Partly out of procrastination..

After giving it quite a bit of thought.. I've decided to create a new blog..

I don't think I'm ready to give up blogging entirely yet but at the same time I think it's time to shut this blog down..

So if you're still reading this blog (though I doubt anyone is :p) and would like to continue reading my random thoughts head over to http://ellenczy.wordpress.com :)

I thought I'd give wordpress a try but after posting my first post there I realise I don't really like their emoticons ..and it isn't as customisable as I thought it'd be but maybe I haven't explored all the functions yet so perhaps when I have more time I'll tweak it a bit more to suit my taste..

But yea.. 6 years is quite a long time, maintaining a blog (though I haven't been actually maintaining it properly.....)
This blog is filled with so many memories..the pain, the joy..
But I think it's time to move on..

I won't be deleting this blog but this shall be my last post here..

A new beginning..

-llen- 

joys of being sentimental..

I usually think of being sentimental as a form of..weakness? It doesn't really come with a neutral feeling but somehow it feels kinda mushy and gives off the vibe of being unable to move forward and get on with life..

I admit to being quite sentimental. I think about the past a lot but even then I still find myself forgetting so much stuff..

I was going through some folders on my desktop and I found the personal statement I wrote when I applied to transfer to UoE .. I guess it reminded me of why I chose to pursue this subject and it's such a shame that I forgot all about it along the way coz I think it's the biggest reason why I didn't do so well in the past two years.. I lost my motivation, my focus, my drive. Studying Economics felt kind of meaningless for a while because it didn't really seem applicable..

This year I "realised" that I was drawn to the policy side of Economics..but looking at my personal statement, I seem to have been that way all along! (I actually wrote that I was interested in learning about the policies that different countries adopt to tackle the financial crisis).. so I didn't really realise it but I was just reminded of it... (I don't think words can convey the amazement I felt when I read that part, that the 19 year old already felt that way..)

It's all coming to an end soon, just when I was starting to enjoy it..Now I wish I'd read that personal statement everytime I felt demotivated.. but it's time to move on..

But going back to being sentimental... I guess it doesn't have to be a bad thing, it might give you a pleasant surprise :) 

-llen-  

inspired..

Exams in less than a month but.. I still watch videos now and again :p

BUT! the video that I watched might be somewhat related to my course so it's not a total waste of time I suppose..
Anyways, the point of this post is not about my procrastination but it's about the video itself..
This semester I took Development Economics and just fell in love with Economics all over again.. there was a point in my education where I just felt like I was studying something quite pointless because theory and reality seldom match up.. while it's not that different in Development Econ but it felt more meaningful, trying to understand the behaviours of the poor and trying to understand what could help to eradicate poverty..

So the lecturer mentioned a particular video from the Why Poverty series on Africa but I thought all the videos in the series were pretty interesting.. but the one I just watched was the Solar Mamas video

It's about giving a few women from rural areas around the world (for example Jordan, Colombia, Burkina Faso) education so that they can bring solar technology to their villages.. with their education they can then teach the other women in their villages and that will give them a way to get a source of income and perhaps a way out of poverty..
I guess what I felt from watching the video was that, we take so many things for granted.. In many places around the world today men are still the dominant one in the household even if they may not make the best decisions... We're given so many opportunities and so much comfort in life and yet we complain it isn't enough..
I'm grateful for everything I have but I also wish that someday, I'll be able to do something that can contribute to poverty eradication in some way...

someday..

-llen- 

musings on the magic of maroon 5..

when maroon 5 started becoming popular (which felt like such a long time ago!! probably sometime in primary school..) i was one of their fans.. i still am a fan but i don't listen to all of their songs...

so as i was learning the uke i was interested in learning their songs..and i noticed that most of their songs only have 3-4 chords, following the same progression over and over again.. and yet they're really catchy and fun to play, fun to sing..

i guess this is just me being amazed, maybe coz i don't do much research into music composition and all..but i just found it amazing that 3-chord songs can sound so nice and catchy :3


-llen-

first and last..

Well..maybe not exactly the first througout undergrad but it was certainly the first group presentation I had to do at UoE and also the first presentation in a long long time.. and it was the last as well..

I remember how nervous I would get at these sorts of things.. Surprisingly today it went pretty well :)
Wouldn't say I didn't feel nervous at all but the experience was much better than I expected.. Growing up does change certain things after all..

-llen-

sometimes we just need to be reminded..

i was gonna blog about something different but i got kinda sidetracked..heh..

i started clicking on a few of my old posts and i found the one about how i celebrated my birthday in Edinburgh for the first time...and i was smiling like an idiot the whole time...
a few of the posts i clicked on were just rantings... and it took a bit of time to think about what happened and why i was so upset..

how quickly we forget the good and the bad.. i wouldn't call time a healer but time certainly can make us forget many things.. 

being able to click through the old stuff and see who i was and compare it to who i am now.. i find that pretty cool in a weird way.. sure, it'll probably be the same as flipping through a diary but it's faster on a blog :p

i guess i'm just really glad to have typed out so much stuff that i can look back on and either smile at or tell myself to never be that way ever again.. 

-llen-

Admiration..

For a long time now I've always had the tendency to admire people quite easily...

When I was younger I would be inspired by Helen Keller's story, Mozart, Beethoven..
Then there was the typical fangirl stage of admiring actors, actresses, singers..
Not to forget the various chefs and hosts of food channel programmes..
Writers, speakers, teachers, people who were bold enough to put a piece of their work out there to be talked about whether positively or negatively.

Then there were people nearer to me.. 
Entering secondary school, college and uni I was swimming in the big sea.. primary school felt like a pond because the school was just so small.. but the amount of talent that you swim around with in secondary school, it was pretty overwhelming at first. The brainy, the sporty, the speech-givers, the leaders..it's silly but it sort of always made me feel like an ikan bilis swimming with the big fish. I could only dream about becoming one of them but I'd still always be that small insignificant little fishy.. 

I realised that the common thing that all these people I admired had was confidence. A lot of them were talented people but above all else, it was the confidence I saw that I felt drawn to. It was something that I lacked, something that I wished I had more of.

I'm glad to say that I THINK I have more confidence nowadays.. Your skin automatically grows thicker once you've tried and failed and stood up again numerous times. And even though I know I'm still a work in progress (and perhaps always will be? coz when are we ever perfect??), I know better than to let certain fears hold me back from saying or doing certain things.. 

-llen-