Becoming minimalist..?

Travel unrelated, but this is something that’s been on my mind often lately. I don’t know when I got sucked into this thinking but I suspect it has to do with the indecision that plagues me everyday with the most minor of decisions. I have a tendency to be pretty sure when I make important life decisions like my career, long-term hobby, or the people to befriend, but somehow get extremely fickle when it comes to picking my outfit or purchasing everyday items like wallets or phone cases even. I do tons of research into something before I purchase it, and it’s ridiculous how the amount of time I put in is never in proportion to how important the item is. In fact it’s quite the opposite. I could decide in a snap to buy a $400 lens, but spend 50 hours of research for a wallet less than $100. It’s bewildering really, and recently I had to do some real thinking about why this was the case.

It’s probably because we live in abundant choices, where there’s always an alternative that could be better than what you’re looking at. The more choices there are (i.e. a wallet has 100x more choices than a camera lens), the harder it is to make a decision. I’m starting to overcome this a little through an article a dear friend shared, called The Power of Good Enough. It was a perfect little article that sums up all of my indecision and hands me the solution. I felt incredibly satisfied reading the article because the answer is as simple as it looks. If it’s good enough, that’s all you need.

But I want to achieve much more than a change in my purchasing behavior. I’m still riddled by daily indecision even when I’m not purchasing anything, and the biggest contributor to that is clothes. Fashion. Material stuff that’s likely to be the most abundant in your life.

I spend a good 10 minutes everyday thinking about what I want to wear. 80% of the time I end up settling for the same few clothes I rotate through and I sometimes leave the house bitterly thinking I failed (again) to wear the rest of my wardrobe. I force myself to try to utilize all that I have, thinking that would justify why I purchased them, but always default back to the same few items. I used to think I was super uncreative, unfashionable and boring because I refuse to wear other clothes, but now I’m beginning to realize I don’t actually need these other clothes. I don’t need new clothes all the time to feel confident, comfortable or fashionable. That’s a false sense of security that consumerism has successfully sold to me.

Hence I started to plant this little seed in my head called minimalism. When I read up on it, watch documentaries on it, I get excited. That was exactly the kind of lifestyle I wanted. Having just enough to make you happy, and never too much to add unnecessary stress or anxiety in your life. It brings me right back to my Korea days where I lived off very few items (I literally owned ONE mug for all my drinks, I just wash it immediately after using) and was super happy. I never felt like I lacked anything. I didn’t miss all the sentimental or just-in-case items I keep at home. I loved that my room wasn’t cluttered with too much stuff. I loved that I wore every single item in my wardrobe and I liked every piece.

So I’m gonna start, baby steps first. Obviously the first thing I’ve got to to is throw shit away. Try to sell some of them if i can, donate whatever’s still in good condition and throw the rest of the junk out. I’ve purged maybe half of my room in the past year and added new storage furniture to keep things organized, but it’s still not good enough. I look at my room right now and feel confident I can purge half more, if not 3/4 of it. Once I’ve purged all of those stuff, I’ll start on a quest to purchase a few value items in their place. For example, buying better quality, versatile pieces of clothes that can last me a few years.

I am super positive this will help me along in my daily life much better. It also sets precedence for when I move into my new house eventually. Less items to consider moving, and a better attitude to prevent clutter from ever happening in that new house.

#endrant

My (Korean) Skincare Routine | Jan 2016

I haven’t spoken about this at all on my blog but everyone in real life would sort of know that I recently fell into the Korean skincare hype and am now super in love with it.

The Comparison Game

I guess at this time, when I’m close to graduation and about to embark on life after 16 years of education, it’s appropriate for me to also do a mini self-reflection. Even at the end of my journey when I thought that I should be done with what I have to learn and just when I thought it’s the best time to sum up all I’ve done and learned and move to the next milestone in my life, I learn yet again something important. And this is something I think many have gone through. It’s the comparison game.

I never thought that I’d still be comparing myself to others and constantly looking at ‘greener’ pastures when I’m almost at the end of a huge journey that is university. I didn’t think I’d experience it again while going through my final semester, when I thought I should have matured enough to understand myself and be familiar with life in university.

