Am I Socially Awkward?

Can't believe I'd be talking about this. Feeling/sounding silly right now but I've got to share.

So recently, I've found out that I'm becoming quieter around groups of people and appearing awkward sometimes cos I don't know how to react / kill conversations / say inappropriate things. Sometimes I don't get the jokes my friends are saying; sometimes I get laughed at for making things awkward.

I asked a friend if I'm socially awkward, and she said I am. I can't quite believe it cos it's never occurred to me that way. I decided to google what it meant by being socially awkward, and I actually found 2 of the 6 pointers (that's a third of it!) relate-able. (From http://www.peopleskillsdecoded.com/socially-awkward/)

The Lack of Conversation Flow

I think this point is the most relate-able one, I can't quite continue conversations, especially if it's with someone that I don't really know. I just don't know what to talk about. Convo killer. I realise that I sometimes don't know how to reply people to continue a conversation on the phone, unless the person is very chatty, or I'll just end the conversation halfway cos there's nothing much to talk about.

Frequently being Avoided or Ridiculed by Others

I often get laughed at for my inappropriate "contributions" to the conversations among my friends. I don't know how can I further elaborate on this but I feel like a joke sometimes.

I would like to say I'm not socially awkward cos I've never felt that way or no one has ever said that of me (till now). But sometimes, as I think and reflect, I think it might be possible...

Lucky/Unlucky?

Feeling lucky/unlucky today. I can't decide...

It started right at midnight. I wanted to transfer money to Dawn cos she's helping me bring more TWD over. It was my first time using DBS app on my phone to transfer money. There were 4 pages, and I missed out the "payee" section on the first page, thinking that I'll select my payee on the last page, so I entered all information to see that I've transferred SGD$500 to a carouseller that I once made a deal with. PANIC ATTACK.

I tried calling DBS Singapore, but it was late at night and they prolly had less customer service officers I had to wait 15minutes before I spoke to one of them, but the line got cut off when she redirected me to another customer service officer to help me with it cos my phone ran out of credit. Overseas call using prepaid card seriously isn't cheap.

I had to buy a 600TWD top up and wait another 20minutes before I finally got to speak to another customer service officer, who explained that I have to either head down to a SG branch when I'm back to sign some indemnity form or get a Taiwan lawyer to help me with some authorisation document to sign that indemnity form overseas (which would cost me money)... Then they'll attempt to contact the person I transferred the money to, but there's no such thing as "cancelling the transaction". Sigh.

So I decided to search my past messages and thankfully I found the conversation between me and the girl. Tried my luck to Whatsapp her... At 3am...

Goodness gracious I so thankful to get my money back!! I don't know what on earth is wrong with me today, but my phone unnoticingly dropped out of my pocket while I was catching a bus this afternoon. Was so oblivious about it until I started looking for it halfway through my bus ride. PANICK ATTACK PART TWO. Damn it?

I was frantically searching for my phone in my bag over and over again, but to no avail. Kel and Weijuan tried calling my phone, and thankfully someone picked up. Got off the bus, took another bus back to the bus stop I dropped my phone at and retrieved my phone. The kind man saw my phone on the floor and was about to hand it over to the police.

Why oh why am I so lucky to encounter such nice people :,) I almost lost SGD$500 and my phone... Had this sudden enlightenment that such kind people do exist and I'm really, really touched for such encounters with them. But at the same time, I think I'm really unlucky to first transfer money to the wrong person then lose my phone...

So am I lucky or unlucky today? *Shrugs*

Tinge of Emptiness

We aren't close, but we used to talk. We were never from the same class, but somehow we used to talk in secondary school. We never hung out, we were only cyber friends. Common thing back then huh?

We were MSN buddies - MSN was such a common chatting platform back then. I remember you were good at English and you help me come out with my new blog name last time, cos I decided that "crazydegurl" was too childish.

You gave me the name, "tingeofemptiness", cos I told you that I felt quite empty at that point in time. Don't know what for and why I felt that way, but I thought it was quite a profound phrase at that age. I liked it a lot. tingeofemptiness.blogspot.com. How apt is it now.

I forgot how we stopped talking. It was quite some time already, at least 6 years ago. I remember seeing you in a restaurant 4 months ago, before I flew for exchange. I could barely recognise you cos it's been awhile, but there's still this sense of familiarity. It just felt good to meet an old friend.

