hello, my name is ivana. i like music, poetry, singing, rainbows, guitars, boys, girls, pebbles, food, cats, humour and sleeping! i'm broken, but at least i'm not broke. ^_^ (wait wha-)
layout 100% handcoded by florals with inspiration from kari and mae and colours from hana*. the backgrounds can be found at fairycandles.
just wanna briefly rant/talk about the Dr. Strange movie cause it's SO GOODDDD.
mitch and i bought the imax 3D tickets (for $19 each!!) cause he read reviews saying that this movie is super worth it to watch in imax 3D AND IT WAS.
the movie was like inception x harry potter x interstellar!! and the casting was really really great. benedict cumberbatch fit the role of dr. strange perfectly, as if the comic character was made after him lol. all the other cast were great for their roles as well (except for the villain which wasn't rly a mega villain compared to all other villains in marvel movies).
what's most fascinating is that dr. strange didn't get his powers from some radioactive thing, or technology, and he isn't a god or an alien, or a mutant...he's just a human being who trained hard (+ innate talent) and mastered the manipulation of the astral world. *- *
the storyline isn't that surprising or complicated i guess, since it's adapted from the comics. but watching it all come to life was really really cool. :') i did feel immersed in that world and wish there'd be a whole series on life in kamar-taj. i'd even read novels about it!! /cray
(a spoken word poetry video on depression which i could rly relate to) ................................................................................................................................
it's been about 3 months since i last blogged about my life!
3 months ago, i wrote a post about how scared i was that i'll waste this summer break away and i guess that was the trigger to some really dark moments this summer. from the start of may to around end june, i got really depressed (not sure if clinical or not), crying every few nights, going through existential crises more frequently, lost a lot of confidence and didn't want to go out of the house to meet anyone. i applied for jobs and volunteering stuff but couldn't bring myself to follow through to the end for an actual meet-up/interview for many of them. i had a lot of negativity in me despite trying hard to keep it away and frustrated my partner because i kept lamenting to him about all of it.
i was one step away from setting up an appointment with the psych clinic at uhc but couldn't bring myself to do it cause internally to me it'd mean labelling myself with something serious. also, the realization of how difficult it was to reach out to someone when i knew i needed help or even counting on someone i love for help was a hard pill to swallow as a psych major. no one had the time to provide the help/care i needed, and even i myself didn't know what kind of help i required. and honestly, it'll require someone with an infinite amount of patience and time to be able to care for me, even if they did love me. anyone would get sick of my lamenting and negativity soon enough and so i sort of drifted away from my partner for awhile as my negativity was affecting him too much (and he was the only person i talked about this to and was unlucky enough to have to shoulder my problems alone for me lol). i was even seriously doubting whether the counsellors at the psych clinic could help me and thought they'd be judgmental of me for being so randomly depressed during the holidays and without any big triggers (cause honestly i was already super judgmental of myself lol).
it's crazy to realize that i was having such a mentality despite studying to become a psychologist. it's even worse realizing that the public probably views psych clinics this way too, and scary to think how many people with mental disorders are not getting the help they need because of all the doubts about whether anything/anyone can help them at all. it'll be great if more clinics offered some kind of online psych assistance as a first step instead of just call or walk-in services. if i had resistance about getting out of the house to meet my friends, and even calling anyone/taking up calls, meeting or calling a stranger would def be a lot worse.
also, a war broke out on my face because my acne gets super affected by my mood and at that time my face resembled those acne posters you see for dermatologist ads lol, it was the worst i've experienced in my life (hopefully once is enough). i had like 15 pimples on my face at any one time and they were those huge cysts underneath the skin that a normal topical acne cream is useless against. and that totally destroyed my confidence which made me not want to get out of the house even more. all the crying and negativity on the outside and within made living feel exhausting. i looked forward to sleep as it was the time when i didn't have to consciously deal with my life, but each day i woke up to a feeling of dread as i was still trapped in my negative world.
during that period i tried out different things to keep myself happy, like learning the piano, singing, reading, writing and exercising, but they didn't seem to be very effective... i also kept the seriousness of all these negative feelings from my family and friends cause i didn't wanna be judged for being weak.