Yet, I was still doing it. When I did badly for an assignment in one of the modules I enjoyed, I was bitter first before I acknowledged I was wrong. How impertinent I must have been, to think that it’s the professor’s misjudgment and feeling resentful of my peers who did well, thinking that they couldn’t have put in as much effort as me or have thought as insightfully. The truth was that I didn’t read what my professor truly wanted and did not bother clarifying, instead choosing to interpret the assignment in my own way and writing a piece that I thought I would look favorably upon. It’s a truth that is basic and simple, but a truth I easily missed because i must have been too arrogant or too conditioned by life to think that I have to give what is typically expected of me. In the fight to give an outstanding assignment, I failed to read the very purpose and objective of that assignment. It was wholly my fault.

It took a while for me to get over that bitterness that was exacerbated by the idea that I was graduating and that I should have been able to ace that easily compared to my peers. All arrogance and ignorance aside, it has become a crucial lesson I didn’t think i would learn so close to finishing this milestone. I feel that all my life I have been living myself relative to others. When I think I’m better than others, I get proud and complacent. When I think I’m worse than others, I make endless comparisons trying to somehow justify my own position or to undercut their achievements touting luck and other compensatory factors that probably led them there, not their skills. If I fail to justify myself, which is often, I get dejected and become buried in an inferiority complex. When I look back now, how truly destructive my thinking has been. How malicious this game can be. And how scary to think that this tendencies lie in most of us.

When would I finally internalize that the only person I have to beat is myself? When I have internalized it, when will I truly act upon it? When will I stop feeling self-entitled to anything in this world? When will I truly be able to look at the face of comparison and smile because it doesn’t affect me one bit? When will I truly be able to look at someone better than me and instead of feeling bitter, feel motivated to better myself to reach their level? When will I truly be able to master the ability to discern; to acknowledge the useful comparisons and completely discard the useless ones?

I had a talk with a few friends not long ago about social media. I told them the reason I had grown to dislike Facebook so much was because it constantly dragged me back to the comparison game. Seeing other people’s lives, the jobs they’ve gotten, the places they go, how popular they are… these are all unnecessary distractions and I knew I had to remove that part of social media from my life in order to live fully. But what I felt i wasn’t anywhere close to being free of this comparison game. I think that to be truly free, I have to be able to go on Facebook, look at all of those posts, and feel nothing because they don’t affect me. I wonder that if I have to close Facebook and avoid the source of my negative feelings, have I truly learned to deal with it altogether?

It’s a constant battle and I’m grateful that I was able to realize this now and write it out like this, in all honesty. Realizing and admitting the problem are first steps and I truly hope I will get to where I want to be someday.

Long rant on this post. Apologies if you’re somehow reading this and it doesn’t live up to the title. Again, this blog is both a public and personal space so as much as possible, I don’t want to be restricting myself to post what I want! Okay, I’ll leave this here for now as I won’t be posting that much until grad trip. Until then! 🙂

Why things always fall apart

Recently, something happened that slapped me on the face and made me realize that at some point of time, things always fall apart. I had thought this particular thing was going well, but on hindsight when I look back, there had been a nagging problem from the start that I chose to ignore.

When did it begin? I find myself asking this question way more often than I’d liked. When did things start to fall apart? How was it that even though I tried my best to be self-aware, I didn’t realize it?

Are we, as humans, all designed to be so short-sighted, so incapable at looking far ahead and realizing each of our little actions is going to snowball into something big and something we would regret?

Is it because we are all complacent creatures? When we do well, we forget. We forget what it was like when things weren’t going well, we forget what it was like when we had to fight for something, we forget what it was like being humble and not being certain if things would turn out fine. We fall into a status where everything works out fine, where we feel that nothing should go wrong, and we take advantage of others’ kindness and we take advantage of where we are. We collapse backwards and things fall apart. When we don’t move forward, we fall backwards, and that’s the human condition. Nothing is ever static.

And so many times, something someone said to me made me look up, and when I finally do I realized I am so many steps behind where I had first began. And I ask myself, when did I start moving backwards? When did things fall apart? Did I know, from the start, that it was going to fall apart, yet couldn’t stop it?

Is this something I could learn to overcome, or is that the whole point of complacency – the blatant ignorance and shortsightedness – is that it is inevitable? Is it something we have to learn to accept, is it something that comes naturally with contentment?

I don’t know and I have no answer. It scares me to the point that when I start to feel happy, start to feel like I’ve got my life altogether, I become afraid. It has come to the point where happiness is the forewarning that things will fall apart. It’s like if I let myself become too happy, that’s when it will hit me. Or perhaps it is that happiness is the thing that make us short-sighted.

