Social media... no matter how tall your fences are, every now and then someone still manages to climb over your fence and make your grass feel less green, as they imprint footsteps in your garden. It's cliché, but things only become a cliché because they are repeatedly real. I'd like to think I built my fences pretty well, only allowing inspiring flowers into my garden. My Facebook feed is full of social causes or news outlets that inspire me; my Instagram feed is mostly filled with artistic works and poetry. It's the time of graduation, however, and seeing people's posed pictures in their big black robes, fancy hats and colourful ribbons slipping past my fences does do something to me.
For one, a degree in the Netherlands (whether it's a Bachelor's or Master's) has never been grandly celebrated. We don't do robes and hats, and I don't think the Postgraduate Diploma I got from UCL qualifies me for a ceremony. Seeing these photos of robes and hats keeps making me think I should be making a big deal out of graduating from my Master's programme in six months. LinkedIn posts make my stomach turn even more: people who graduate Cum Laude or who make a big change in some developing country make me question myself. What if I don't live up to what everyone else is experiencing? Were all of my detours really worth it if I didn't get to where those people are without many detours?
I'd say that my life has pretty much been a rollercoaster ride since obtaining my Bachelor's degree. I took a much longer path than most of my friends did, and a lot of my high school classmates have been working in industry for years. It always felt like I was kind of behind even though I was just expanding myself... Taking a whole year out to gain industry experience, spending my summers abroad for additional education, extending my 2-year Master's programme to a 3-year programme by sandwiching a Postgraduate Diploma and third internship experience in between. During these years I have learned a lot, grown a lot, but I would not say that I 'found myself', perhaps because I stretched myself everywhere. But I don't like the idea of 'finding oneself' if I were to be honest; I keep wondering what happens after that. Does finding oneself imply that one does not grow anymore afterwards? If that's the case, I'd rather not find myself. I like to reinvent myself, keep exploring, keep becoming a better version of myself.
The question then becomes: when is it enough? What will I say once I defend my Master thesis in six months and obtain my certificate? Will I be happy to flaunt like all my LinkedIn connections do, no matter the result? Should I be adding to this toxicity by sharing this, if I do get a high grade? And what do I do if I don't graduate, or get a low grade? I also know that I can't change the world with a thesis, but still, what if the things I find out are not going to help build a circular economy in the fashion industry? What if I don't stay true to myself and lose my purpose?
People often say it's not about the destination, but the journey. When I think about my 'Big Graduation Speech', I hope I'll lean that way. I try to tell myself that it does not matter, what matters is that I was doing something I believed in, that I learned something along the way, and that I did so without overstretching myself like I usually do. I was lucky that I have always had a great support system around me and was willing to seek help. I still remember term 3 at UCL, one of my most stressful periods. Suddenly I had to deal with a lack of routine, many deadlines, whilst going through internship applications. My anxiety was at its peak back then: I was often too nervous about the next day to fall asleep and I spent many mornings full of panic attacks, getting nauseous from the idea of spending the day in the library. My teachers back then helped me back into it, I also had many peers spending library days with me, I got counselling from a UCL support worker and I also got extensions due to my condition. These are things that people don't find on my LinkedIn. All they'd see is that I graduated with a distinction and that I was a very active member in student societies fighting for climate change.
I am now 5 weeks into my Master thesis and still have 20 weeks to go. So far my anxiety has not been too awful, but my body has definitely been burned out from the last couple of years. Thus, I am not able to put in the extra evenings and weekend work, something that is odd for me if you compare me to my Bachelor's days or even my time at UCL. Of course, the perfectionist inside of me still tends to work an extra hour or two here and there, but not whole days like I used to. I have also consciously made the decision to only work 4 days a week so I can dedicate my time to therapy. When I graduate, I want that to be my story. I want my greatest achievement to be my own health and feeling content with myself no matter the result. I think self-love is something I have neglected for long enough, as cheesy as it sounds.
