1/4 2015

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A quarter of the year is about to pass us by.. 
Are you still upholding your New Year's resolutions? 

Over the last few New Years I have religiously made resolutions on the first day of each year and pondered over them on the last. My resolutions often vary, from the little steps like 'Read more' or 'Drink more water' to the bigger and more ambitious leaps of 'Score a placement in a firm'.

The 31st of December is always a day of mixed feelings when I reflect on things that I had or hadn't accomplished in 365 days. I try not to have any regrets but sometimes I just can't beat the human nature in me to think that "Maybe,just maybe, if I had done it differently I would be where I want to be right now." 

A lecturer in college once told us:

"There is only so much that you can plan in life, but things won't always go the way you plan. That doesn't mean that you should stop having goals and ambitions and be completely reckless. Sometimes all you need is a stroke of luck or good timing.

So have your fun, loosen up and enjoy spontaneity. But make sure to keep your goals in sight.You control your life, don't let life control you."

Today while having a passing thought about the last 6.5 years of my life in the UK I realised the truth in his words. 

I graduated from my Part 1 degree in 2012 during the worst period of the financial crisis. Naturally, finding work experience in an architecture practice was top of my priority for that year. Did I get into a firm? Absolutely not. I stood no chance, despite harrowingly sending 300 CVs out. The handful of practices that replied to me could only offer me six months of unpaid work in London. Unpaid work?! How am I supposed to pay for my train tickets, rent, food, and bills? As badly as I wanted the experience, the basic necessity for survival came first. So I did the most practical thing I could do: I turned down their offers and ended up waitressing in a diner for a year. 

I went back to university that September to continue my Masters, and saw myself spiralling downhill thanks to the domino effect of not having any experience in my field. I struggled. Terribly. I laugh about it now that I have stumbled so many times to the point where I am desensitised to failure. During my two years back in university though, my self esteem plummeted into a black hole and I was convinced that I had made terrible life choices. And yet having come so far I knew that quitting was no longer an option and I just had to stay afloat and hope for the best. 31st December came and went and of course I was terribly disappointed that my main goal had crumbled. Luckily I still had an ounce of optimism left in me to believe that I had done all I could and that perhaps luck was just not on my side at the time. 

Fast forward to June 2014, whilst waiting for my Part 2 results. There was talk that the construction industry was once again booming in the UK and the batch of students before me were all employed. I never stopped thinking about this botched resolution so I sent out 10 CVs out of curiosity. I landed a 2 week placement in a firm in Brighton! And then also discovered that I failed my final year and had to return to university to complete one module. Through some twist of fate while picking myself up in university I landed a freelance job through a friend and ended up designing for a joinery for six months. Last week I got my results, and passed with a Merit-- I am officially a Part 2 architect with experience! Two years of highs and lows later, I finally accomplished my resolution!

So what is my winding story supposed to tell you? 
That my lecturer was right all along. Life didn't go the smooth sailing way that I had hoped for, but it gave me the long winded alternative to my goals. Not exactly the ideal version that I was hoping for, but I am grateful nevertheless: the harder your struggles, the sweeter the success. Most important of all, never lose sight of your goals. Don't beat yourself up over things that you didn't accomplish today. You never know, it could manifest itself in tomorrow. Sometimes, all it takes is a stroke of luck and good timing ;). 

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A Walk is Always a Good Idea

6.5 years has passed and yet still this street never fails to smell of freshly made fudge 

 So despite only having one side that I can enter and exit my bed (it's pushed against the wall), I somehow managed to wake up on the wrong side this morning.

 I had dozed off with all my lights on and waking up to glaring artificial light in natural daylight made me feel confused and suffocated. It didn't help that my dreams were exhaustingly vivid all night long and the way in which I slept last night had also given me a very stiff neck. Even coffee failed to work its magic on me.

 The morning was not going very well.

 After much contemplation I decided that I needed to leave my flat to get some fresh air. Hey, I may be an introvert but I am no hermit- I still needed to assume some form of contact with the world right? I just had to do it from my protective bubble of course! So off I went, trekking 40 minutes by foot to the centre... and it was the best decision ever. You can say that I left the house as Jekyll and came back as Hyde... or well, whichever was the happier among the two.

 After today's enlightenment I have decided that a walk is always a good idea to make a rubbish day right again and here are my reasons:

 1. Spontaneity makes life all the more exciting 
As much as I appreciate quiet days at home, sometimes being confined within the four walls of my flat can feel a little suffocating. In solitude I become more aware of time passing and as a result tend to go overboard with attempts to be productive in order to make the most of it. This means an overload of articles, blogs, books, movies, and list of chores to do. After all the effort to occupy my free time my day feels forcefully planned, and I end up even more tired.

 When I am walking my perception of time diminishes and I am completely consumed by my surroundings: The sun in my face. The passing traffic. The people I pass. The shops I enter and exit. Everything is happening effortlessly around me without me having to plan these events. All I have to do is tune in or tune out, and soak in the moments. The moments are always random and spontaneous, and the surprise catches me off guard and this excites my brain waves.

 2.Life is an [unstaged] spectacle. No TV program can beat that.
Most of the time while walking I tend to be lost deep in my own world but no matter what something always grabs my attention and rearranges my train of thoughts and perspective altogether. Today I tried to be more mindful of my surroundings and realised that public spaces and streets are truly stages for life's theatrical events. Musicians bring so much life to the streets with their performances, and shop windows not only display an assortment of products for sale-- they also frame the antics of shoppers inside. In Waterstones I overheard a conversation between two students in the play section chatting about Meryl Streep's phenomenal performance. In a comic book store I catch the salesgirl talking about uncovering something disgusting in the stockroom. I wonder what it was.