Should I be lost forever, if that means I can prevent the complacency that comes with finding the answer? Should I never feel that I’ve got my life together, if that means I can prevent myself from resting on my laurels? Should I behave as though I have no one’s approval, no one’s expectations or no one’s concern, if that means I can stop myself from disappointing them?

Is this the struggle that always makes us err, and henceforth makes us human?

I don’t know. Perhaps even if I search for the answer and the balance throughout my entire life, I may never find it. Perhaps all of my life, all of our lives, we’re destined to live out this struggle and never find the answer.

The crunch period is coming

I’ve been wanting to keep my updates regular on this blog for my own recording purposes but it’s getting so hard when everything is coming together. It’s week 5 of school and individual presentations and assignments are coming in, project meetings are starting. It’s also week 5 of my work and right now I’m pulling my hair out helping the team prepare for Christmas launch and the PR event in October. There’s so little time and everything isn’t confirmed and i feel super stressed and creycrey for the whole team i can’t imagine how they must feel as well. On my side i’m doing everything within my means to help out, but you know, sometimes things just don’t work out after all. I’m receiving rejections from manufacturers and suppliers, snobs from website providers, and the cold shoulder when I call them. Not easy at all, but it’s truly an eye-opener realizing the beauty and the uglies of the business world. Coming from the point of view of a startup, I’m seeing very different things than I did when i interned at MDLZ. I genuinely feel worried for the team and I voluntarily pile myself with work because I really want to help. It’s always on the back of my mind. I’ve seen more rejections in a month than I have in my entire internship/career life. I’ve ran together with the partners to meet new people, to negotiate, to talk, to get rejected. I’ve seen how situations can change completely and go in a totally different direction in one day, and I have to adjust as quickly as they do. It’s a matter of thinking on your feet, making fast and strategic decisions, and being absolutely resilient.  If I have to say the best things I’m learning from this, it would be that. It’s teaching me how to be adaptable. If anything, I’ve never had to do so much problem solving on my own in such a short time like I did in this internship.

I’ve stopped turning to the team or my boss for help like I did at the start. I’ve started asking myself, “If i was the owner of this company, what would I do?” And i start making my own decisions. Before asking anything, I ask myself as well, if I told them this problem would they know what to do? Most of the time I found that the answer was no. They wouldn’t know what to do as much as I don’t, so as part of the team the least that I can do was to figure it out for them. And most of the time, I found myself with a solution.

It’s a very humbling experience and the best push I could ask for before I graduate. It’s a steep learning curve and it’s molding my character in ways I never expected. But it’s so humbling and i’m so grateful despite the stress I’m receiving. It’s challenging me on all fronts. It’s challenging me to become more productive, to manage my time better, to handle people better, to stay calm, to take the lead if necessary, to step back if necessary, to think on my own two feet, to stop expecting answers to be handed to me on a silver platter, and to be extremely resilient.

And progressively, I’m feeling that it’s okay if I don’t find my passion in life. Because i have a backup plan, and that plan is to learn. If I can’t find a passion, it’s okay, then I’m just going to do everything that challenges me, everything that scares me to death, everything that pushes me to my limits and helps me to discover myself. That is not passion, that’s not what i love, but it’s just as meaningful, if not more, as passion. So to everyone who doesn’t have a passion, take a different view. Challenge yourself to become better, everyday. If you can’t find a passion, you can still find a goal.

So let’s go, crunch period!!!! I’ll take you on any time.

I want to get to know you.

This is to you, a stranger, whoever is reading this.

I want to know you.

Not your career goals and how you’re going to get there. Not your skills and expertise. Not your past accomplishments and awards. Not your colleagues and the politics in your workplace. Not your opinion on current affairs and what you think is right and wrong. Not your future plans five years from now. Not your status and title. 

I want to know you.

I want to know your dream, your real dream, and why it’s your dream. I don’t need to know how you want to accomplish it, I want to see the light in your eyes when you talk about your dream. I want to know what you’re good at and what you enjoy, even if they seem silly. I want to know the proudest moment of your life and your lowest moment, and I want to know how you grew from these experiences. I want to know your family. How many siblings you have, how your parents are like, who you admire the most, and how your family dynamics is like. I want to know about the things in the world you feel strongly about, and it doesn’t matter how politically right you are, because if you feel strongly about something regardless of whether there’s a reason, the feeling is real. I want to know your purpose in life, or at least, what you think your purpose in life is. I want to know the way you want to lead your life and what you believe in. 

