Bloody Semester 2

Being direct and frank is good, so as you can see in my very direct and candid heading for this post, I am having a bloody stressful Year 1 Semester 2.

Okay, maybe my judgement of this semester to be stressful is rather skewed because I spent my entire last semester (Y1S1) having way too much fun (and also spending lots of time settling my relationship problems). I was surprised with the minimal amount of effort I put into my tutorials and work, I could score pretty well (I expected all B and below, but I got 3As instead).

Anyways, just in case any of you want to know what modules I took in NUS Year 1 Sem 1 (because, I totally know you guys want to know), here are the modules....

EN1101E: Introduction to Literature (or something) 
Relatively easy and manageable. It was very fun, I liked the readings, I had 4 books to read, but I really only read one carefully, which was Wide Sargasso Sea. I don't think the rest of the books need to be read in too much depth, not unless you have an assignment based off it. I only really read around 5 stories for the book of short stories, if you know what I am saying.
The assignments are fun to do, and my tutor is totally awesome. Love him, not kidding.
Lectures are either too fast (when they are conducted by Susan Ang) or too slow when they are conducted by John Richardson. I gave up going for lectures in the end because I can never learn much from a lecture that I can't catch up with or one where I can't get the gist.
Self study is really the key!

GES1028: Singapore Society 
Interesting module, but the lectures are really unmanageable boring. Non-stop droning for almost 1.5 hours with 10 min break in between. I cannot focus for the whole period most of the time, except for that one lecture where I forced myself to focus to not think about my sad breakup. See, breakup can be good, because I had to use academics to distract myself.
Not really much assignment, in fact, none at all. Love it.
Tutorial preparation consists of plenty of reading (never procrastinate the readings, they are long and usually heavy, sometimes hard to grasp without making notes) and class participation. My tutor literally takes down the names of people who speak, so I forced myself to speak even if my points are lousy. I mean, who cares?
I thought I would get a B or below since I ponned all but 3 of the lectures and never ever studied it except for completing tutorials. But guess what? Bless my brains, I got an A.

GEM 1036: Globalization and New Media
Interesting concepts are taught in this module, and I cannot understand why I didn't pay attention in the first half of the sem. (I know why, I blame it on myself for being too infatuated then.) Anyways, if you are able to listen to the lecture by taking notes (always use laptop or print the slides beforehand) and jotting down Mr Gui's examples, you will learn a lot. And it is very useful and interesting.
Weekly tutorials are fun with lots of readings (or one LONG reading. By long I mean at least 20 pages, usually 30 plus to 40). Discussion style, talk more for marks. Not very stressful, but not that relaxing either.
Assignment. Woe betide me, 2 assignments. One powerpoint and one essay, both of which I procrastinated till last minute with shockingly amazing results. This is a terrible positive reinforcement for a nasty habit. Basically I scored full marks for powerpoint and 29/30 for the essay. Like I say, shocking. (JX must have heard me boast endlessly about this when I got back my assignment grades.)
I predicted a B- initially, but my assignments totally make me ace it. Woohoo for another A!

PL1101E: Introduction to Psychology.
Very fun, very interesting, I love all the concepts but I ABHOR the lectures. I feel like I am withering and dying in the lectures, I am not even kidding. I attended around 2 lectures and ponned the rest to do self study...that only happened before exams. Not the way to go, especially not with the amount og HARDCORE memorizing you will need to do. Do practice and make sure you know what will be tested (I heard the lecturer likes to give hints in his lectures, so I suppose you should waste your 1.5 hours listening to hints).
I wouldn't say I screw it up, especially not given my emotional circumstances whilst I took the exam. I was proud of my mid term B because I didn't really study for it and did pretty okay (when I expected a fail). I am disappointed in my overall B because I studied more for finals and uh...I guess I still didn't work hard enough. SU it!

SE1101E: Southeast Asia A Changing Region.
BAH. I can't even begin with how much I dislike this module. Heavy content. Heavy reading. Lecture early in the morning. Whilst some concepts are interesting to understand and listen to, I don't get why our group essay got a B-. It seemed awesome to me and I would totally give it A+. I mean, afterall Alex is freaking genius. As for me, I honestly had no idea what was going on. Like literally, zero idea. I studied sufficiently for finals and mid terms, did will for mid terms and didn't do so well for finals. Finals are hard, 20 short answer, one essay. Personally I didn't enjoy this module at all and the only redeeming points are:

• Lecturer is funny and witty
• I had my best friends Chelsea and Alex to sit together with and go for tutorials together. I thank my 6th senses for choosing a different slot then what I wanted at first, or I won't be with these awesome peeps.