I have always wanted to become a mental health advocate, but somehow my professional life never took me there due to personal reasons. Going to UCL, I thought I'd get back to it. I did very briefly by volunteering for Mind in Camden for a 3-4 months. It was too short to make an impact, but I think it truly made me realise that empathy and authenticity is key to becoming a mental health advocate. I once submitted an essay about 'The Change I Want to Make' as part of many scholarship applications for my studies at UCL. I wrote my essay about opening up the conversation about mental health issues, putting my own struggles in an ambiguous spotlight. I did not win the contest, but I did get a honourable mention out of more than 13,000 other applicants in my age category. I was very proud about this because it was this one time I was honest about my struggles even though it could've negatively impacted the results; it made me 'own' my story even for just a brief moment. For a long time, I was afraid to share this essay in public, I still slightly am. For one, it opens up a lot about my 'real self', something I am afraid will make my professional life suffer. Secondly, it feels like I have been lying, because in the end I decided to focus more on sustainability rather than mental health. I guess my essay back then was not dishonest, I have just been reinventing myself again. Also deep inside I do still care for mental health issues, which is why I am determined to celebrate my 'time off' after graduation by volunteering and fundraising for a mental health charity by running a half marathon.
I think the thing that people remember the most about me should not be my achievements but the way I got there, both my ups and downs. I hope one day I can be courageous enough to be authentic without fear, and to embrace myself even for my 'failures'. I hope I can see that nothing is ever really a failure because treading on is already an achievement. My friend once told me that a semi-colon is used when an author could have ended their sentence, but did not. I want each of my 'achievements' to end in a semicolon, ever-transforming the sentence of my life.
Monday, 9 December 2019
Monday, 21 October 2019
Turning my digital drawers upside down
As far as I know, I have always been intrigued by technology, in the way that it opened up so many possibilities for self-development, self-expression and the immersion into other people's forms of expression. I remember singing along with Disney's 'Magic English' as a kid, eagerly putting those shiny discs into my parents' DVD player which opened up the world of English to me. I also remember having my father's 'Golden Oldies' echoing into our living room from our CD player, putting me in touch with the likes of Abba, the Beatles, and a fair amount of Cantonese songs with the occasional Hokkien and Mandarin tunes in between (anyone familiar with The Moon Represents My Heart?). Of course there was also that exhilarating moment where I learned how to copy songs onto a mixtape, and inevitably messed up doing so as I got my small fingers tangled up in tape.
Listening to music has always been a crucial part of my personal development. My first MP3 player must've held less than 300 MB of storage space, but many a nights have the songs on them lulled me to sleep. As I grew older, I proceeded to a whopping 4 GB through my Creative Zen Mosaic MP4 Player, which allowed me to broaden my musical taste. I wasn't the most musical person per se; I was mostly intrigued by the lyrics. The lyrics of my early teenage pop-rock idols inspired me to write poetry. I started off old-school through multiple notebooks and pens. After that, I wrote poems on-the-go during my one-hour commute to secondary school: avidly typing away on my 12-button Samsung phone, saving poems as SMS drafts until I got my own laptop to continue typing on Microsoft Word. As you may have realised from a previous blogpost, I can be quite nostalgic about these kind of things.
Textual documentation has always come natural to me. As soon as I learned how to form proper sentences through a ballpoint, I started writing in flower-patterned diaries, which eventually progressed to classy, sleek notebooks. However, once the internet became popular I took a big turn. It was like a whole new world opened up to me in Myspace, where a 12-year-old-me taught myself the basics of HTML and started playing with Paint, Paint Shop Pro and GIMP to create my own visuals. Despite appreciating this new form of self-expression, it soon made me realise that words were still most endearing to me. And so I went back to honing my English through long e-mail conversations with pen pals, becoming an active member at a poetry website, and starting a personal blog in 2012.
Flashforward to 2019: I have been writing less and less, exchanging words for pictures since I decided to develop my photography skills through Instagram by the end of 2015. Ever since, I have also dabbled in illustration and videography as someone who's realised her love for multi-media expression, (something I already mentioned at the end of this blogpost). It's safe to say I've created a pretty comprehensive digital archive throughout the years. This is not surprising, given that back in 2017 our world was able to generate 2.5 quintillion bytes of data per day. I cannot imagine having to deal with this, as I myself get quite overwhelmed with structuring and saving my documents in a way that's navigatable.