News spread fast. I heard you're gone. It's so sad to know that someone of my age is gone, it's really such a pity. Life is so, so fragile. Can't imagine how your close friends are feeling now if I'm already feeling this way. Hope they'll be feeling okay soon. And I hope that you're in a better place now. RIP.

Long Time No See~

Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Unexpected, right?

Yeah, I'm back! Don't know how long I'll be continuing this, but I suddenly thought of blogging again today after this super dreadful class in school. Perhaps this is one of the few platforms that I can rant in without flooding other people's timeline or whatsoever? And I realised my last post was less than a year ago, okay la still not too late to revive this space of mine. (:

Just a quick update, if you havent already know, I'm in Taiwan now for an semester of exchange programme. Life's pretty good in general, it's pretty chill, like we're on 5 months of holidays~

But there are just a few things that I couldn't stand at this point in time, and perhaps cos everything's happening all at once, it feels extremely annoying.

1. The annoying teacher

Pardon my limited vocab. I was trying to think of another word to describe this teacher but I couldnt. So I took this module under this teacher, who's dreadfully boring and dumb, but forces everyone to pay attention to him. Let me start off with his grading requirement (listed in the course outline).

Assignments: 30%

Attendances: 30%

Presentation: 40%

His lessons aren't interesting. He can't teach. His slides are wordy and he loves rambling on and on. Looking at his grading requirement, it implied that his lessons aren't important cos nothing will be tested. Perhaps the only reason why people attend would his class is the 30% attendances. Seriously, the teachers here emphasise too much on attendance, he's not the only one. But that aside, I hate the way he forces everyone to listen to his unimportant ramblings. Last week, he asked all of us to put our phones and laptops aside, and added that he assumes that those with their laptops on are taking down notes of his lessons and he wanted us to show him the notes we took down after class. If you really want us to pay attention, you either be more interesting or you test us on the contents of your lessons. If not, you jolly well grant us our freedom to do whatever we want. Not listening to you is our choice, even if it means that we're losing out from your teaching or whatsoever. I can't comprehend why, at a university level, the teacher is still forcing students to come for classes and listen to him.

Every lesson, he tries to interact with the class by popping questions halfway through his lesson, like "Do you know who is the in charge of this programme...", "Do you know how much the athletes are awarded in the Olympics" etc etc, and he would often direct the question to us as well, "How about the students from Singapore?". Most of the time, such questions would catch me by surprise, cos most of the time my mind is wandering off somewhere else. Sometimes, I don't understand his question. Sometimes, I don't know the answer to his question. Okay I admit my general knowledge isn't that good, but sometimes his questions are really quite hard to answer... Like asking us who is the IOC representative from Singapore...

So today, he popped another question again. I didn't quite catch what it was, but we didn't know how to reply him. Then he said something quite insulting. "我剛和一位新加坡的朋友吃午餐, 他說新加坡的大學生很厲害. 那為甚麼你們這也不懂, 新加坡到底教了你們甚麼?" Seriously? I felt like rolling my eyes at him and slapping him right at that moment. Perhaps we don't learn the things that you think we should, but at least our education system allow us to practise practical writing and presentation skills that would probably benefit us more than whatever boring unnecessarily important facts.

I shall further elaborate this point by giving an example. He gave us an assignment, asked us to do our research on "something", without giving us an actual requirement of what he expects. Everything was verbal, there weren't any written or printed requirement. He only explained more when we consulted him personally and realised that what he wanted us to do was to talk about something that we find interesting but not commonly found in Taiwan, then introduce the activity or object to the class. He made us give presentations on our topic, and we could see that some of his Taiwanese students weren't exactly sure of what they were doing. Half of the groups had their presentations rejected and were made to present again the following week. At least we Singaporeans knew what we were doing and we could express ourselves through our presentation, even in a language that we don't usually present in.

This is just one of such examples. I could've gone on an on about how I think this particular teacher is a frigging asshole who annoys the hell out of me every single lesson and I've got totally no respect for him but I need to pass this module hence I can only rant here but I'm getting lazy to do so and he's not worth so much of my time so I'm gonna stop and yeah, to the next point.

2. Mosquito bites

LOOK AT MY HEARTBREAKINGLY DISFIGURED LEGS!! Thanks to the mozzies here, my legs are full of scars and bites. I can't stop scratching, though I know it's bad but it's really, really too itchy ): So disgusted with the my legs now... 18 mosquito bites on my legs, that's frigging insane okay? Don't know if the scars are ever going away, I think they might be permanent T.T Why, why bite meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

3. Faulty Wifi

I swear there's something wrong with my house Wifi, can't wait for the landlord to get someone to fix it tomorrow. The Wifi is so unstable, it often gets disconnected. It's stopping my YouTube videos from working and my apps are loading painfully slowly sometimes... And maybe this explains why I'm back blogging? Hahahaha.