My greatest accomplishments of 2015? I juggled school, emotional burden and setbacks, my homework and skating commitments pretty well. (At least, I feel.) Then of course I made friends with the most awesome people in my skate group, and I really adore Meh, QY and JX (I'll grudgingly say that JY is nice at times.) In a way, skating helped me to cope with my most difficult times, where my fun group mates and friends were really really wonderful to be around.

Of course another accomplishment is that I lost almost 10kg in the year, but by now I have gained 3kg back. Hehe. Self control!

2016 shall be awesome. Since parts of 2015 were painful and bitter, I shall strive to make 2016 a truly wonderful year. I am taking a module with my favourite Meh and Chelsea, hanging out with skaters and having a blissful time (*beams*). Oh but my modules are kind of tough this year...I am taking a level 3000 literature module, whom people think I am crazy to do. There is no crazy okay guys, only dedication and talent (*flips hair*).

So my mods for this semester are:
EU1101E: Making of Modern Europe (bahh bahh bananas. History.)
EN2201: Backgrounds to Western Culture and Literature (HARD! So far tougher than EN3231)
EN3231: American Literature. (Love it)
GER1000: Quantitative reasoning. (Actually interesting. Starting to like it.)
GET1029: Life The Universe, Everything. (No likey. Redeeming point: with Meh!)

Okie that's about it. I need to blog more. This blog is dying and I shall try to add it to my list of to dos to blog more. Should I blog about my life or do product reviews? Hmm....

Expiry

I used to think that promises and declarations of love are supposed to last forever.

Experience has allowed me to figure out that such things have an expiry date.

Perhaps one of the most ridiculous promises would be something along the lines of "I promise I will never leave you through thick and thin". Well the thick and thin comes and the promise vanishes like last summer's memories.

Maybe love isn't in the solemnity of promises, nor the grandeur of words or "to-the-moon-and-back"s.

Maybe love is not in the things that we do for each other.

Maybe, it is about the things that I don't do knowing it would upset my loved one, and in the words that I don't say in moments of anger, because even in my most upset moments, hurting them hurts me. Too.

Maybe, just maybe, love is not about waiting for you to realize my needs but about open and sincere communications telling each other what we need. Open communications open hearts.

When I love you I try to understand your point of view and I try to share mine, however afraid. We wouldn't want a miscommunication to stand in the way.

I would have my insecurities, I would have my doubts, but I will live better knowing that you are there to share my doubts and fears and you would in your own way assuage my uncertainties like how I would calm yours. I would trust you wisely and love you with an open heart and open mind.

There may be a day where apocalypse comes, there may also be a day where the sun implodes, but there will not be a day where I stop loving you. 

Therein lies the beauty of the unknown, the excitement of the wait and the exhilaration of reunion.

Of Hell and Pain

"Hell needs not be constructed against the stereotypical background of raging conflagration and demons with horns."

Indeed it doesn't.

Hell can be literal. It can be metaphoric. It could be a hyperbole.

It does not need to be constructed against the dichotomous notion of heaven: there isn't just Hell at one end and then Heaven at the other end. It is a continuous variable constructed on an imaginary HELL-HEAVEN spectrum. It can possibly look something like this:

Hell with Satan --> Hell without Satan --> Temporary Hell --> Kinda Hell --> Hyperbolic Hell --> Slightly morose life --> Neutral life --> Better than neutral life --> Good life! --> Semblance to Heaven --> Heaven? --> Heaven! --> Heaven with angels and harp

Okay, that was really a whole bunch of nonsense. If you read it and believed it, I feel so sorry for you buying all the nonsense that I have conjured out of nothing.

Oh, and just in case any religious zealots see this as a post condemning or insulting religion or what not, please don't. By Hell and Heaven I am in no way referring to any religion. Instead imagine Hell and Heaven as in those in popular fiction novels and stuff like that. And if this post is going to offend you, please don't read it and then allow yourself to be offended and then offend me back by sending me hate mails. (Although I do like reading hate mails.)

What was I saying?

Oh yes, Hell doesn't have to be underground. (Yeah wonder why must hell be underground and heaven be up in the sky?? I mean, in the skies it is cold and freezing, and underground is warm and toasty. And of course underground you would have much less chance of falling and dying.)

Okay, I can't even remember what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell you all that once I felt like I was in hell. For maybe a month to two? But then I found a coping mechanism which is pain.