I want to know you. 

But are we all lost stars, trying to light up the dark?

If you read the title and know the song I quoted it from, i love you already. The line is from ‘Lost Stars’, a soundtrack featured in Begin, Again. It’s a story about two musicians who lost themselves somewhere along life, but helped each other find themselves once again through sincere music and passion. And the song Lost Stars is a song that’s full of questions and no answers. But that is exactly why I am in love with the song, because in life we have so many questions and so little answers. Often what we think are answers only lead to more questions. So like the song suggests, we’re just all lost stars, trying to find meaning and to light up the dark.

The reason I’m randomly quoting this is because I want to talk about a conversation i had with the BF last night. While lying in the dark munching on peanuts, he started talking like he never really did before. He’s a practical person and always talked like he figured life out already and it’s super simple. And he always tells me I think too much. But i think the nervousness of starting a new career that might just consume him entirely, made him voice his insecurities. So he finally asked a question I thought he would never ask. What’s the purpose of life?

I wasn’t confident I can give him answers at all. So I just told him what I feel I should do with my life. That is, I want to leave my mark on this world, leave positive impacts on people no matter how small, and know that I didn’t just pass through this world without making others’ lives better. And he asked again, but what’s the purpose of life? What’s the purpose that I need to do all of that? What’s the ultimate goal?

I told him, it’s so that others can have better lives. And he asked yet again, what’s the purpose of life? What’s the purpose of THEIR lives, if I’m going to make their lives better then what is it for?

It’s a continuous cycle isn’t it. I realized what he wanted to know wasn’t what I wanted to live for, but why we’re given this life. What’s the end goal? What’s the point of being happy and making a difference if we all die eventually?

So I told him the right answer. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s the ultimate purpose, if there’s something bigger than this, but I told him it doesn’t matter. Since this life is already given to us for idk what goddamn purpose, then why not we make use of it? I told him we don’t have to know the purpose, in order to know what we want to do with our lives.

I quoted this famous quote by Ram Dass that I really like, “We’re all just walking each other home.” In the end we’re all just accompanying each other to find our own purpose and meaning. I believe firmly that we co-exist for a reason. This does not equate to having to always be with people, but this means that we are shaped by the people we meet, for the better or worse. Knowing I’m going to shape the lives of every person I meet, in some way or another, I want to do it positively.

He challenged me then, so can he aim to be really rich and spend it on himself? Is that wrong, since there is no ultimate purpose in life that we need to work towards, and that it’s just what kind of meaning we want to find in life. I told him you’re right, there’s nothing wrong. But I also told him I know that’s not really what he wants. I may not fully understand him but I do know enough to believe he would never be satisfied with that kind of life. The fact that he was asking and challenging already showed that he yearns for something much much more, bigger than life. And he hasn’t found it yet. That was why the least he can do for himself now is to become someone amazing in societal standards, until he finds it. I felt really guilty because I had accused him before of yielding to standards and pressure, without realizing he does it because he still hasn’t found what he’s seeking for. But he’s seeking. What I’m most guilty of, was not realizing that he’s still seeking.

He has no answers. And I said, it doesn’t matter. Damn it doesn’t matter. We might spend our entire lives searching for meaning, but that’s much better than assuming that you should live your life forever in a certain way just because it’s how people do it, and that’s the easiest way out. I rather we wonder forever, than settle for something we can’t say with conviction.

In the end, I told him I don’t care how long it takes. But when you tell me what you think your purpose or meaning is, you best damn tell me with real conviction that you believe in it. And I will do the same, when I find mine.

What now?

So for those who know me personally, I’m back in Singapore. So of course the next big question mark is what now? What’s going to happen to this blog now that the reason why it started has ended?

It’s very hard for me to predict what will come next, but I might have an idea after this post.

This post hence is like an update post just to update what’s going on with my life right now after I packed my life in Korea into 4 bags and dragged them all to the airport via subway, and made it back to Singapore in one (natural) piece.

