old school surveys whaddup

Hi.

I've got a couple of posts on draft right now, but it takes too much out of me to finish them up, so here's a quick old school survey post just so my blog isn't dying.

If you’ve ever tried drugs or alcohol, what was your reason for first trying it?

I've tried both. When you're a kid, you just automatically think that most things adults forbid you to do is actually something cool they just want to keep for themselves. Not to mention the fact that mainstream media made drugs and alcohol look fairly fun and enjoyable, so it just made me want to try them.

Do you think you could ever have an abortion if you unexpectedly turned up pregnant right this second?

Any serious thoughts that involves me having a child gives me horrible /anxiety/ and my heart actually starts beating faster from fear. I honestly do not know how to answer this question. I personally don't think abortions are okay, but sometimes it just logically makes sense, and it's so easy to say, "no I wouldn't because that's murder", but what do I know.

If you were far from home and needed to sleep for the night, would you choose to rent a crappy motel room for $60 or sleep in your car for free?

I would definitely sleep in my car for free, because anyone who knows me would know that I am cheap. If I had extra money to spare, I would maybe sleep in hostel, just because I would like to meet new people.

Is there a color shirt you’d NEVER wear?

Pink. Just plain pink. I would wear clothes with a hint of pink, but nothing majorly pink.

What did you have for breakfast?

I woke up at 2pm today, and didn't get out of bed until 4pm and was too lazy to make myself anything, so I had my first meal at 7pm and it was KFC.

What was the last movie you watched?

Camp Takota! Which I love. I've seen it multiple times and there are two major scenes that just takes my heart and kills me. First is the drinking scene up at the cabin, because the holy trinity just looks like they're having so much fun. Second is the quarrelling scene at the crafts hut, because holy shit, who knew these three pun-totting alcoholics knew how to do drama.

If you could see any musician live, front row, who would you choose?

Fall Out Boy. Again. I've seen them live once, and I will gladly pay money to see them again. They were amazing, and it was everything I've ever wanted.

When you say you love someone, do you mean it?

Yes. I am very anal about choosing to tell someone "I love you". I don't ever say it, I don't ever text it, I don't ever think it even. So if I ever hear me tell someone that I love them, you bet your fine round ass I mean it.

Do you plan on sleeping in tomorrow?

For the first time in a long time, no! Despite not needing to go out for work tomorrow, I plan to not sleep in. I made a couple of plans to make some changes in my life, and a couple of them start tomorrow, and I just hope that everything will turn out well!

As of this minute, what is going through your mind?

I'm thinking about how my plans could easily fail, just like how all my previous plans of change have, and it's definitely scary and uncomfortable, but eh, I'll live. You fail once, you get up twice, amirite?

Where’s the last place you went?

If you mean just in general, Stamford American School for work. If you mean traveling, the last place I've been to was Boracay, Philippines. And yes, a blog post regarding that trip is in the making.

Does it bother you when people try to make you jealous?

Yes, it really does. I'm secretly extremely competitive, not just in games, but just in general. So the little things really /grinds my gears/, and I find it really annoying, but it mostly just makes me want to keep working to be better than that person.

Do you have drama in your life?

As of now, no, I really don't. People say this a lot, but I mean it when I say that I live an incredibly boring life nowadays. I am currently working from home, so I don't go out and meet new people. I'm incredibly broke, so I can't exactly go out and meet new people, let alone go out and meet up with friends. I don't really have anything going on for me right now, but hopefully all that will change if I succeed with my plans.

I apologize for the lack of /published/ posts recently. I'll put them up throughout this week.

I hope you're all doing fine and is living a much more exciting life than I currently am.

Goodnight.

Thailand Part 1: #lizaandlellelbangskoks

Hi.

[Because of how incredibly long and detailed my posts are turning out, I will be splitting my Thailand posts into four parts!]

DAY 1:

After a fairly short plane ride (and months of planning and saving up), we finally made it. We're finally in Thailand, the land of smiles! Our first stop, Bangkok.

We took a taxi to our hostel, and during the whole ride, we could only talk about how we still could not believe that we are actually on this trip. It was our first time travelling overseas (that is not The Philippines) by ourselves, and everything was just so exciting!

We finally reached our hostel, and it was barely like what it looked like on their website. We made reservations to stay in a 12-bed dorm, but the room was tiny! It felt like a 20-bed dorm, there was barely any space to put our things, and the bathrooms felt dingy. We didn't worry too much though, because that only made us feel like we should go out and explore the city more. So we settled in and got ready to conquer our first day in Bangkok!

