5 days to 2014..

we all seem to say "time flies" a lot nowadays..
coz it's true.. time really does fly.. i can't remember when was the last time i wished that time would go faster.. maybe during the holidays when i was in school, so desperately wishing to grow up..

at the start of the academic year i reminded myself that this could be my final year in academics, in uni.. but as usual i tend to be hangat-hangat tahi ayam...forgetting all too soon how life as an undergraduate student is quickly drawing to an end..  but now that i have one semester left, i'm reminded of that fact again..

but academia aside! this is the typical end of year post.. reminiscing 2013....

this year being very possibly my final year living abroad, i couldn't stop myself from thinking about when i first came here to study.. the feelings i had at the time, the thoughts i had, the sights i saw, the people i've met. contrast those with how i feel today, how the sights have changed, how the people around me have changed.. how i have changed.
as of today, all these seem like a big milestone in my life.. but i'm sure as time goes on it'll seem less important and there will be other things to occupy my memory space..

i guess it's another reminder to myself to live in the present.. coz i do have the tendency to forget things i tell myself to do..
i used to feel like before the end of a year i had to do something.. but this year i feel like, it's going to be just like any other day when the new year comes. i don't feel the urgency to do anything by 2013..or maybe i can't think of anything to do....? maybe writing this blog post is that something..? hmm..

-llen-

blogging..

the best way to procrastinate!

it's that time of year again.. 12 days to Christmas EVE.. *chuckles* yes, Christmas eve to me is important too.. wouldn't say it's AS important as Christmas but i reckon it's a pretty important day of the year too..
went carolling for the first time today and it was pretty fun :3 even though i might not have really contributed much..

i think there are things about me that i've never been able to change... how i always tell myself there's still time to experience this or that but leave everything until the final days to say to myself it's time to actually experience this and that..

without the thought of graduation looming around the corner i wouldn't have started a "club" (it's an informal group at the moment..hopefully my successors will bring it to official society status..).. i probably wouldn't have gone carolling.. and some other stuff that when i decided to do, i had the thought that i was gonna leave soon and such an opportunity might not come along again..

i wish i could say i'm a live in the moment kinda gal, which i truly wish i was.. i did embrace that for a while.. but i tend to forget that motto and start thinking about the future, the past.. i guess this post just kinda reminded me once again that the present is more important.. that living in the moment is all you can do for the moment..

-llen-

self-marketing....

applying for jobs and going for interviews has its own learning curve.. at least for someone like me it does..

i think part of the problem lies with me not really liking the process of selling myself (which is what a CV and interview is ALL about...) because i always feel like the proof is in the pudding! don't you hate it when you get fooled by advertisements?!?! i don't wanna be a disappointing product that was marketed well.. but i know, if i want to GET the job i'll have to be that ad campaign that leaves lasting impressions..and if i wanna KEEP the job i'll have to be a product that people will be proud to use and rave about to their friends...

I guess in a CV because you get time to sit and think about what you wanna say and only cringe to yourself when you sell yourself, it's something that I don't really mind too much about...or maybe I just enjoy presenting my ideas in the written word.. (come to think of it, there haven't been many opportunities for presentations at uni....)

But in an interview... I think the question that I dislike the most would be "tell me about yourself" .. Coz when I get asked that question I always feel like my education is on a CV right under their noses and they have perused it before, why do I need to tell them about that again?!?! but the fact is, they DO want to hear about it... :/ when they ask me such questions my mind sometimes just goes into a blank and overthinks what I should or should not say and the end result is I say too little.... so little that they don't feel I elaborate well enough.. *sigh*

I guess all I hope for is that when the right job comes along I'll be able to give the interviewer a deal that they can't refuse.. 

-llen-

learning to have thicker skin...

i don't know if this characteristic of mine came by nature or nurture but i always seem to have this idea that picking the hardest subject or continuing with a difficult subject and eventually doing well in it will give me a sense of pride.. in a way it's also me trying to prove that i can do anything i set my mind to which from my A levels experience doesn't quite reflect this thought process.. at the end of it all i still question if it was my lack of effort or if i truly am limited in certain ways..

so when i picked my course options this year i wanted to have one less easy subject in my list of courses.. i remembered the lecturer mentioning it would be looked upon favourably by universities should students decide to do a masters.. and i chose it also partly because i felt the course was interesting AND it was one of the few courses that they indicate year 4 undergraduate (which i'm not sure if it really means something at the end of the day coz majority of the courses are year 3 undergraduate courses but they are offered to year 4 students.. and there probably aren't enough year 4 courses for all year 4 students to choose ONLY those courses.. )

ANYWAY... despite finding the lectures interesting i found myself struggling to understand the notes, partly due to a lot of typos and a lot of equations involved in the notes.. perhaps if i worked at it enough like i did last year for my econometrics i might've done a lot better but my coursework marks were just awful... and if according to the lecturer, the notes are supposed to be the material that i work with first before consulting journal articles...i'm probably doomed since i don't get the notes to begin with!!

so...an idea came to my mind... perhaps i can still find a different course in semester 2 that i'm interested in and have the potential to do better in (because at this stage i really need to get good grades if i want to pull up my average..).. and sure enough as i browsed the course catalog again i'm reminded about my interest in behavioural economics.. and spotted another interesting course (development economics) .. 

memories of A levels time really just came flooding back... the moment i was deciding if i should retake Chemistry or drop it.. i chose to retake it based on my teacher's advice and also because at the time i felt like dropping would mean i gave up.. but at the end of the day i felt that retaking it was the worst decision i made (though overall i'm happy with where i am today partly as a result of that decision but..i think it just taught me a lesson which now makes me think about what my best course of action is...)

so .... in the end, to relate to the title in case it's not quite apparent, i think these problems pretty much just stem from the thin skin i have... thinking too much of what others might think of me and thinking that it would be humiliating to make certain choices that would make life slightly easier (it's not that the alternative courses aren't challenging at all anyway) .. if my past experience has taught me anything it's knowing when to admit defeat..

for now, i don't know if i'll be allowed to change my course (i really really hope those courses aren't fully subscribed yet ><) but i think the overall experience has just taught me to care less about the prestige and focus more on my interests..

-llen-