The last two months I have mostly been sorting out my pictures, turning the digital into tangible memories so that I won't forget. There is still so much more to sort out, and it makes me wonder whether we are truly conscious of our experiences these days. I keep asking myself: is every moment truly worth snapping a picture of, and when is it time to let go of certain digital artefacts? I am fairly good at being a minimalist in terms of my tangible possessions, not so much with my digital possessions. Even though technology makes it easy to document and express ourselves, I think it is important to be mindful so that every byte truly matters.
Listening to music has always been a crucial part of my personal development. My first MP3 player must've held less than 300 MB of storage space, but many a nights have the songs on them lulled me to sleep. As I grew older, I proceeded to a whopping 4 GB through my Creative Zen Mosaic MP4 Player, which allowed me to broaden my musical taste. I wasn't the most musical person per se; I was mostly intrigued by the lyrics. The lyrics of my early teenage pop-rock idols inspired me to write poetry. I started off old-school through multiple notebooks and pens. After that, I wrote poems on-the-go during my one-hour commute to secondary school: avidly typing away on my 12-button Samsung phone, saving poems as SMS drafts until I got my own laptop to continue typing on Microsoft Word. As you may have realised from a previous blogpost, I can be quite nostalgic about these kind of things.
Textual documentation has always come natural to me. As soon as I learned how to form proper sentences through a ballpoint, I started writing in flower-patterned diaries, which eventually progressed to classy, sleek notebooks. However, once the internet became popular I took a big turn. It was like a whole new world opened up to me in Myspace, where a 12-year-old-me taught myself the basics of HTML and started playing with Paint, Paint Shop Pro and GIMP to create my own visuals. Despite appreciating this new form of self-expression, it soon made me realise that words were still most endearing to me. And so I went back to honing my English through long e-mail conversations with pen pals, becoming an active member at a poetry website, and starting a personal blog in 2012.
Flashforward to 2019: I have been writing less and less, exchanging words for pictures since I decided to develop my photography skills through Instagram by the end of 2015. Ever since, I have also dabbled in illustration and videography as someone who's realised her love for multi-media expression, (something I already mentioned at the end of this blogpost). It's safe to say I've created a pretty comprehensive digital archive throughout the years. This is not surprising, given that back in 2017 our world was able to generate 2.5 quintillion bytes of data per day. I cannot imagine having to deal with this, as I myself get quite overwhelmed with structuring and saving my documents in a way that's navigatable.
The last two months I have mostly been sorting out my pictures, turning the digital into tangible memories so that I won't forget. There is still so much more to sort out, and it makes me wonder whether we are truly conscious of our experiences these days. I keep asking myself: is every moment truly worth snapping a picture of, and when is it time to let go of certain digital artefacts? I am fairly good at being a minimalist in terms of my tangible possessions, not so much with my digital possessions. Even though technology makes it easy to document and express ourselves, I think it is important to be mindful so that every byte truly matters.
Tuesday, 8 October 2019
Crossing the finish line, just to prepare for the next marathon
Yesterday I received my official certificate for my postgraduate diploma from University College London: the finish line has been officially crossed. Time flies. It's been a month since departing from my life abroad. A lot has happened, but at the same time not much has changed.
London was the first time in my life where I felt like I was balanced. I didn't have to focus on just studying, just developing my personal interests, just taking care of my health, just socialising, just contributing to society, or just expanding my career. I could do it all in one year: graduating with a distinction from my postgraduate diploma; reconnecting with dance through new dance styles (street dance, bachata and salsa); reaching a new running milestone of 18 km; having the best food adventures with cousins, classmates and friends; raising my voice for the climate through student action; doing a summer internship in London whilst juggling with master thesis proposals for an Autumn start. Of course there were things I had to give up on too, but generally speaking London was a place where I felt like I belonged: chaotic, diverse and full of agency. It felt like one of the most wholesome experiences of my life, even though it was also a challenge and at times even confusing or misleading.