It is not what you think. I wasn't self-harming, so please don't freak out.

I have a feeling that you are going to freak out anyway, so here is a disclaimer: I didn't cut myself or anything like that or try to throw myself off stairs to deliberately injure myself. In fact I live a rather safe life watching out for traffic, avoiding cars, avoiding falling objects and treasuring my life.

What I meant is that I developed a higher tolerance for pain. Constructive pain, that is.

Do you remember when I fell off the bus when I was in JC1? My elbow and my knees were horribly mangled from the fall and I cried when I saw how bad it was. I had a lower tolerance for pain and blood then.

I think I am better now.

Which is a triumphant twist for me - it makes picking up new skills like skating and other-potentially-painful activities a lot easier.

Okay I will not digress from the topic.

Basically I discovered that I wasn't as adverse to the whole idea of getting injured as I was before. And in the past couple of months, I have developed more bruises from skating practice than I have had in my entire adolescence life (starting from the point when I stopped tripping over my own feet).
I wasn't particularly affected by the cuts, bruises and abrasions. Some of the injuries are worse, some better.

I am secretly proud of myself for being so emotionless in acquiring these bruises.

Physical bruises heal. It is all a matter of time.

The skills picked up are permanent.

So all in all, it is pretty much worth it.

So yep, I wasn't very careful in trying to avoid falling or injuring myself during practice. I wasn't being very safe. It was fine though, since I was still alive and kicking.

(I can't remember what else to write, so I would end this post here.)

Change

"If change is the only constant, then there is no real constant." 

It intrigues me that how impressionable and changeable we are - how very so that I, too, am.

I once promised myself I won't change myself (assuming that I subconsciously referred to my strengths rather than weaknesses) even in the face of insurmountable pressure. Unlike those spineless wimps who cave in to the imagined societal pressure, I who possess a backbone crafted out of titanium and carbon fiber will hold true to myself.

Which begs the question: what is the concept of Self in the first place?

It is imagined, perhaps as much as it is precipitated out of other's construction of your identity. I won't belabor this post by delving into extra and unnecessary elucidation about the philosophy of self, but bear this in mind as you read: the self is a changing and fluid identity (yes, SE1101 reference).

So here is the nexus of today's post.

I have changed. I am changing. I am not sure for the better or for the worst, but I would like to see it is a miniature form of evolution that is going on in my own mind and body to allow me to adapt better to my surroundings.

I am changing to protect myself better, but that could also mean that I might hurt others more.

Nah, that's a false dichotomy. My self-protection doesn't necessitate the emotional wounding of another.

That  made me feel marginally better.

I won't hold on as much anymore. It takes two to clap. I might have been exhausted and burnt out from trying, and maybe in time I will try again, but at the moment, I do my part and leave the rest out to a combination of fate and another's effort.

Change is not entirely a bad thing.
It is merely a new thing.

I do ponder why people throw out sentences like "You have changed." with the same level of gravity that a judge convicts a criminal of murder.

It happens all the time. Discretely or outlandishly.

So I have changed. Some days I look back upon myself from just half a year ago and miss her alacrity.

The same night whitening the same trees,

We of that time, are no longer the same.

- Pablo Neruda         

Skating

Author's note: By the time this is published, it is already one week late. So eeks. Procrastination much. 

I realized that I always blog about things that make me upset but not so much the enjoyable parts of my life. That means that I am severely misrepresenting my life, and of course we wouldn't want to paint an emo image of ourselves.

I am a bright and happy peep.

Skating makes me brighter and happier as a peep.

Let's wind back in time to yesterday (Wednesday, 4th November). It was one of the awesomest skating nights ever (although it is rather hard to define the boundaries of awesome because everything about skating is just awesome).

Foremost, I didn't die. That's something we have to celebrate about because I didn't wear my guards (yes, note the emphasis) skating around in Utown in my bandage skirt and somehow I didn't fall. I didn't trip. I didn't kill anyone else. I didn't kill myself.

I think that means I am a pro at skating already. How many of you guys can actually skate in a tight bandage rather short skirt? Okay I will stop with the narcissism here~ *beams*

I fell asleep whilst trying to study for Singapore Society (GES module) after that, and yes I agree that my finals are going to take a huge hit because of the amount of time I am investing in skating but I believe that I wasn't born with an arguably high IQ for nothing so I can do pretty well. I am relatively certain of that. (I mean take Singapore Soceity midterms for example, I didn't study for it, and I got a pretty good grade for my essay, though 1 mark higher and it would have been perfect.)

