Writing Therapy

So more than a month ago, I received a call telling me that I failed to pass the assessment centre for a job application that I really hoped would turn out well. I knew that I probably failed it but that call really made it a reality and that was when everything sort of came crashing down around me.

Close friends and those of you that actually follow this blog (meaning no one) would know that for the entirety of my final year at university, I was working towards two things: getting a job in the UK and scoring a first for my degree. I didn't get a first for my degree which I was sort of okay with if I got a job in the UK. In the end, both didn't work out the way I wanted them to. That call basically marked the beginning of the end of my time in the UK. I didn't have any other viable options and the only choice left was to book my flight back home to Malaysia.

It was a reality that I had a very hard time trying to come to terms with and till today, I still haven't gotten over it. I really don't think any other single event in my life has affected so strongly in an emotional sense. I think it was because it meant that a lot of the blood, sweat and tears that I've shed in the past year have basically come to naught. I haven't felt so much like a failure in my life.

And it wasn't just trying to live up to my own expectations of myself but also other people's expectations. I know that I really shouldn't be so affected by what other people think of me but when someone innocently asks me where I'll be staying in the UK and I have to explain to them that I did not get a job, I can't help but feel like I've failed on a bigger scale than I actually have.

The thing is that getting a job in the UK meant a lot more than the 'status and money' that quite a few people in my life assumed it was. I wanted to give myself a better life. I wanted to live in a place where I didn't have to hide so much of what I love to do. Having to come home meant that I had to put on a show everyday just so that people I love don't worry unnecessarily about me. It meant that I had to act like someone I wasn't.

Having to come home also meant that my relationship with many close friends would be coming to a physical end, it also meant ending a relationship with a person who meant a lot to me. The aftermath of that call was devastating in many ways and I genuinely wasn't emotionally prepared to handle all of that. It was a very hard time in my life and in many ways, it still is.

The idea that I'm a failure still haunts me very much to this very moment. In the one month that I've been home, I've experienced moments where everything just hits me and I just withdraw into this zombified version of me even when I'm with people. Dealing with the loss of a dream, of the ideal me, was, and still is, a very trying time. 

But I really just want people to know (if anyone happens to read this), that I'm trying my best to get over this. I am doing my best to move on. My time in that beautiful mess of a country is past and I know that. Maybe I will go back. I certainly hope so. But I need to focus on the immediate future and what I'm going to do to achieve my long term goals in life. So, here I am, finally with a job. I still cry, I still hate myself but I'm getting better. I think I'm stronger than I was when I cried on the 13-hour flight back home and I think I'm learning to love myself again.

Life is hard but I'm not done with it yet. I still have places to go, people to meet and dreams to achieve. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't meant to be just yet.

Love,

Jiun

Weeks 37 to 43: The Bittersweet End

It has taken quite a while to finally writing this post. Partly because of procrastination and laziness (let's be honest, mostly because of procrastination) and also because this will be the final entry in which I'm still sort of a student. It's been a crazy few weeks. I flew off to Naples, Italy for a week and really enjoyed the sun. I even spent my first birthday on a boat (which broke down). Then, I spent time with my family who came over to attend my graduation and finally, I graduated.

I officially hold a Bachelor's degree in Accounting and Finance. 5 years ago, I wasn't even sure which course to study. Now, I'm still not sure whether it was the right choice but the memories I have made while in university are ones that I cherish. University has been an interesting sweet spot in my life where I'm sort of an adult but not really. It's no wonder that many people call university the best years of their life.

However, I am determined not to let university be the best years of my life. Don't get me wrong, I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. I've made amazing friends, met brilliant lecturers, studied interesting things, fell in love, fell out of love, cried and laughed. These three years have helped me open up and really understand who I am as a person. I have no doubt that I will change and evolve over the next few years but my university years have given me an understanding of my own self that I've never had before. That in itself is probably the most valuable lesson that I will be taking away from studying in this crazy mess of a university. 

The next chapter of my life still remains unclear. I still have no idea where I will end up nor do I have any idea what I will be working as. Fingers crossed that I will know within the next few weeks. This is probably the biggest thing that I have been struggling with in the weeks after I finished my exams. It's scary not knowing where I will end up in a month. The uncertainty is killing me but I just need to soldier on. It's time that I took control of my own life. For the longest time, I have played by the rules and ended up in places where I was expected to end up. For the first time, I'm deciding where I want to end up even if the choice is ultimately in the hands of who wants to employ me. It's hard but I've put in too much to give up now.