For a couple of days to be honest, I was severely bitten by the travel bug and spent my days moping around feeling that life’s very boring in Singapore. Fortunately the people around me helped a lot in helping me settle back down. I learned a lot from exchange yes, and some of these lessons I can bring back to Singapore and let them continue to guide my life. But I think one thing a lot of us need to accept is that when we go abroad for a long period of time, we’re missing in people’s lives. They’re missing in our lives too. As sad as it seems, there will come a time when we need to tuck away that period of our lives as a world where we existed alone on our own, and no one can ever share in that time of our lives no matter how you want them to (because you love them). But we can’t expect to integrate everything amazing that happened when we were abroad to our normal lives expecting that everyone will excitedly embrace it as well. They don’t understand and it’s selfish to force them to.

The sooner we realize that, the less moping we’ll do and the more we’ll try to integrate back into their lives, the lives you shared with them before you left.

So it took me a week or two to realize that. Luckily in that time I’ve been attending gatherings and parties dutifully and also finally introduced the bf to the family formally. Then it was a rush. My birthday came about and after that I spent the weekend lazily watching the fencers fence their annual match. And the week after that, it was a mad job search. I kinda realized i’m jobless and i do have time during the semester so i was looking for jobs in startups since they’re more likely to be flexible with my time schedule. Went for an interview or two, got an offer . Asked for more time to decide because the job was sales based and not what i expected.

Then it was Bangkok. I think i want to write a post about Bangkok, although it can’t be very useful because it was more of a getaway rather than a proper travel itinerary based thing. Still it’s worth writing because i thoroughly enjoyed myself w the bf and 4 other friends 🙂

And and and, I want to write about something big that happened to me recently. I say it’s big because i’m super excited about it, not because i suddenly became very powerful or rich or smth. Basically I am now under the mentorship of a founder of a local firm who decided she wanted to take me under her wing, because she liked my dreams and we have similar philosophies in life. I’ve never met someone willing to make a personal investment in me like that, and willing to guide me without knowing what she can get from me in return. In the span of a week I’ve met her twice and done some design work and tomorrow I’m meeting her and her partners to discuss my work. It’s mad i was unemployed just a week ago!! It’s such a long story but I’ll save it for another post. She is God-sent and I look forward to what we will do together! And for sure I will document my new adventures here.

This morning I just sent my BF off to his new internship in the banking industry, and I kinda know I’m losing him to his career pursuits because I’m well aware what it’s like with the banking industry and the little amount of life it leaves you with, but I’m trying to be supportive. We’re both going on very different but equally exciting paths and maybe we won’t have much time with each other anymore but I’m so excited for the both of us, and I look forward to the stories we’ll share. Time is going to be really precious so we’ve got to make the best out of it.

So that’s all folks, that’s what’s happening in my life right now. Finally now I feel like I’ve properly gotten over my travel bug thing and I’m actually genuinely excited for my life now in Singapore. That’s also why I started to write here again because I had stopped moping and I’m starting to build stories I can share once more here!

So back to the point, what now? What will happen to themaone? Here are some of the things I hope to fill my blog with.

• Career adventures!
• Korea guides
• Korean language posts
• Bangkok
• Usual life rants lol
• Other travel posts

HAHAHA. Not the most exciting shit ever. But looking forward. Always looking forward. I can’t see the whole staircase of my life yet but don’t put me down yet, because I’ve taken the first step! Let’s go!

I don’t know where I’m going, because I stopped trying to find out.

Random musings about life in between all the travel posts?! Usually I’d say that if I start spouting stuff about life it’s around the time of my period, like yknow girls get really moody and PMS-y near the time of their periods, but i start becoming a pretentious poet or philosopher ._.

But no, this is not really triggered by one of those mood swings.

Yesterday at 2am, I don’t know how it started but I began talking to Amber about internships, careers, life etc. She was also sharing her experience of how she dropped out of nursing school to major in human rights and international relations, thinking the latter will be a smoother path for her while still retaining the factor of making positive impacts. She was raging because she’s taking internet classes and has like 1000000 readings about society and human rights, and suddenly it all seems much less interesting than her experience with nursing. She spent the night walking in and out of her study room and our room, ranting, eating and calling her mom and friends. At one point of time, she shouted at me from the other room, “UGH Michelle I envy your simple life!!”

 

It wasn’t exactly a wrong statement because tbvh the whole time she was walking around being frustrated i was actually just sitting there playing Pokemon and reading my Korean book because the internet at her place was horrible and I didn’t really have anything else to do and I didn’t really want to sleep yet. Really simple. I laughed and gave her some encouragements. But a whole part of me was wondering how much truth was there to that statement.