However, sometimes things have to fall apart to fall in place again, and only after divergence does convergence occur. And thus, I feel both expansive and focused right now. I have come to realise that nothing has to clash, even though not everything always has to happen in parallel either. Some experiences in life are not always perfectly in sync but they can happen at the same time, just in different frequencies. My passion for sustainability has grown tremendously this year and it has made me confident that that's what I want to dedicate my career to. This however doesn't mean I need to let go of my original passion: becoming a mental health advocate. One of my "dreams-before-30" is to run a marathon for a mental health charity. Two days ago, I was already halfway through: running my first half marathon. I ended up last, but that's okay because I know I've always been a couch potato and I am proud of trying. When I reached about 17/21 km, I was thinking to myself: if I do manage to finish this half marathon, it would mean more to me than graduating from UCL. It did, although my legs don't agree. Running has always been my way of proving to myself that the mind is stronger than the body; that it does not matter how long I'm taking as long as I enjoy the journey and manage to reach my goal by the end; that it's important to listen to my body, but also that pushing myself does not have to go against that.
My second dream is to publish my own poetry book. Even though I did pull together an unpublished 20-page manuscript once (called The Identity Factory), I feel like my perspective on what being a poet means to me has changed. It always used to be about myself: expressing myself with authenticity yet hiding through enough symbolic dignity. I want to be more than that though. It ties back to wanting to become a mental health advocate. I know that sharing personal struggles helps make people feel less alone: that's how I survived mostly during my younger years, listening to artists and reading poetic works that made me relate. It's however easy to stay in a downward spiral that way. As a poet, I would like to be more inspiring and uplifting without losing my authenticity. It is a hard balance to strike, not just as a poet but as a person. It's something I hope to develop further as I grow older, and hopefully by then, I can publish a poetry book that's both meaningful for me and others.
Some may say that I want too much out of life. For a long time I would bash myself for not ever being grateful, for always looking for that 'next big thing', preparing myself for the next marathon so to speak. There is still my master's degree to finish which is my main priority right now. But dreams are what keep me alive, and they are only fuelled by action.
However, sometimes things have to fall apart to fall in place again, and only after divergence does convergence occur. And thus, I feel both expansive and focused right now. I have come to realise that nothing has to clash, even though not everything always has to happen in parallel either. Some experiences in life are not always perfectly in sync but they can happen at the same time, just in different frequencies. My passion for sustainability has grown tremendously this year and it has made me confident that that's what I want to dedicate my career to. This however doesn't mean I need to let go of my original passion: becoming a mental health advocate. One of my "dreams-before-30" is to run a marathon for a mental health charity. Two days ago, I was already halfway through: running my first half marathon. I ended up last, but that's okay because I know I've always been a couch potato and I am proud of trying. When I reached about 17/21 km, I was thinking to myself: if I do manage to finish this half marathon, it would mean more to me than graduating from UCL. It did, although my legs don't agree. Running has always been my way of proving to myself that the mind is stronger than the body; that it does not matter how long I'm taking as long as I enjoy the journey and manage to reach my goal by the end; that it's important to listen to my body, but also that pushing myself does not have to go against that.
My second dream is to publish my own poetry book. Even though I did pull together an unpublished 20-page manuscript once (called The Identity Factory), I feel like my perspective on what being a poet means to me has changed. It always used to be about myself: expressing myself with authenticity yet hiding through enough symbolic dignity. I want to be more than that though. It ties back to wanting to become a mental health advocate. I know that sharing personal struggles helps make people feel less alone: that's how I survived mostly during my younger years, listening to artists and reading poetic works that made me relate. It's however easy to stay in a downward spiral that way. As a poet, I would like to be more inspiring and uplifting without losing my authenticity. It is a hard balance to strike, not just as a poet but as a person. It's something I hope to develop further as I grow older, and hopefully by then, I can publish a poetry book that's both meaningful for me and others.
Some may say that I want too much out of life. For a long time I would bash myself for not ever being grateful, for always looking for that 'next big thing', preparing myself for the next marathon so to speak. There is still my master's degree to finish which is my main priority right now. But dreams are what keep me alive, and they are only fuelled by action.