18 New Year's...

source: We Heart It

Another year has come and gone and it's time for my obligatory 2012 round-up post! I actually intended to do this as far back as the start of December, but never got round to doing it. Besides (or so I tell myself), 1 Jan 2013 seems as good a day as any to write a post about looking back and looking forward (to steal a very punny caption from my PW WR).

I am not sure how to organize this post. It's going to be rather long, so I'll try to pepper it with images here and there. And I'm not exactly expecting that you will understand everything I refer to here as I try not to be too personal, but it's for my own future reference as well-- although, as a look at my 2011 post shows, I myself might not understand when a full year has gone by-!!

Things I'm thankful for in 2012

source: Jordan Matter Photography

• old friends... and new friends

I've realized that it's harder to feel a community when 17 and 18 year olds are specially put together for 2 years to get closer to an individual dream, when everything is so much less compulsory state education and more of what-you-need-to-do-to-get-you-there. But it's ever so much important to feel that community has to be preserved and consciously worked for; to stay back for a friend on a school night when a dream has crashed around her, to chase after a friend and give her a hug when you weren't able to be there for her the day before. 

When you're classified by your 'interests' and 'ambitions' (ie subject combinations), it's so important to classify yourself as what kind of person you want to be, what kind of people you want to hang out with, because... as I noted in my diary... "common interests can only do so much. There's something to be said about chemistry, and that's coming from an arts student" (I'm so funny sometimes). 

Apart from old friends who might have very different interests, in my class, you can have people with the same interests but very different personalities; and I'm glad that I've managed to find a core group of friends with similar values (and a sense of humour ... or lack thereof).

To the Love<3 group (you know who you are), I do Love <3 you guys very very much, and I'm constantly amazed by our camaraderie despite the fact that we're not together every day anymore. You guys are living proof that distance can't beat a relationship if it's founded on very solid bonds of love and trust and pixie dust :')

• my family

Who else would give me a huge torso-sized soft toy (and allow me to buy a Winnie the Pooh cake) for my 17th birthday??

• mistakes

Quite sadly looking back it seems there are more things I regret than appreciate in 2012. But as much as I made some bad decisions, to quote 13 Going on 30, I wouldn't have known "I could put them right again" if I hadn't made the wrong choices! and I wouldn't be me if I hadn't delved into JC with such a rollercoaster verve. Looking back at my primary and secondary school days, that's always been me. I could wish and wish to be austere and a fairy tale princess, with magical things happening to me without me trying, but I'm always going to keep making mistakes and I think I'm slowly coming to terms with that. 

I made some of my best mistakes this year, I believe. And hence I added 'mistakes' to this list... I feel, to quote JH, 2012's been a "YOLO year" [you only live once] and I've really discovered a lot of new things. (Or, more specifically, my social life has gone up exponentially.) Like how coming home at 11-12 at night is new but you're not the only one, and it feels great to smile at someone else in your faculty t-shirt on the bus. And how sometimes you can mug and mug for hours, and then go for lunch with friends and forget all about exams and just feel great to recharge.

Things that happened in 2012

Source: Pinterest

• entering JC... joining HP... PW?

It feels a lot more like the real world in JC. In secondary school we were super lucky to be closetted by a group of very motherly and caring teachers and support staff. Much like my previous point about communities and JC, school got a lot more competitive and individualistic this year. Sometimes this got me very very stressed. I definitely know I met some not very nice people this year! And some who are not all they seem. Maybe this's a wake-up call...? 

People are a lot more complicated than I thought, in a good or bad way. and some of the aforementioned mistakes involved me not knowing that, barging head-on into a situation where I had the bad hand. I'm still very passive-aggressive (or as YB puts it, "just passive") and this has resulted in a lot of pent-up resentment which is not at all healthy as I can testify!! I have experienced tension like this in secondary school and thought I should've outgrown it but I haven't, where my perfectionist tendencies but non-confrontational behaviour clash and I end up taking it all on myself. 

At the same time I can't completely let go and stop being harsh on myself because I've slacked a lot this year. But to blog about procrastination would be too ironic.

• running for council

Unsuccessfully, might I add. Someone once asked me very worriedly if I was actually very sad about it, but to be honest, I'm not. I'm even really relieved, and perhaps a little embarrassed. I've never been one to put a lot of myself out there and council stretched my limits, even when I was only in the running stages. I've discovered that while trying new things is good, you shouldn't try to be someone you're not. It just kills you.

• JCLP

Part 1 in my "what should I do when I get out of here?" stage: lawyer-dom. Quite terrifying but I wouldn't have made terrific friends otherwise! Shoutouts to ML and YS who accompanied me in my internship days. Again, a wake-up call to the real world for little me, but also a reminder that I'm not the only one who's more than a little lost, and neither are you. Even in a programme that sounds so distinguished it's scary.

Things that I'm worried about in 2013

me, avoiding the thought. Source: here

• A levels

That's it actually. I'm just worried my slacking will catch up with me. Ho ho ho.

Things that I wish for in 2013 (and looking back at 2012's)

Source: Pinterest

• To be content.

I went for Confession the other day and something the priest said struck me: "God is alright with you. Everything is alright." Usually these words are used to assure someone who thinks they're less than what they are, but I realized it could also be used for someone who thinks they're more; to bring them down and realize they don't need all that glamour and glitz, they just need to be themselves, and sometimes that's just all-right. To be content, palpably and utterly content, with what I have and the weather and my bed and my life, would be nice for 2013.

/oh, and to exercise more.

A brief look at last year's...

• 'to know what I want'

My very untidily written post last year seems to indicate my resolution was more about shopping less. Which I haven't quite followed. But I also knew that JC was going to offer a myriad of opportunities, with a lot of people who seem to know what they want in life, and I think I wanted to not grab it just because I can, but because I want to. And I *hope* I have fulfilled that in 2012! I'm still not entirely sure who I am and I got lost a few times along the way but I'm getting there, I'm getting there.

• to continue wearing that red asymmetrical skirt (it's this one if you were wondering)

ha-dee-da. Asymmetrical skirts are harder to style than they looked when I didn't have one. But I still have the skirt, and I still love it very much. AND oxblood is still in fashion! ha-dee-da.
On that note, some inspirational quotes for 2013 are below! Happy new year!

All inspirational quotes, source here