This past year hasn't been the easiest. In fact, of the 3 years I've spent in university, it's been the most difficult. Time and time again, I've been told that I wasn't good enough. But I still pick myself up and move on. And that's just life isn't it? Effort doesn't always pay off but it's the only thing you can put in. Keep moving on and one day, hopefully, it will pay off.

Goodbyes are hard. But moving on is even harder. It's been an amazing 3 years but it's time to move on. It's time to grow up. It's time to be my own person. Goodbye.

Love,

Jiun

Weeks 31 to 36: All Done

So exams are over and I am officially done with my degree. It's been a stressful few weeks preparing and sitting for exams. A few ups and downs but I've pulled through and now I am just waiting for my results to be released.

Just came back from Glasgow where I visited a high school friend. It was nice to catch up and just chill around. The trip was basically me rediscovering my love for museums. I always forget how much I like just hanging around in museums looking at interesting stuff. Also, loads of fossils. I used to love reading about dinosaurs and fossils and stuff and I still love to. So, that was a treat. Tried black pudding and actually quite liked it. Haggis, not so much. Tasted like an unwrapped sausage if I'm being honest.

There are still busy days ahead of me. I'll be performing one last time with Glee which is really sad but I'm also looking forward to it. Can't believe that I've been part of this big family for 3 years and now I'm leaving them behind. Sad times.

Will be jetting off to Italy in a couple of weeks to celebrate with my coursemates, so that should be fun. What else? Right, my YouTube channel is now up and running. I'll post a video down below.

This is just a quick update on my life so far. Fingers crossed, I'll land a job in the near future but besides that, I'm just going to enjoy my freedom for now.

Love,
Jiun xx

Weeks 25 to 30: When Bad News Hits

So basically this year's series of blogs consist of me constantly complaining about my life. Let's be honest though, getting a job isn't easy. It doesn't help when everyone around me is moving forward in their lives. Quite a few of my friends already have job offers and just need to focus on their exams now. Me, on the other hand, have spent the past five weeks writing four essays and going for various job interviews. I've only just started revising for my exams in a few weeks and I still have job applications to worry about.

I just failed another interview recently. You would think that having been rejected by employers so many times, I would be used to it by now. But, truth be told, it doesn't get any easier handling rejection. In fact,the early rejections didn't hit as hard as the more recent ones. I think it was because I knew that I had time then and still had options. Now, I'm running out of both time and options. It doesn't help that even when I learn from my previous failures, I am still not good enough for people to offer me a job.

I genuinely feel that I haven't achieved anything in my entire final year at university. Last year, I was in a band, running a society and even managed to pull up my average. This year, I've stepped down from all positions of responsibilities, have unsatisfactory results and no job secured for after graduation. Time and time again, I am reminded that effort does not equal to results and it's getting harder and harder to see the point of putting myself through all of this. I could take the easy way out but I know that 

For my whole life, I've been doing things that are expected of me. My SPM subjects, my A Level subjects, my degree and now my future career. Much of my life has been tied to my parents' expectations of me and I don't know why I'm finding it so hard to distance myself from their ambitions and work towards my own. Doing what I love to do shouldn't need to be a secret from them but it is and that's not the way it should be. But then, what I think should be, never really become reality.

I guess a positive thing out of all the negativity is my own monthofjiun project which I've recently moved from Soundcloud to Youtube (check it out here). As much as I wish it is more popular than it currently is, I still proud that I've managed to keep it going as long as I have. At least making music makes me happy. At least when I'm doing that, I don't need to think about everything that's going wrong even if just for a moment.

Till next time.

Weeks 18 to 24: End of Term 2

Sorry for the late update. This post is only the latest on this stressful period that I'm going through at the moment in my life.

As you have probably surmised, term has ended and I officially will not have anymore teaching lectures. Parts of my university are slowly ending as time goes on. No more teaching left, just assessments. Any Glee stuff will be winding down now in Term 3 with exams. I didn't think that I would be so affected by my time in university but it has honestly been a pretty transformational experience. Probably even more so than high school. I've been through stuff that really helped me understand myself so much more than before and that's, in no small way, because of the people that I have met in university. It will be sad when I finally have to leave.