 3.Your surroundings can stimulate your senses
After having just recovered from a cold I suddenly grew very aware of the smells around me, thanks to the countless food premises that line up the streets. After much mental mapping I concluded that my journey consisted of these predominant smells: sea breeze, coffee, toasted something (pizza presumably), books, more coffee, smoke from exhaust pipes, and the occasional whiff of marijuana... These are the scents that constitute Brighton in my memory.

 4.Your surroundings can also inspire and give you great ideas
On the 40 minute trek back to the flat reason number 3 expanded and grew uncontrollably into a full blown thesis proposition. It was as though all the fresh air and oxygen travelling into my brain had woken up a very rusty part of me and lit up a fused light bulb. Why did I not think of this idea a year ago when I so desperately needed an idea for my thesis? I am excited by this idea and will reveal it to you once I get my mind around it. This walk has given me the basis of a personal architectural project, and I am ecstatic.

 Now I am convinced I need to go for a walk more often.

 5.You are leisurely working out
So I calculated that I have stretched my legs for more than 5 kilometres today without feeling like death like I usually do when I am trying to run the same distance. I feel the same feel good effect-- I know this walk has released some happy hormones because I come back feeling like my mood has been tilted 180 degrees and I don't feel so crap anymore.

 If you're having a terrible day I urge you to just step outside and take a walk around the block. It doesn't make your problems disappear but it changes how you perceive it. Sometimes all you need is fresh air to get some clarity in your life and to put things into perspective.

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Me Time

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 Life can be incredibly chaotic at times to the point where we sometimes start to justify neglecting our physical and mental wellbeing in pursuit of getting more 'important' things out of the way.

 I mean, let's not even get to the topic of stress and its long term effects... just think about the subtle warning signs:
Turning a deaf ear on the bass resonance of your empty stomach and pretending it's your colleague's.

Crossing and uncrossing your legs in attempts to will your bladder to hold it while you finish something off. 

Waking up burnt out in the morning, like you've just been run over by a truck. Then drugging yourself up with caffeine and sugar to make yourself believe that whatever you felt before was just an illusion. Sometimes you alternate this with lies to yourself that it will all be better eventually.

 Sound familiar?

 Five years of self neglect while studying architecture has taught me the hard way that if you're not careful to set aside time to nurture yourself with things that make you happy, it's almost too easy to lose your soul to the whirlwind that transforms you into a bitter and empty shell.

 Today with a relatively more structured life I thank the existence of weekends and days off for enabling me to human-ify myself through my Me Time rituals. Me Time for me varies from preening my gorilla hands and nails to look more human, to the one hit wonder decision to go for a run. One weekly Me Time ritual that I have established since uni, though, is the cleaning ritual, and it looks like this:

 Pre-Clean
I start my day with a no alarm clock morning. Pure bliss.
Once my gears kick start I ninja roll myself out of bed to breakfast. Coffee is mandatory.
I read random articles on my Buzzfeed app. Baby animal posts are a must.
My energy level kicks off and I start cleaning my flat.

Clean
Sometimes this ritual takes 2 hours and sometimes it takes 8.
It all depends on whether I decide to deep clean every single crevice or just the usual weekly clean.I usually have the radio on, and I am lost in my own world and my train of thoughts.
I find cleaning extremely therapeutic: There's just something about uncovering a shiny and clean layer. It feels liberating when my pile of rubbish is discarded out of sight. My eye stops twitching at the sight of things lying out of place. At some point the smell of bleach makes me a little giddy, so windows are opened and the flat welcomes the breeze of fresh air. At the same time I feel like the mental mess from the week is also being put away to welcome a fresh new start.

Post Clean
Once I'm satisfied with my effort I proceed to drown myself in the shower until I prune and I step out feeling fresh, recharged and brand new. I make a trip to the supermarket. Sometimes I treat myself to flowers because they enhance my 'happy space' and beam at me from the window when I wake up. 

OK, so I have no idea what happened to these guys but I promise you they looked happy before! Oh well. I cook a nice dinner. Today it's stuffed portobello mushrooms. Bloated and happy, I either indulge in my pile of books to read, or just watch a movie until I feel tired enough to sleep.

 This day is reserved purely for Me.
It's simple, but it has the power to make me content, recharged, and happy.

 Do you have a Me Time ritual? How do you spend yours?
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Hello world, thanks for stopping by!



For as long as I can remember, I have always identified myself as an introvert and a keen observer-- a wallflower.
The idea for this blog came up when my virtual housemate (I will save this for another post) Didi and I were reminiscing about our high school days from a decade ago. I kept pulling out little snippets of memories which kept getting met with “Oh my God, how did you remember that! No way, did that really happen?” Now, Didi does have a notorious reputation for having the memory of a goldfish... but this time she gets to be off the hook. 
Over the years I've noticed my tendency to befuddle friends whenever I bring up nitty gritty memories from so very long ago:How A’s dad drove over her toes by accident in first grade, or how one of B’s dates ate a meal that gave him fish breath for the rest of the night. I don't know why these random snippets stay vivid in my mind for so long, but I know for sure that I do not have a photographic memory, as I sadly cannot remember important information or numbers to save my life.
I have to admit,in the beginning I wasn’t entirely sure about the purpose of this blog, or to whom it would reach out to. I can’t really connect myself to a specific niche the way some bloggers dedicate themselves to their passion for all things beauty, fashion, crafts, travel or food. All I had in mind was a safe haven that I could therapeutically capture and record my jumble of brain farts and moments through the medium that I found most comfortable and most liberating, which is through writing.
I guess you can say that this blog is an autoethnography of my life as a wallflower, an unspoken insight into the things that inspire, amuse or just seem to attach itself to my memory for no apparent reason. I hope that you will enjoy the read as much as I will enjoy this personal journey!
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