Alright actually things aren't thaaaaaat bad. I just really felt the sudden hatred and anger towards the teacher this afternoon and I really really wanted to rant it out somewhere. Dreading my Thursday afternoons thanks to him. Hoho and till the next time I update this page of mine, ciao~

This is too genius.

HOLA! I guess my attempt to continue blogging did fail quite a bit... Hmm. But I'm still trying!! May was busy - filled with events, trainings, meetings and everything. But thankfully its over and June's much chiller and I'm heading to Korea in 2 weeks time~ WOOHOOOOOO. Here's my (pretty long) summary of May! (:

Monday, 12 May 2014

Lunch with SSM people! We were initially dined at Skinny Pizza but we realised that the food really sucked... Maybe we're just not used to the concept of biscuit-like based pizza topped with loads and loads of rocket. It just doesnt seem or taste appetising ): Unsatisfied with our initial lunch, we went to some dim sum place at Sunshine Plaza which sold daaaaaamn good liu sha bao. The iced tea is pretty cool too, the cup was contained in a bowl filled with ice so that the drink wouldnt be diluted while it maintains it temperature. Good food over there, much better and worth it than the pizzas.

Tuesday, 13 May 2014 - Thursday, 15 May 2014

Headed out with another bunch of SSM-mates! Melody was telling me about how we hung out with one group of SSM-mates on a day and a totally different group on the next day. Haha it's pretty cool how we bonded so much with the SSM people this sem. We went for a 3D2N trip to KL! (:

Us at Woodlands interchange, excited to head over to Msia (:

Hehe caught them all sleeping!

At the car rental place in KL - Notice our colourful tees! :D

In our room with my roomies for 3 nights! (:

Movie at night - Bad Neighbour. Apparently it's R21 in Singapore. The guys were laughing almost throughout the show but I was like "Okay..." I thought it was trashy but it found it funny oh well... Guys' joke.

Day 2 was Sunway Lagoon Day! We had so much fun with the rides over there! From the water slides to the vikings and even flying fox! It was just adrenaline-pumping fun! :D Oh and I tried so hard to learn how to float but I just couldnt do it after having so much water gushing into my nose and ears. Brrrrrr.

Day 3 was check out day. Had an amazing trip with these boys and girls, but all good things must come to an end (so cliche). Had lunch at a dim sum place and we ordered so much that some uncle and auntie beside us were staring at us ops. Thankfully we managed to finish the food, leaving us all bloated for the trip back to Singapore.

Saturday, 17 May 2014
Met up with my SB6 classmates. Jasmine couldnt make it, leaving the 3 of us for dinner. Didnt stay for long, just some catching up before Lovin had to leave cos she wasnt feeling well. Shopped around with Bong and I'm so impressed he could tolerate my fickle-mindedness. Hehe.

Tuesday, 20 May 2014
Full Hamily (Hall-family?) lunch date at tcc to celebrate Skim's Birthday! Followed by a just-us date to Trampoline Park hehe. Didnt know bouncing on trampoline could be so fun! An hour passed rather quickly, we were both so tired but we just wanted more.

Compare and contrast...

Well I guess I just aint a glam person :/

(Y)

Wednesday, 21 May 2014
1 day JB trip with Woon Yang, Jess and Skim! Woke up early just to take Skim's car to try this nice bak kut teh in some ulu streets. Thankfully I wasnt the driver, I could sleep in the car rides haha. Headed to a mall (I dont know where I was at) and spent our time rather aimlessly till we saw an arcade and was stuck there for quite some time taking Neoprints and playing the games! Sushi King for lunch. Food coma after that, back in the car (slept again) and arrived at another mall. KTV-ed and watched X-men: Days of Future Past. Was so worried after that cos it was rather late already and was afraid that my parents would try to contact me or be mad at me for returning late. But we still headed for dinner after dropping my dad a text anyway :/ Lol.

It's been eons since I last took Neoprints lol. It's funny how everyone had super big eyes (look at wy's eyes) and sharp faces (haha I look so chio worhszsxsz)

Thankfully the car didnt spoil.

So many sushi :D But not very nice... Hahaha.