The past 7 weeks or so has been an emotional rollercoaster. My job search has not been going well. There were times when I thought that it was completely hopeless but I just kept suppressing my emotions. I kept moving on because I knew that I still had outstanding applications and there was still a faint possibility of me actually getting a job here in the UK. Then, one day, I got rejected from both my outstanding applications. In that moment, I genuinely felt like my world ended. For one of the applications in particular, it wasn't even because I did anything wrong but the company just ran out of spaces. I felt cheated and really demotivated. It didn't help that I was also burdened with a lot of work I had to do for uni. But thanks to kind words from close friends, I managed to pick myself up and continue with my quest for a job.

That weekend after I got the bad news, I followed the Glee Masters team down to London for the annual show choir competition. I was a bit sad that I couldn't join the team this year because of my work load but I decided to support them in any way I could. Spent a great day in London hanging out with the team and also got to meet up with alumni who came down to watch the competition as well. That was a good day.

The week after that was a bit of a nightmare trying to get two group projects finalised for the following week. For one of them, we had to do an analysis with Excel but my group mates were really struggling to work out how exactly to use Excel, so I ended up doing most of the work which really annoyed quite a bit. I know that it really isn't their fault to some extent but still...sigh. Anyway, those were done in good time and everything is fine now.

I will finally be going out tonight. Can't wait to have a good time tonight. A brief respite from all the work that I have to do. In the following weeks, I have 4 essays to write and a couple of interviews to attend.

I actually feel sad that I increasingly feel disenchanted with home now. Malaysia's a nice place and all but I cannot see myself staying there for the rest of my life. It is honestly depressing to say that because it's a place that I still call home. There are just so many issues with the political scene, human rights and the direction the country is heading in general. I actually don't see it getting any better in my lifetime and if I have a chance to lead a less repressed life here, why not?

Signing off.
YiJiun

P.S. Check out the last two covers I posted up! Both are pretty upbeat.

Week 14 to 17: Stressed Out

I did not intend to reference the Twenty One Pilots song in the title (it's really good though, go listen to it) but I guess it is sort of fitting. The past month has been a ridiculous string of events that have left me stressed out for prolonged periods of time. There has been moments when I have managed to escape it for a bit but that only lasted a few days.

First bout of stress came in the form of the two assignments that I had to submit at the start of the new term. I worked my butt off for both but I know for a fact that one of them is just a bit shit. Arguments were not coherent not consistent. If I get a good mark, I would be genuinely surprised and treat myself to a ridiculously meal. The other one was received a lot better than I thought it would be. Just before the deadline, I completely lost faith in what I thought was a good idea at first. I didn't have time to make up a new creative project, so I just went with it. Before the panel discussion for the piece, I showed the piece to a few of my friends and got some good feedback. That was the same for during the panel discussion which really surprised. Someone even suggested that I should get it published although I'm sure she was just being nice. Maybe I'll publish it on here once I get the marks back. (Sometime while I was working on my assignments, I got the marks back for another assignment and it was terrible by my standards, so that certainly didn't help with the stress.)

I got a few days of rest from the previous two weeks of stress after the panel discussion. I somehow managed to get a free ticket to go see The Shires and The Corrs to review the show. I don't I have mentioned here before, which is super weird since I've been really excited about it - I am actually writing for the music section of an entertainment website called Outloud!Culture. You can read my review of the show on there. I'll just drop the link here. It's actually my most popular article so far on the site and I''m super happy about it.

After a few days of trying not to stress out over anything (I even went on a night out for once!), I went back to getting work done. I didn't realise at first but I managed to give myself four group assignments this term. Not ideal. It's really worrying me but hopefully I'll manage without breaking down. It's not just doing uni work that is stressing me out though. I still do not have a job at the moment and I haven't been getting any news from the companies which have yet to reject my application. That really isn't helping. I just put in a couple more applications today but honestly bad news is better than radio silence because I'd be able to plan my days better.

Today hasn't been a terribly good day. Not much reason other than I woke up on the wrong side of bed probably. I have been really critical and sensitive today partly because I was waiting for news that never came. One thing in particular really annoyed me today. Normally, I would just dismiss it as trivial but today was the wrong day for this to come up really. What happened? Someone asked for my full name and email address without providing a reason. That was actually a few days ago but I didn't bother because no one gave a reason for me to. Then, there was a reminder today. So I asked what it was for. Guess what the answer was? "Just for admin purposes." Literally not an answer in my books. So I asked for what admin purposes and haven't gotten a response since.