(side note: here's a relevant and helpful poster i came across that i really liked!)
but anyway, from mid june onwards, i started to tell a few people about my state and it helped a lot just being able to tell people about it and knowing that someone else knows what was happening to me instead of keeping it in me the whole time. that was the start of my trek back up to positivity. my younger sis passed me a self-help book on how to be happy hahahaha (i'm about halfway through it but haven't practised any of it yet oops).
something that helped me a lot was watching this youtuber called IISuperwomanII going through her work, life, problems and everything in a positive manner. i've never had a role model before but i guess she's what one would call my role model now. in the past i used to tell myself 'i hope today will be a good day', but now i constantly try to remind myself that (and this is what i adopted from her) 'today WILL be a good day', because i'm the one who decides whether to make it good or bad, and external circumstances may swerve me off-course but it's up to me to explore unexplored terrain and enjoy the view while i'm walking off the beaten path. i'm not exactly as positive as i think i can be now, and there are times when i feel super down and lost again and every day still feels like a fight to be positive, but now i feel like i actually have the energy to own my life again.
also, for memory's sake i'm gonna list some significant random things i managed to do this summer holiday so far (there's about 2-3 weeks of break left):
- enrolled into driving school and took my basic theory test for driving (having my final theory test in a few days! there's no available slots for my practical lessons yet so i'm stuck for now lol)
- worked at a poverty simulation event which consisted of me acting as an NGO or an evil loan shark and carrying lots of heavy props around
- was a tour guide for japanese students for a couple of days as an ad-hoc job
- caught up with some friends which was gr8
- cooked up a healthy and well-balanced meal of omelette (with onions, cabbage, capsicums and garlic), salad with goma (sesame) sauce and baked jacket potatoes for myself and my brother one night which made me really happy
- finally managed to get out of the house one day to do my work instead of doing it at home which felt unconducive
- been playing with a kid with severe autism every friday as a job/volunteering thing and i'd always have a lot of spit and saliva on my shirt/pants/arms at the end of the session but end up with a happy heart and discovering the kid in me
- signed up for an investing account (but haven't actually started anything yet)
- learnt colors - halsey on the keyboard (my first song!)
- made a vocal cover of a song after years
- about halfway through what i hope to finish writing for my thesis by the end of this holiday
- submitted my ethics application for thesis last night (going to an empty school during the holidays after work at like 9pm+ is kind of scary)
- started giving science tuition on fridays (it just temporarily stopped today because of schedule changes sobs)
- just took up an accounting tuition assignment on mondays
- started a part-time internship at a learning centre for children with cognitive problems (waking up at 5.30am and teaching for 8 hours [10 hours of work altogether excluding lunch] is kind of crazy but i'm learning quite some useful skills ). this is also my first psych-relevant internship! wait actually it's my first internship ever cause the previous jobs were just jobs lol.
- confirmed a trip to guangzhou with my psych friends during end july *_*
- attended a poetry slam as an audience. quite an inspiring session and i unexpectedly teared up during this guy's poetry ;___ ; i don't have many friends (maybe 0) who are this interested in poetry so it was interesting to see so many poetry-loving people gathered in one place. i'd like to go up on stage someday but i'm scared but i wanna do it and know this'll be a regret in my life if i didn't ;_ ;
- worked at a japanese cosplay event at expo and earned some good $$ (my lower back hurts when i stand for more than 5mins now though. standing for 20hours, 10hours each day at the event prob damaged my weak back lol)
- my face is slowly recovering from my horrible acne
- blogged about random trips on my more formal blog (withivana.wordpress.com)
- wrote my module review for the previous sem
- made some improvement in my vocals
- attended baybeats music festival and watched mitch perform. was inspiring to see people chase their dreams.
- accidentally attended a christian music event (my vocal teacher invited me but didn't tell me that it was a christian thing) and it was a really unique, awkward, uncomfortable, but still great experience seeing people feel so connected to each other and to God (though i'm agnostic).
i took a reallyyy long time to type this post out, possibly because of memory (lol) and also because of how difficult it was to explain and describe how i felt. if it somehow was viewed in a self-pitying manner when i was talking about how upset i felt, know that it's not what i wanted to bring across. i know how pathetic it looks, being so self-absorbed in one's own misery while there are bigger things happening on stately and global levels. but the point is that being depressed (whether clinical or not) for a long period of time feels terrible ('terrible' is an understatement) and no one should be judged for somehow falling into that rut. it's also important to keep fighting to be positive. being positive is about as difficult as feeling upset, but it feels good to love living again, and to wake up not to a feeling of dread, but to a fresh breath of hope.
POSTED BY wymmm! ON Friday, July 15, 2016 @ 6:39 PM
today's the first monday of the summer holidays. today, i was supposed to have started on my internship. everything was confirmed and all, i even managed to register the internship as a module and was quite excited to start on a new journey and learn new things. but a few days ago, the company told me that due to some sudden "restructuring", they couldn't take me in anymore, and even had to give up their current interns who started 3 weeks ago.
so as a result of that sudden news, i'm left here with nothing and just trying to look for a suitable job. but i guess it probably won't provide as much learning as i would have from that internship, huh?? i went through some rigorous interview for that intern lol, and was so glad when i heard i was one of the few selected out of the manyyy applicants.
so...while most of my friends started their first day of work today, i'm sitting here in the dust, feeling left behind. :'(
also, i've been ill since my exams ended last wednesday, and today i just got worse (probably cus my youngest sis just developed a fever and my immune system sucks so i might have a fever coming soon too T_ T). i had sooo muchhh i planned to do during the holidays but all i've done so far is just sit around watching anime, practising my keyboard, and job hunting online. it's true that it's only just the first day of the holidays, but it's such a slippery slope that someone like me can just slide down under into, and by the end of the 3 months i'll just be a depressed sack of human. :'(
and being the idealistic dreamer that i am, i had planned big things for myself, but now i'm having a lot of self-doubt and foreseeing myself being a failure my whole life and not being able to achieve the things i want.
i guess i'm just feeling like a useless noob failure insignificant speck of life in this universe that is taking up important resources lol. hopefully, this goes away along with my illness too. and i hope in the future i'll be able to look back at this post and see how far i've come. but for now i need to rest...