We were running on zero hours of sleep, so we decided to take it slow on our first day. It only takes 25 minutes and 8 baht to get to CentralWorld by bus, so we decided to forgo convenient taxis and take public transport instead. There weren't any sign of riots or unruliness despite how the media made it sound, and if you hadn't known about it from the news, you wouldn't have suspected that there was any mess at all.

After our fairly enjoyable bus ride, we finally arrived at one of my all-time favourite malls! CentralWorld! I know it's ridiculous to crave to go to a mall when you're in a beautiful city like Bangkok, but I just love love love this mall so much. It's so clean and modern and organized and it has practically everything you could ever wish for in a mall. We went to grab a drink at Starbucks to wake ourselves up, got a data simcard for our iPhones, and headed up to the foodcourt to grab lunch. 

The foodcourt is one of my favourite things about this mall. Everything is fairly cheap, they have couches, and it has the best Phad Thai I've ever had! After eating, we went to watch 12 Years A Slave (cinemes in Bangkok are just truly amazing, okay!), which we ended up falling asleep in because the film felt too slow and we were both extremely exhausted. We then decided to go back to our hostel to wash up get some proper rest for our next big day.

DAY 2:

We got up a lot later than we had intended and ended up taking the bus down to CentralWorld again to have lunch. As we were both completely starving, we had a massive feast at the foodcourt with french fries, fried shrimp balls, tom yum soup, and our own dishes with rice. After recovering from the food coma, we decided to walk down to Platinum Mall and shop, so at least we could say we had a bit of exercise.

We walked through the entirety of the mall and barely got anything for ourselves. I only got myself a swimsuit for Krabi, two bib necklaces, and a dumb flower crown Lellel made me buy so she can get a discount. Also, she got called a "cheebye" by one of the aunties for bargaining something down to half its price. It was hilarious. After a fruitless but draining shopping trip, we got drinks at Starbucks to energize ourselves before taking a tuktuk down to Healthland Spa.

The massage was incredibly entertaining. We booked a 2-hour Thai Massage, and Lellel kept laughing cause she was ticklish, which then made me laugh. The masseurs just laughed at us as they cracked our joints. I started feeling painfully ill by the time we got back to the hostel and wasn't able to finish my dinner, so I just completely crashed when I got back to bed.

DAY 3:

We set out to head to Siam Paragon for lunch, then walked all along the shopping streets down to MBK with the hopes of buying things, but we were fruitless, except for this amazingly obnoxious cat sweater that I totally fell in love with. After walking around for hours, we decided to head down to Asiatique and hopefully catch a beautiful sunset from there.

We took a boat ride down to Asiatique right as it was getting to the golden hour, and it was quite a scene. However, we felt a bit disappointed when we got to Asiatique cause there really wasn't much to do. The shops were mostly closed and things were overpriced, and it could just be that we went to the place too early, but we just weren't that impressed.

So we just chilled for a bit while we waited to meet up with our friend from secondary school, Kiwi. She happened to be in Bangkok so she hit us up to meet up for dinner, which we gladly agreed to. We took a cab down to Khao San Road where she led us to a pretty hidden restaurant, where she apparently brings chicks she wants to impress. Well, it surely worked on us!

After chatting over the dinner, we took a cab down to Pat Pong to see a Ping Pong show! The show where ladies blow ping pong balls and darts out of their vaginas? Yes, that one. I have to say, the experience was way more depressing than it was entertaining. Don't get me wrong, their -capabilities- were impressive and I was truly in awe, but it was just sad to watch, so we left after watching a full routine. Somehow, we ended up going down to Kiwi's place to just chat and stay the night.

DAY 4:

After washing up, Kiwi led us down to a vegetarian cafe for breakfast. We then said our goodbyes, and Lellel and I made our way back to the hostel to pack up and get ready to fly to our next city, Chiang Mai!

Bangkok - Chiang Mai - Krabi p.1 - Krabi p.2

Lack of Possibilities in Singapore

Hi.

It has been almost two weeks since I got back from my 15-day trip around Thailand, and until now, I am not completely over the whole thing. There is just so much I love about traveling, and even with Thailand itself, that I just can't help but wish that I wasn't stuck in Singapore for an extended amount of time.

I think that the thing that upsets me so much about being back in Singapore is the lack of possibilities.

Back in Thailand, especially in Krabi, you could get on public transport and there's a high chance you could end up having a lovely conversation with someone during your ride. How often did I step up to talk to people? Not often, but it makes me so happy knowing it's an actual possibility.

During one of our rides, this lady beside us was snacking on watermelon seeds, and out of nowhere, she offered me some. I didn't have any, but man, did that make me happy. If someone in Singapore did that, number one, they would be fined a ridiculous amount because you can't eat on public transport, and number two, it would be extremely weird and unwelcomed.