I don't understand how "admin purposes" can be considered a legit reason to request my personal information. Granted, it is just my full name and email address which I do give out to websites on a regular basis but at least those website have dodgy privacy policies which I never read. I was quite pissed that the person thought that "admin purposes" was a reasonable response. I could have just replied with whatever was on my mind at that moment and it would be terribly unpleasant but I restrained myself and gave a less unpleasant response but I think it was still quite obvious I was annoyed.

Sorry for going off on a weird rant there. Probably doesn't even make sense. Honestly though, I attribute my general unpleasantness these few days to stress. I am not in the place that I imagined I would be currently. If everything went to plan, I would have a job right now and all I have to do is focus on uni work. I am still trying my best and aiming to graduate with a first although that seems quite distant considering my less than satisfactory marks so far in the year. I doubt that I will achieve a first but one can dream. Still getting a graduate job and being able to stay in the UK is the priority for now.

For all it's worth, my Soundcloud project is going decently. It's not amazing. I'm not pulling hundreds of plays everyday but I like what I'm doing and maybe other people will like it too. I posted the January cover about two weeks ago and it has pulled in more plays in that period than my other covers have in the same which is encouraging. Is this a sign of growth? I don't know. I won't put my bets on it surely. I just hope that one day my music will take off in some way. I'll leave the cover below for you to listen and judge.


Hopefully I'll be in a better place the next time I update this blog.

Signing off,
Jiun

Weeks 6 to 13: Busy Life and A BRAND NEW YEAR

Hello readers! (If I actually have any)

I know that it's been quite a while since I last posted and that's because of my ridiculously packed life in the past couple of months.

Term 1 of my final year at university is now done after a lot of stress. I won't bore you with the details but let's just say that it's been a rather potent cocktail of job applications and essays. But that was nearly a month ago now.

So between, the end of term and now, I've been enjoying myself quite a bit. Flew off to join my family on a tour of Portugal and Spain. It was certainly great to go on a holiday with family and certainly less stressful as I did not have to plan anything besides the flights. I really loved learning about the history of the two countries. My short-lived stay in Lisbon was particularly interesting in this aspect because of the historical relations Malaysia had with Portugal. It was interesting to notice certain Portuguese words were adapted into the Malay language (e.g. 'keju' is the word for cheese in both Malay and Portuguese).

Before term ended, I reconnected with Laura (my neighbour in first year) and she invited me over for a game night which resulted in me getting invited for New Year's Eve celebrations. So I spent New Year's Eve in Leamington Spa again this year. It was really fun just sitting around eating, drinking and playing games. Since I don't really practice any traditions for New Year's Eve (NYE with my family is quite a boring affair), I found it quite fun to join in with singing Auld Lang Syne and watching the fireworks on TV.

So, new year, new me? Not really. I stopped making New Year's resolutions a while back but I'm starting again this year mainly because I work better with clear goals in mind. In terms of job prospects, I'm definitely closer to getting a job than I was a year ago but I didn't manage to achieve my goal of actually having a job by now. I am also down to one final job application (I've been rejected or just haven't heard back from all the others). I'm left with the final stage for that, so *fingers crossed* I'll actually get the job. In the event that doesn't happen, the job hunt will just have to continue.

As for my music, I am no longer playing in a band and have been focusing a lot on making my own music. Reviving my Soundcloud page has been a wonder in helping me slowly develop the editing skills needed to make my covers sound better. I am aiming to record a proper collection of demos by this year, hopefully before I graduate university. I also want to play more solo gigs which I will hopefully find the time to do.

On the academic side, I don't think that I'm doing as well I was aiming to before. Not going to lie, I have lowered my expectations and I will honestly be happy with a 2:1 provided that I am moving along reasonably well with my other life goals.

Honestly, I still can't believe that it is 2016 already. This year is going to be a year of change for me. University life is ending and I will be stepping into the working world (Where? I still do not know.). Is this the year I become a fully-fledged adult? The prospect of that is definitely intimidating.

Going with the flow,
Jiun