Dinner! It's called lok-lok. Charcoal BBQ-ed food, it's quite good but super heaty hahaha.

DURIANNNNN. Omg love it!

Tuesday, 27 May 2014
Just some random IKEA day~

Thursday, 29 May 2014

Navy exhibition with Woon Yang! He was so excited to bring me to the ship he was in! He couldnt stop talking the whole trip! Hehe cool stuff, first time exploring a ship!

My favourite place! But sadly we werent allowed to sit inside, it was cordoned off ):

BANG BANG!

We then had dinner with the SSM mates to celebrate Glinnis' bday.



Back in hall to fix the puzzle Woon Yang bought me for my Birthday! We finally had the time to do this together...

Hehe yaaaaaaaay! Such a pretty present (L)

Saturday, 30 May 2014

Singapore Schools Othello Championship! Yes so this is what I've been training for. Othello (aka Reversi). I'm really loving this chess and I feel so happy to be able to take part in this competition this year, cos I was away in Japan last year ): Although we didnt win anything (we were soooooooo close!) and we were really suay with the pairings, we earned invaluable experiences. I'll be back next year, better and stronger! (:

Woon Yang and I barely had enough rest before heading to prepare for UOB Heartbeat Run/Walk 2014! It was my second time volunteering for a sports event (first time was YOG, with my school) and I was so lucky to be able to be involved as an Exco member (thanks to Woon Yang)! It was really a tiring but very satisfying experience to be able to plan and execute this event! First to more events to come~

Us and our awesome Manpower team! Yes our friends came to help! So thankful to have these efficient and helpful volunteers to help me out! (:

Wednesday, 4 June 2014

It's my bro's bday! And also Woon Yang's first official meeting with my family. I thought it felt kinda weird though hahaha bringing a "friend" to a family dinner. Glad that it turned well I guess..? We dined at Salta Argentine Parrilla & Grocer, an Argentine restaurant supposedly known to have cheap and good steaks. Time for some food review!

Our complimentary (I think?) bread with olive oil.

Carpacho de Lomo. Raw beef with a poached quail egg and basil and anchovy puree. The veg aside, mixture of the beef and quail egg is just so goooooood~ (:

Mixture of empanadas (curry puff alike, but with different fillings). Loved it too, really fresh and tasty (:

This is my 300g of beef tenderloin. The picture doesnt quite do it justice cos the steak was damn thick, at least an inch thick. We thought that our mains alone wouldnt get us all full so we ordered a few sides to accompany our mains. But after eating half the steak I was already bloated, partly cos it was really a lot of meat. I thought tenderloin was supposed to be the nicest part of the beef, but maybe cos the steak was too thick, it wasnt evenly grilled and it appeared to be slightly dry ): Sad to say it was quite disappointing.

So overall I think the sides were really good but the main (or maybe just the tenderloin) was disappointing. The ambiance was good though! It was a cozy place, the staff were friendly (the waitress was cute hahaha) and there wasnt any service charge! The price was about $30-50/pax so it's pretty affordable. Okay I think I'm a bad food reviewer arg hahaha please pardon me.

My currently monk-looking brother. He shouldve gone for hair for hope instead. Lol. He shaved cos Singapore was too hot. Win.

Holidays have been so far so goooooooood! Soaked off my 2 months old gel manicure for a happier look - Neon for happy summer!! (: Yellow for fingers, pink for nails. I love them bright. Haha!

\

Got our International Driving Licenses for our Korea summer exchange! (Y) So excited to drive there, must prove people that I can be a good driver!! No one trust me to drive them around... Sobs.

Just got back from Mewleng's 21st bday party! It's a full-white party, so I've been spending my past 2 days searching for pretty outfits. It was such a chore, it was so difficult to find nice white outfits ): They're usually too small, make me look too fat, too expensive, or are too translucent. Boohoo. I'm satisfied with my final buys though - Top from Uniqlo and skort from mdp. Was especially happy with the Uniqlo top, it was the last piece of "S" sized top available :D And I realise Uniqlo's clothes are super comfortable!! (Y) Gonna get my basics there next time!

Me and my Prince Charming! Hahaha he's dressing up so much better now as compared to one year ago, so proud of him (: But still, no eyes -_- HAHAHA.

Happy Birthday ML! Such a pity Dawn and Dong arent in Singapore ): And I thought the balloons up there were to be burst. Oh well but it didnt happen and was not meant for that. Heh.