will have to live with you longer than you.

so try, at least, to be someone you can live with. screw the rest (not literally, because then you'd have to be really careful about STDs. HA. i'm hilarious. not.).

irrelevantly. you're waay too addicted to chocopies. you need to stop eating so many. no matter how you try to logic yourself out of it, having more than 5 in three hours is not reasonable. nothing justifies this.

on another note: get more chocopies.

meh it's the thought that counts.

-Alyssa

you're probably thinking about how pretentious you sound. hopefully you've worked on this already. :)

PS: you were very nearly hit by one of those "palang" gate thingies at uni today. shaun and his friend nick were there, you were rushing for a meeting and ran under it. it nearly hit you square on the middle of your head. i'm glad you have good reflexes. they told you they "didn't see it." ah, lovely folks.

that's it. i'm out. (this was for saturday)

i'd love to end this with a picture of myself, aged 21 and 9 months (almost to the date. how poetic ).. but i literally don't have any. we'll see what i can do about that.

don't judge me. i tried my best. it was just too ridiculous.
anyway, this is me. 21 years, 8 months and 30 days.
and i think i'm okay with that.
i'm doing alright.

lastly, thank you to all those who helped me realise this. i may not thank you in person.. because.. well because.

but. thank you. really.

mom, dr chua,  my mama hens (danielle, yi ming), sarah, brenda, louis, zie zhen, michelle, vivien, jia yin, alliyza, pravi, jim, amanda, zoe... 

thank you guys. from the mooshy part of my heart that rarely gets sunlight. thank you. and i'm going to be awkward about this. thank you for staying up wih me. for putting up with my endless whining and stream of questions. my idiocy. my crabbiness. my sudden bouts of crying. my questioning myself. my perfectionism, which itself single-handedly produced about 95% of my problems. thank you for all the advice. for all the help with stats. i'm not going to put this on fb so maybe you'll never know. but...

thank you. thank you. thank you.

you are not to forget these people. remember.


something to listen to