Really I need to stop with the overwhelming self praise. (I rock, really)

At around 3.40pm I met QY - our skating sensei and one of the best seniors anyone can ask for - at Food clique where I of course proceeded to boast about my aforementioned skating skills. On the hindsight, I should be terribly ashamed because it is like the Chinese proverb that describes a greenhorn boasting about his skills to a master. Yes, you can imagine how QY must be secretly sniggering at me, but nah we know he is not that evil.

Then we skated around, sans guards, to find Sarah at ERC. I realized then that I love skating with my hair down partly because my head hurts less from the pressure of the rubber band - I usually tie quite firmly to keep the hair up, and I think that is a major cause of balding. For girls at least.

Sarah is absolutely adorable. Even in glasses I would rate her 8/10. Super cute and super sweet.

We went back to Food Clique and Nick is already there and we decided to have an early skating session at 4.30pm because everyone was so happy and enthusiastic. Best part was that Jocelyn came and that means we have more people and it is no longer the usual awesome QY-Nick-Sarah-Me dinner session. It was awesomer. (But also a lot more confusing.)

Jocelyn is really sweet and awesome. I realize that I am abusing the word awesome, but it would be too bombastic to call people "fantastic, amazing, extraordinary", so I am sticking to awesome.

We went to buy Starbucks Christmas one-for-one, which is really not that nice, ESPECIALLY NOT GINGERBREAD.

Readers, you have been forewarned to not buy Gingerbread unless you want to throw away the drink. I had to cajole, coerce and sweettalk people into helping me finish my drink. Jocelyn took one sip, shuddered and refused to drink again. QY did the same thing. So in the end the drink was still half finished when we dumped it. Oh JX drank a huge amount of the unsavory drink. Yikes!

If I were to rate the Christmas drinks it would be like...
1. Chocolate Peppermint mocha
2. Toffee Nut
3. Panettone
100. Gingerbread

It doesn't matter that there are only four drinks - Gingerbread is still going to be last even if there are nothing between 4 and 99.

And then before that we had some cruel fun rating the physical appearance of guys. I was particularly cruel because yes, I can be. We were using someone (shall not be named) as a benchmark of average look (5/10), so what does that make some-two (shall not be named either)? QY says some-two is a 6/10, I said he is a 2.5 to 3 out of a 10.

Of course that made Nick, Sarah and Joyce super confused since 6 is above average and 3 is just miserable.

I did clarify that I am cruel in rating (that day).

So in the confusion, we clarified what are our standards for good looking. Now, you have to bear in mind that QY is a guy and I am a girl, so of course benchmarks are already different. I proffer that my personal standards means that the basis of good looking means one has to be quite tall and not skinny. It is nothing against skinny peeps, just a matter of personal preferences.

To illustrate our points, we put classify QY as slim and Nick as not slim. (I suspected both experienced a momentary existential crisis to be used as benchmarks, so guys, this is exactly why we should not label people. Tsk~!)

QY rates Nick an 8/10 (Nick was right next to him, but we will not question the validity of the rating), and gave himself a horizontal 8.

Geddit?

8 -> ∞

It means he is infinitely good looking.

I sometimes do wonder how we all manage to skate with our heads the size of genetically-modified giant watermelons. I think mine would be the biggest, but shh, no one knows and I am good at appearing to be humble. :3

Oh I nearly died down the MPSH slope. Yes it officially has a name. It is "The MPSH Slope".

It was all going fine at first and my t-stop was in perfect control UNTIL we hit the road hump in the middle, because it is 1. uneven and 2. accelerates me for some odd reason which meant that my foot that was t-stopping slid out of control and I was going parallel down the slope and hurtling quickly.

Now QY foresaw that I was going to murder myself there (since no matter how I boasted), he insisted on being in front, which turned out to be a very good thing because after we hit the bump, I flew forward and yes my heart stopped and I freaked out and forgot how to bring back my T-stop and I would have probably crashed and got sent to NUH if not for QY.

I think it is a good thing NUH is so nearby. At least it decreases the travelling time to NUH.

I murdered JX later when I was practicing going down the slope. It was a horribly bad fall for the both of us because I tried to go past him once I realized I was losing control and by right I wasn't supposed to go past him because that means he can't stop me. So we both ended up crashing into the floor when he tried to stop me from crashing and I would say that his fall is worse since OUCH NO GUARDS. But guards didn't do much good for me....