The devil's advocate may say something like, "there's always a possibility! You just have to step up and talk to people!". Yes, yes I can, but it will be incredibly unwelcomed for the most part. I might end up being called crazy on someone's Twitter or, even worse, STOMPed. It just isn't the norm for Singaporeans, and I don't like how that is an issue. Of course not every Singaporean is like that, but it is a great majority. It just doesn't feel as easy to approach someone here in Singapore as it would anywhere else, as far as I've experienced. 

The main path for people here in Singapore is to go to polytechnic, or even better, a good junior college, followed by going to a good university, preferably local but a reputable overseas one could work too I guess, then going straight to work to provide for your parents and future offspring, preferably in business, engineering, or basically anything that is not the arts, then living like that until you can afford to retire. Of course that whole ordeal is slightly exaggerated, but from what I've seen, if you're not following that path, there is not a lot of space in Singapore for you to grow, and if you are able to follow that path, there isn't much space in your life for anything else.

My points may be slightly exaggerated or be seen as a stereotype, but it wouldn't be seen as a stereotype if it wasn't as big enough of an issue, right? I think anyone who has lived in Singapore for long enough would understand where I'm coming from.

Now I do not, by any means, hate Singapore. I am a Singaporean and I love Singapore, but for completely different reasons than, say, how I love the Philippines or Thailand. Singapore has amazing modern architecture, amazing public transport system, it has one of the top education systems in the world, it's orderly and is safe enough where I can walk home alone at 3am and feel completely safe. But beyond that, Singapore just isn't for me in the long-term, and that is just me.

I hope you all find the place where you should be, or at least the place where you want to be. Currently for me, it's on Bamboo Island, just constantly screaming about how amazing the water is. (And yes, a post about my trip, including photos, will be coming very soon!)

Goodnight.

Thailand/Travel Withdrawals

Hi,

I am back from my 15-day trip around Thailand with Lellel, and I am not ready to be back.

I haven't been doing anything at all, but I've been completely lethargic, and just going back and forth between my iMac desk (since I don't have my MacBook Pro at the moment) and my bed. All I want to do is sleep and dream about traveling all day.

Here's a teaser photo from each city we've been to in Thailand. I am not emotionally ready to go through all my photos yet.

lizaandlellelbangskoks

chiangmaihikeclub

lifeisabeach

I hope you all have exciting things going on right now. I shall try to blog about my trip soon.

Goodnight.

#lizagoestowork

Hi.

I am unofficially done with my final semester of polytechnic, and since I have no plans of going to university, I am pretty much done with my academic life. This is both extremely freeing, yet also extremely terrifying.

On one hand, it’s amazing as I am free from the torturous clutches of regularly attending school, I no longer have to see condescending lecturers, and I no longer to force yourself to retain bouts of information to pass a module. 

On the other hand, I would probably need to work with insane production schedules,  have to submit to condescending superiors, I would still need to follow schedules and deadlines, and I still have to work with retaining information to work on a project. Obviously, this is turning out great.

It is a slightly terrifying time for me right now, because from now onwards, everything I do is essentially a huge game changer. From whether I decide to get out of bed that day, to the type of jobs I choose to apply for, everything could essentially take me down a different lane and I don’t know how I feel about that. This made me realise that I have finally gotten to a point in my life where I substantially care for money, not just to have money to travel or for clothes, but to survive.

Joining any part of the creative industry, you are faced with the major decision of whether to sell your soul to the commercial devils or to just scrape by but work on something you love. I am completely torn. When it comes to the media industry, advertisements (of any kind) is where the big money is. The downside is that you have to cater to clients who can’t make up their mind, possibly sacrifice your artistic direction

If your dream job is sitting in front of a desk from 9-5 making a stable living, then good for you. I do not, in any way, think that desk jobs are life-sucking in itself. I do, however, believe that they are simply not for everyone, specially not the likes of me. I get bored too easily and start showing up offensively late for work wearing way too casual clothing. I’m pretty sure if I worked at a company for more than a year, I’ll start showing up wearing sweatpants and passing them off as hipster slacks.

I have no idea where I will be a year from now, career-wise. I barely even know what career I want to pursue. I’m just hoping I’ll stumble into what I’m actually supposed to do, just like everyone else. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy putting up photos and ridiculous status updates on my social media with #lizaisunemployed or #lizagoestowork. Hopefully it’s the latter.

Oh yeah, meet Pichu. My office's resident cat, who wails and craves as much attention as a dog.

I hope you all have a purrfect weekend!

Goodnight.