POSTED BY wymmm! ON Monday, May 09, 2016 @ 10:18 PM
"Q: We tend to think of our bodies changing only slowly once we reach adulthood. So I was fascinated to discover that, in fact, we're changing all the time and constantly rebuilding ourselves. Talk about our skin.
A: Most people don't even think of the skin as an organ. In fact, it's our largest one. To keep alive, our cells have to divide and grow. We're aware of that because we see children grow. But cells also age and eventually die, and the skin is a great example of this.
It's something that touches everything around us. It's also very exposed to damage and needs to constantly regenerate. It weighs around eight pounds [four kilograms] and is composed of several layers. These layers age quickly, especially the outer layer, the dermis. The cells there are replaced roughly every month or two. That means we lose approximately 30,000 cells every minute throughout our lives, and our entire external surface layer is replaced about once a year.
Very little of our physical bodies lasts for more than a few years. Of course, that's at odds with how we perceive ourselves when we look into the mirror. But we're not fixed at all. We're more like a pattern or a process. And it was the transience of the body and the flow of energy and matter needed to counter that impermanence that led us to explore our interconnectedness with the universe."
I find this really interesting. I've always known that our cells are always regenerating but have never noticed the fact that, physically, we are ever-changing and in fact programmed to reborn with a clean slate every now and then. :')
I think it's good to do that with our minds too and reset our mental states of "i've never done this before, so i can't/shouldn't do it" or "i'm not the type of person to *insert fun/new/something-you've-always-been-dreaming-to-do activity here". If you want to learn how to sing, you should go do it. If you want to learn investing, you should go learn it. If you want to start doing well in school, you should take the first step and consult people about it. You may suck at whatever it is you want to start doing, but...
We are not fixed. We are ever-changing, like the seasons. It's a subtle, gradual change, but we are still changing.
And I'm so thankful for that.
POSTED BY wymmm! ON Sunday, February 28, 2016 @ 5:39 PM
Valentine's Day just ended like 22mins ago! I've spent the past few years treating Valentine's Day as just another normal day lol but today was soooo awesome!
Not much went as planned but everything went our way and it seemed like the universe was in our favour today *-*
Wanted to go to changi village for breakfast but somehow Mitch & I ended up eating breakfast at my house...it's also the first time he saw my mum and came to my house after I came back from Japan!
Then we went to Bedok to put all my stuff that I wanna bring back to my hostel lol. And we went to Bedok reservoir awhile to enjoy some ~nature~
Had ayam penyet (kinda bad idea cus my throat was feeling uncomfortable already) for lunch it was so guuuuud T. T
And we went to stadium for ice skating and he wanted to show me the new stadium from outside but coincidentally the stadium was open for free that day so we got to go in and it looked so amazing!!! He said it has the biggest movable roof in the world lol. Went to ice skate after that and it was so cool that we could skip the superrrrrrrr probably 45mins long queue and skated for free for 2hrs!!! *___* I suck at skating lol but I leveled up from level 0 to like level 5?? :D that was my 3rd or 4th time skating! I really like fast things lol and it's such good exercise so I wanna skate more but it's such an expensive sport...D: met Mitch's dad for the first time also and he's such a cool guy!
We had super delicious Japanese buffet dinner at shin minori (my fav Japanese buffet place in sg everrrrrr) and it was great that we took the second slot (about 8pm-10.30pm) cus the staff weren't too busy and the quality of the food was pretty good!! Some of the staff were quite nice too wishing us happy Valentine's Day and stuff '- '
Right now mitchy is asleep behind me (he fell asleep as I was typing this post lol and I only took 10mins to type!!) awwwwwww......
Really perfect day :') whenever a day is so perfect I'm always expecting something to ruin it towards the end...but the day ended...and nothing was ruined. You can have a perfect day without anything bad happening after all :')
Tmr i gotta wake up at 7am and battle the working crowd with all my burden stuff to get to school though. :( on the bright side, recess week is coming! (But also mid terms) (but it's ok only 2 mid terms he he) (still need to study for all my mods tho cause I'm a studious student)
Ok good night!
POSTED BY wymmm! ON Monday, February 15, 2016 @ 12:36 AM