(I paused writing here because my fingers hurt, and I regret to inform all that by the time I return to finish this post one week later, I really can't remember much of what happened. So....)

TADAAA!

THE END.

Someday

Someday, you will find it within you to appreciate the tragic beauty of things broken and torn. Someday, I am saying, perhaps not today.

Someday I will find within me the courage to be the first to let go and last to hold on, the last to break down and the first to heal.

But on another day I will realize that it is not courage that we are talking about but a hardening of the heart.

Your heart will try to harden to protect itself from harm. It might crust over and it might even disappear.

Pray, don't let that happen.

Never let anyone to have the capacity to change the heart that you once had.

Strength

Strength. Strength.

Is it imaginary?

Do I seek it, do I pray to it or do I envision it?

Empower me. Save me.

I wait for Strength to rise from within.
Not without.

Tears.

I realized that I have been crying a lot.

It is not a bad thing.

I cry when I am upset. I cry when I am (too) happy or moved. I cry when I am scared and afraid.

I used to very very ashamed of how emotionally fragile I seem.

I even tried to kill any emotions I have in me (during JC), because it made me much more efficient in doing work.

But it also make me mechanic.

"Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts."

- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations 

Perspectives.

"We come back okay. Sooner or later, faster or slower, we all recover." 

There was a point where I honestly doubted whether I would ever walk out of the shadows of an unfortunate turn of events. I remember the last time I was so upset and so affected was when my best friend for four years suddenly refused to talk to me one day, and I felt so lost and so disorientated.

Maybe I was once again affected when I had my first "unfortunate turn of events".

Initially I felt a deep sense of gloom and pall that shrouded me almost all the time. I tried my best to be functional, and in certain ways it worked. I laughed harder (than usual) at jokes that weren't that funny, I smile at everyone and at everything and tried to be extra nice to people around me.

There was a constant nagging feeling within me, and I couldn't quite place a finger on it.

I felt hypocritical in trying to be extra nice and kind to people around me - all I really wanted to do was to look like soursop, clam up and wallow in my own misery. But I kept reminding myself that despite anyone's cheerful countenance, he/she could be having a really bad day (real life example being myself), and the least I could do is to not make their day worse with my unfriendliness.

(There is something inherently superficial and "act-nice" about thinking this way, and if you ask me, I am honestly disgusted by myself at times when I try to be nice when I don't feel nice. You get what I mean?)

Trying to be happy was tiring.
Forcing oneself to be happy was taking up every last vestige of my willpower.

I felt a constant temptation to just let myself fall into an abyss of self-pity and desolation: I am feeling down, why would I still care about how others feel around me? Why would I care if my mom is worried sick about me and my dad took a day off just to enlighten me on issues? Why would I care if my best friend took a cab the moment he booked out from army because he felt that there was something wrong in the way I was messaging?

But thankfully, I cared. I tried to look past all the shadows to see the scintillating beams of the sun that tried that hard to break into my thunderstorm.

Thankfully, I tried my best to appreciate every little thing that every single one of the people around me did  for me. I can't say that I did, because definitely I appreciated some support more than others, but hey, I tried.

For the first week I thought I was depressed since every now and then I would cry for no reason.
First I would cry because I was sad.
Then I would cry because I was angry with myself for being sad.
Finally I cry some more because I didn't know what to do to make myself stop crying.

So to combat the negativity in my life, I tried to be creative and positive. It went this way:

Each time I felt upset, I will learn a new, funky and cool English word in my brand new word-log.

My first word was "scintillating". It meaning sparkling and shining brightly. It is a beautiful word that calmed me down and make me feel at ease with myself.

One of my last words learnt was "compunction" which means a feeling of deep regret, which is also a lugubriously beautiful word. Melancholy can be sweet in its stinging beauty.

Learning the new words helped me a lot for a day. In fact, I learned 26 words in one day when I had the most moments of "down". Tragically, I learnt only 26 words in total because my brain fizzed out and spluttered to a premature death after trying to remember all 26 words, and it is with much compunction that I announce I cannot actually remember all 26.

I also thought about reading the dictionary.
It is a good form of distraction and reading it makes me feel smart. Not wise. Just smart.

I ended up not doing it because I am a hopeless fat piece of lump who would rather stuff her face with Macs than to make herself intellectually wise. (humor intended, I am not that self-deprecating)

Then I started to think about my life and to analyze the whole situation in full.

Have I tried my best? I think I did.

Was there any other things that I could have done? Not without over-compromising on my behalf, which won't be healthy in the long run.