Am I really living a simple life? Do I want to live a simple life? Do I want to live a life just taking things one at a time, not really sure where i’m going?

The reason why this was even a relevant question was because I didn’t used to like a simple life at all. See, I’ve been wrecked with a dilemma for years. There are times when I feel ambitious and want to leave my legacy. There are times I wanted the world to know my name. And then there are other times when I found that we’re unnecessarily aiming too high, and I found that the most important things were in the littlest moments and my relationships with other people. Those are times when all I wanted was to leave a positive impact one person at a time, that even if they never know my name, as long as I know it within myself that i’ve made an impact only I could make, it was more than enough.

The world has a tendency to put down the people who choose the simplest path. They call it conformity. At the first glance these people seem to be just conforming to the society because they’re scared to take the beaten path, because they have no confidence, because they’re crushing their own passions just to be ‘accepted’. But take a second, third, fourth glance. What’s the story behind every pair of those tired eyes you see on trains during the rush hour? Maybe one of them has financial problems and just wants to take the safest path to get the whole family out. Maybe one of them wanted to repay their parents as soon as possible. Maybe one of them has a burning passion, but understands that pursuing the passion did not necessarily mean they will lead a fulfilling life. Maybe one of them did not feel passion was necessary for a good career, but finding a meaningful career was good enough. Maybe one of them felt like a simple life was enough. Maybe one of them realized that life means more than just what they do for a living.

But the world doesn’t spare a second glance. In my heart I’m contented to live a simple life, if I find it meaningful enough, I saw no need to chase after riches and something much more. But because I became one of the people that society puts down for being lost in the rat race, i grew a desire to step out and prove something to the world. I tried a whole bunch of things. I tried to become a graphic designer, I created logos and concepts and entire digital layouts for a startup, and i grew spiteful of the industry because i didn’t like it. I tried photography, but on days when i felt so lazy to bring out my camera, i realized i was trying too hard to convince myself i liked it enough to turn it into a career. I tried to set up my own business but that didn’t work and i got lazy. I tried to dab myself in huge-scale event management but all those rumors about how shady the industry could really be came true. There were a lot of things I’ve tried over the years, and at the end of it all, I’ve found that I was trying all that just so that I could take the ‘beaten’ path. I didn’t even truly like ANY of those things I tried.

I didn’t end up proving anything to the world, but I did end up proving to myself that i needed to stop. The only people i was answerable to was myself, and the people that was important to me. I had let myself, and them, down by putting myself through things I didn’t even like.

I still don’t know what I actually like or want to do. But I stopped thinking a simple carefree life was not fulfilling, and I stopped thinking i have to achieve great things and be remembered by the world. I stopped thinking I HAD to have my life planned out, that I had to have huge goals that I will spend my life trying to achieve. That doesn’t mean i lived aimlessly, though. Instead, I began to make very small goals. Be fluent in Korean. Pick up French. Revise Chinese. Do a bungee jump. Travel to Europe. Each time I mentally tick one of those things off the list, I feel so strengthened, I felt like I could do whatever I wanted. I began to live my life by bucket lists, instead of big goals. It worked much better than putting one goal on a pedestal and making that the end of the road. I stopped feeling like i needed one very huge goal or passion to live my life properly, and have that very huge goal or passion determine the person that I become.

That was also why I began blogging. Because through blogging, I could tell stories of my life. Of the simplest and most mundane moments that make me who I am. Of the journey, not the destination. I could write about all those mundane moments and write them colorfully if I wanted to. I was in control of how I want to perceive my ‘simple’ life. I could write about how I had a cup of coffee in a really boring way. But I could also write about how pretty the cafe was, how I found thrill in the low coffee prices, or how nice the barista was to us. It no longer mattered what the purpose of blogging for me was, it began to matter more what stories I was weaving in my life.

So that’s exactly how I’m going to live on, at least for now, I know no better way to actually be happy. There is always a story to tell, no matter how simple it may seem, as long as you choose to believe it’s worth telling.

It is the little things that matter.

We learn a lot of things when we say goodbye. Most of the times, we are never prepared for goodbye. It’s not because we didn’t know or expect when the day would come, but because we can never imagine how painful it really is until we are saying goodbye.

On that last week of school, when I was preparing myself for the day to say goodbye, I found myself surprised at the things that made me the most sentimental or emotional. I did my routine as usual on that last week of school, but I found each routine more endearing by the day.