So I scrolled through my own Instagram (that level of narcissism!) and spotted this from long ago:

Picture Credit

This aptly summarizes my new way of looking at my problems (and at my life).

There are always things that matter to me, but I can't "control" all of them, which means that no matter how much energy, time and resources I focus on them, it may not turn out the way I want it to. In the same vein, I realized how I have absolutely no say in what other people (be it your significant other or once-significant other or even your friends) are going to do or say, so the only I can do is to not let what they are doing affect my own well-being. Which also means that I have to look past all of it by accepting that this is life, and simply said, we move on.

Things I can control is easier in theory, but harder in practice. Some things are easier to be controlled, such as how much effort I put into each area of my work; how dedicated am I to my students both as a mentor and as a teacher; how much practice I need for inline-skating before I go past the stage of being a noob. Emotions are a bit harder, but not completely unable to be rationalized. Rationalizing things puts them into perspective and allow me to come to terms with things that I have no influence over, and to let go of things that I cannot change or improve.

In the period of "me-time", I came to realize that being alone doesn't mean you have to be lonely. Arguably, there are moments where I wish I have more company, but I also came to terms with another important thing:

"No one can forever be here for you. You have to be contented and enough with just having yourself."

The previous time this happened it was during holiday. I had all my friends to be with me and tide me through the hard period by allowing yourself to forget about the unpleasant among their upbeat company.

This time it is lonelier.

It is not the loneliest yet, but it is definitely lonelier because there is school and everyone is extremely busy. Hell, even in my malfunctioning days, I had to function to cope with school work and my other responsibilities. I tried hard to compartmentalize, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing.

But it is also in this solitude that I felt that I matured. I realized that I was capable of handling crisis better alone, though I still have support from my friends. I also realized that what others can do for you is very limited if you aren't doing anything to help yourself. They can give you advice, they can enlighten you, they can cheer you up by a (rather unfair) disparagement of your unfortunate target, but ultimately, I had to lift myself out of the circumstances.

Yours friends and family provide 20% of the support.
80% is up to yourself.

I realize in such circumstances the easiest way to deal with things is to see ourselves as victims in a situation or unfortunate people suffering from a poorly planned (or totally unplanned) situation. It is easier to push the blame to other people and wallow in self pity and bash the other party by sharing our stories with our closest friends in our own skewed, self-victimizing perspective to hear them agree with you how bad the person is, and how fortunate you are to be without them.

I am not ashamed to say that I did that too.

It is one way to cope. Not the best way, and definitely not a way that helps me mature and improve with time.

I also try the ostrich method of telling everyone around me to not bring up the situation, either by pleading them or warning them.

"I don't want to hear about it," I stressed, "I don't want to think about it."

That didn't quite work out either, though it is a good method to adopt if you are in extreme pain but don't have the luxury of time to deal with the pain, blocking it out temporarily is a good way.

Then I went into a period of self-blaming. Had I done enough? Had I tried enough? Was I the one who cause things to be the way it is today? What could I have done better? Should I just shamelessly hold on anyway?

This period is harder to cope with, and definitely need much more rationalizing and support from wiser seniors. My parents, my tutor, my friends were wonderful in helping me to see things from a clearer perspective rather from one that puts all the blame onto the self - that is exceedingly unhealthy.

Putting things into perspective means to see what one could have done better and what cannot actually be achieved through one's own efforts. It also means recognizing that the other party is made up of their strengths and weakness, good traits and bad traits and being able to acknowledge and appreciate both at the end of the day.

It is too often in love that we see only the good traits and in endings that we console ourselves by seeing only the bad traits.

It took me a while to understand and appreciate that both exist in a person.
When I did, I came to terms with things.

I came to terms with myself too - no more self-blaming, and no more self-victimizing.
I came to understand Great Expectations even better:

"I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me."

- Charles Dickens 

Alex Fussel (I am quoting you like you are a master of philosophy) once told me, "Don't focus on the emotions and the bad experience, but on what you have learnt from this experience, and how you can become a better person from this experience."

(I think I rephrased what he said to make it sound quote-worthy, heh)

In short, love irrationally. Let got rationally.

It has come to my awareness that all of the photos of my past advertorials and sponsored posts and personal posts have vanished and been replaced by an awkward "no image to display" picture.

This is terrible.

What is more terrible is that my computer has just crashed recently and in it is a backup copy of most these photos.

What can I say?

It never rains, but when it pours, I get cats and dogs.

*resigned shrug of shoulders*