Like how I could leave the dormitory just 10 minutes before lessons start, with enough time to grab a cup of iced latte from Cafe Dream to kickstart a nice day.

Like how I could never resist buying the cheap strawberry yogurt goodness from Cafe May.

Like how I wake up without fail every day at around 8am because my body clock adjusted itself so I can wake up everyday for dorm breakfast.

Like how we sometimes spend 5 minutes deciding between which of the two meals to eat at the dorm cafeteria. Sometimes because both options are good, sometimes because both seem to serve only preserved vegetables…

Like how I snuggle into my blanket after breakfast and fall into a deep food coma. Almost every day.

Like the cold winter days that same blanket gave me so much protection from

Like how laundry can be so frustrating when I decided to do it at the ‘crunch’ time (10-11pm) and everyone’s doing their laundry and im just like #stahp and then i end up sleeping at 2am because i had to wait it out. And how i screwed up on my first laundry day by starting another person’s dryer.

Like how my snacks are right within my reach on the shelf in front of me, and i only needed to step out of my room to get hot water for a good cup of ramyun or coffee/milo/tea

Like those days watching dramas till late nights without a care (i watched all of dae jang geum and you who came from the stars in this exchange, plus a bit of dong yi)

Like how i get so irritated at the slow wifi at the dorm

I started to miss every of those routines and they became so bittersweet on that last week. Things that seem so small and mundane during my daily life in these past few months, became so symbolic of my life in Korea.

On that last night, Jasmine and XC invited me to their room to have some fried chicken and pepsi, and when i sat there with them just eating chicken in their dorm room and talking in english to jas and korean in XC, i felt this sudden wave of regret. Like why did this not happen sooner? Why did we live for the past few months and never thought to do something as simple as ordering food in and gathering to talk? Did we take it for granted that we had time, and didn’t think of doing the simplest yet most memorable things?

On the last day, when we ate our last breakfast in the dorm, Joanna came over to join us and she was tearing up because she was leaving Korea on that day. When we said goodbye, I never realized that I was sad as well. Because I wasn’t close to her, I didn’t realize it would affect me that much when I said goodbye to her, knowing it’s most likely forever.

After the rush of packing and cleaning our rooms, as I sat there in my bare room with my roomie Selina, we took a photo together and I didn’t realize how far we’ve come the past few months, and although I was not particularly close to her, I would always remember the few nights we chatted for hours just about life, and her constant presence in the room has become something I would miss.

As I was throwing out the thrash, I bumped into an Indonesian friend I made during the exchange, and he was with the other exchange students. For the first time the look in his eyes wasn’t the usual playful one when he was going to call me ‘ba’ which is a teasing word to call aunties in bahasa, and his smile had faltered. Instead he gave me a long look, as if he wasn’t sure whether to give me a goodbye hug or to continue teasing me as per usual. He just smiled a little too wide and told me to visit Indonesia often.

I left the room with my luggages in tow, I looked at the rows of bags lined up along the doors, and I wondered that when we all leave, would there be a trace of us left in those dorm rooms? When new people come in to fill up these rooms that we once called our home and treated as our sanctuary, what will be the traces of us left? Would it be as if we never lived there? Are we just occupants in sheltered rooms?

I went out to get coffee, and on the way back, I saw Selina leaving. I ran up to her and gave her a hug. It was our first and last hug. She pulled me in closer and gave me the most sincere smile I’ve seen her give. I’ll see her in Singapore, hopefully.

As I was hanging out in jasmine and XC’s room, XC’s friend came in and started to cry because her room mate just went home. I didn’t know her friend, nor did i know her friend’s roomie, but I found myself feeling a gaping hole of sadness seeing her tears, so I just went into the bathroom to bathe.

After dinner when I was finally ready to leave to join Zenn and find our Jjimjilbang for the night, I turned back and saw Jasmine, XC and XC’s friend all staring at me with the same wide-eyed looks, and I had to tear away so that I can leave without letting the sadness catch up with me. I will see them again.

It is the little things that matter. The second more of a glance, the smile that reached the eyes, the simple talks over silly things, the mundane routines of dorm life, the little cheap thrills, the quiet moments alone, the things that i would never expected to be the things i couldn’t stop thinking about.

Goodbye, exchange. Goodbye, Sogang.